Apple release Xcode 1.2 and removes eMac model from hold

After seeding developers with build 7K249 of its Xcode 1.2 development environment this week, Apple quickly reviewed last minute feedback from developers and declared the build gold master, sources said.

"Xcode 1.2 is the latest version of Apple's new Integrated Development Environment," the company reportedly told developers in the developer tools release notes. Th new version provides several enhancements over Xcode 1.0 and Xcode 1.1, including improved stability and user experience, an enhanced build system, better dependency analysis, improved cross-project reference support, and improved native target support for yacc and assembler.

Apple also noted a handful of known issues with the release of Xcode 1.2 that could cause the application to crash, but provided a list of workarounds to help developers avoid problems.

The release build is current available to 'AppleSeed' and Apple Developer Connection (ADC) account holders in the form of several 30 MB segments.

eMac off short-term quality hold

Earlier this week, Apple removed a short-term quality hold it had placed on early inventory shipments of the new SuperDrive equipped eMac G4.

Apparently, engineers were able to vindicate the quality of the model, once suspected of containing issues with its SuperDrive implementation.

Apple had previously sent a memo to its retail stores, asking that the models be put on hold, and not be sold to customers until further notice. The company officially removed the SuperDrive eMac G4 from hold with a followup memo days later, though no formal explanation of the suspected issue was given.

The new eMac G4 SuperDrive model is the first Mac to ship with an 8X SuperDrive. 8X SuperDrives are also expected to ship in new Power Mac G5 models when the company gathers enough 90-nanometer chips to announce and begin shipping the models.