Apple issues Xcode 4.4 Developer Preview 3

Apple on Wednesday included a beta version of Xcode 4.4 for developers alongside releases of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 and Safari 5.2

The preview of Xcode 4.4 includes an updated Apple LLVM Compiler version 4.0. According to the release notes for the software, enhancements include:

• Objective-C language features
• Improved support for the 2011 C++ standard
• Major improvements to Xcode's static analyzer
• New interface builder support for AppKit features
• A viewer and editor for 3D files as .DAE documents
• Improvements to the Find Bar and Search Navigator
• Integrated QuickHelp in code completion
• Tweaks to the source editor jump bar popup

Known issues with the release include possible difficulty downloading earlier versions of Xcode from the App Store, scheme editing problems and several minor issues with linker and new load commands, DYLD_* environment variables and the network link conditioner. Additionally, non-admin users debugging or running Instruments will need to authenticate each time.

The notes also cautioned that performance of ATS APIs will suffer in OS X 10.8 because the ATS.framework is being deprecated. Developers are instructed to replace all their ATS code with CoreText as it will be removed in future OS X releases.

Xcode 4.4 Developer Preview 3 requires OS X Lion 10.7.3 or Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3. Apple released the third developer preview for its upcoming OS X update to developers on Wednesday. Developers also received a prerelease version of Safari 5.2.

Apple outed its plans for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion with the first developer preview in February. Since then, releases have come roughly a month apart, as Developer Preview 2 was seeded in mid-March.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is scheduled to arrive this summer with more than 100 new features, including the Messages app, tighter integration with iCloud and new Gatekeeper security controls.