In addition to the other important announcement at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), this technology giant has also announced about the launched of an Xcode 9 SDK. It offers several benefits to iOS app developers to make an app development process more efficient and faster. An Xcode 9, an effective integrated development environment to develop apps for iOS, MacOS, WatchOS and tvOS, in this latest upgrade, it has introduced a new build system, a new source editor as well as Swift 4 language compatibility. This Xcode 9 beta version is now available for developers.
This recent version of Xcode offers a gamut of improvements that comprises refactoring, debugging, GPU support as well as a super fast search, new playground templates and several more. The Xcode 9 allows developers to test their iOS apps on an active Wi-Fi network prior to publish them in the app store. This new feature helps developers to make new app testing easily and get rid of the process to keep connecting their iOS device to a system using a USB cable.
Xcode, the complete toolset for developer covers a broad range of new features with overall quality enhancement.
Refactoring
It includes all new refactoring systems specifically designed to help developers to simply make changes across their application. Xcode has established a deep integration with GitHub. This support is useful for developers to access open source code repositories just from the IDE. Refactoring enhances the editing experience of the developers and works across different file types such as Objective C, Swift, Interface Builder and many more.
The New Source Code Editor
The new structure-based and fast source code edition allows iOS developers to highlight and navigates source code cleverly. It also comprises an excellent Markdown support.
Real-time App Testing
The new version of Xcode eases developers to test their app on more than one device of Apple simultaneously. It allows developers to test an app on an iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV at the same time.
A New Build System With Enhanced Performance and Reliability
Moreover, Apple also has introduced a new build system in this beta system that improves the app developing time by more than two times. The source code files loading is optimized three times and also improved scrolling speed compared to the previous version which is now 50x faster. This new build system is highly reliable, improves build performance, and trap configuration problems. The new build system is optional at present, but, in a future Xcode version, it will become the default system.
New Playground Templates
Specifically designed new iOS templates that run well on both Swift Playgrounds in iPad and Xcode.
Improved Debugging
The enhancement in debugging comprises the ability to debug iOS and tvOS devices wirelessly. For Apple’s Metal Graphics technology, new debuggers are included as well as many more features all through Xcode. Furthermore, an undefined behavior sanitizer makes possible for iOS app developers to identify unexpected behaviors, sources of program crashes and incompatibilities with future versions of Xcode.
Make Searching Faster
With this new feature, it allows developers to search swiftly. The find navigators quickly provide the search results.
GPU Support
This new version includes GPU support that proffers GPU frame overrides and capture. According to Apple, working with the rendering state without code modification with reducing the bandwidth of texture and rendered pixels, make the blending stage disable and only displaying the wireframe and scaling the tessellation amount.
Built-in Xcode Server
Now, developer need not to install the macOS server. Using Xcode 9, continuous integration bots can run on any Mac.
Swift 4
It introduces a same compiler for Swift 3 and Swift 4 and targets can compile together in the same project. It reduces code size and allows creating generic codes quickly. Improved migration experience supports the migration of a specific target to Swift 4.
Read also: Make iOS App Development Cost-Effective Using Swift Programming
Apple’s latest Xcode 9 beta comprises many advancements and functionalities useful for iOS app developers to create the next level of app using the latest Apple platforms. With in-depth understanding of Xcode 9, developers can build innovative apps with more advanced features.
