As part of today’s Mountain Lion Preview roll out, Apple seeded its registered developers with new versions of the Xcode development environment and the Safari browser. Safari 5.2 for Lion, now available for download through the Dev Center, welcomes new features that cannot be found in the most recent Safari 5.1.3 version for end-users or the recently seeded Safari 5.1.4 for developers.
Apple took a page from Google’s book by integrating the search bar into the address bar (finally, some would say) in Safari 5.2. Other enhancements include visual tweaks that highlight the domain section of the URL in the address bar and a rehashed Reader icon. Features from both Safari 5.1.4 and 5.2 are likely to be included in this summer’s release of Mountain Lion.
A developer preview version of Xcode 4.4 is required to code and test applications for Mountain Lion that will become available to the public this summer. Among the new features:
Xcode 4.4 includes an editor for Collada 3D files, compiler support for the Objective-C enhancements, the ability to open a project in multiple workspaces, and its Interface Builder now supports new AppKit features like trackpadzoom support and auto-layout. More important: Xcode 4.4 has a new LLVM compiler that reduces idle time in apps and helps with software optimization. LLVM was born out of a 2000 University of Illinois project under the direction of Vikram Adve and Chris Lattner. Apple hired Lattner in 2005 to help port LLVM to the company’s development tools for OS X and iOS. Unlike the current Xcode 4.3 distributed as a Mac App Store download, the developer preview of Xcode 4.4 is a free 1.7GB download available only to registered developers through the Mac Dev Center. Xcode 4.4 Developer Preview requires OS X Mountain Lion or OS X 10.7.3 or later, and it includes the Xcode IDE, iOS Simulator and all required tools and frameworks for building OS X and iOS apps. A note from Apple to those installing earlier Xcode releases from the Mac App Store:
