Xcode is the complete developer toolset used to create apps for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. The Xcode development environment bundles the Instruments analysis tool, iOS Simulator, and the OS frameworks in the form of iOS SDKs and OS X SDKs.
Highlights for Xcode 6 Beta
Xcode 6 Beta is the latest release of Apple’s integrated development environment. Xcode 6 Beta introduces new ways to design and build software, focusing on features and enhancements to improve your ability to adopt and expand upon core platform features, to design new interfaces, and to deliver high-quality applications.
Xcode 6 Beta includes Swift, an innovative new programming language, with a new interactive work area—a playground in which to experiment. Xcode 6 Beta also expands upon and extends its basic features with new live visualization capabilities.
Xcode 6 Beta includes the following highlighted features:
Swift Language
Advanced, innovative new object-oriented programming language for iOS and OS X development
Xcode 6 Features for Swift
Full support with playgrounds, a rich documentation experience, read-eval-print loop, and other advanced features
Xcode 6 Beta requires a Mac running OS X v10.9.3 (or later) or OS X v10.10. It includes SDKs for OS X v10.9, OS X v10.10, and iOS v8.0. To develop apps targeting prior versions of OS X or iOS, see About SDKs and the iOS Simulator.
Installation
Xcode 6 Beta can coexist on a Mac computer with previous versions of Xcode.
This prerelease version of Xcode is distributed as a single application bundle available from developer.apple.com to authorized seed developers in a disk image file (DMG). To install during the beta period, open the downloaded DMG file and drag the Xcode icon to your Applications folder. Upon final release, Xcode is installed through the Mac App Store.
Developer Resources
The iOS and Mac developer programs provide access to the App Store, additional support and documentation, and provisioning resources to enable testing and deployment on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch device. For more information visit:
For more detailed information on a release, see the complete Xcode release notes available from the Xcode Help menu.
About SDKs and iOS Simulator
A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of frameworks (libraries, headers, and resources) that represent the API for a specific iOS or OS X version. Most of the functionality your app gets from an SDK is actually provided by the host operating system, which makes the right Base SDK and OS Deployment Target settings critical for app compatibility. Xcode automatically builds with the latest SDK and targets the latest OS.
If your app doesn’t require the latest OS features, you can configure it to run on a previous version of iOS or OS X using the OS Deployment Target option in the Xcode Project settings. If your project was created in an older version of Xcode, you can let Xcode update your project. For details on this features, see Project Modernization.
For iOS, Xcode automatically switches between the iOS Simulator SDK and the device SDK, depending on where you intend to run your app. You don’t need to select these settings manually.
Project Modernization
When you open a project, Xcode evaluates it to see whether any settings should be updated. This feature provides an easy way to make sure your projects conform to the latest SDKs and best practices.
Open the issue navigator to see whether anything in your project needs to be updated. You can also select the project in the project navigator and choose Editor > Validate Settings.
If the issue navigator lists modernization issues, click the issue to see a dialog, which explains the updates that should be made and lets you perform any or all of them.
After you have clicked Perform Changes, regardless of whether you choose to make all the changes, Xcode does not show the warning again. To rerun the check, select your project in the project navigator and choose Editor > Validate Settings.
New Features in Xcode by Release
Chapter articles are listed by major revision. Minor update release information is appended in the chapter for the major revision.
Xcode 6 Beta adds support for development on OS X v10.10 and iOS 8.0.
Xcode 4.1 adds enhancements to the features and workflow of Xcode 4.0 and, when running on OS X v10.7, implements user interface features standard in OS X v10.7 such as full-screen windows.
xcode_6_beta_5_release_notes.pdf