Want to Create your Own App? Get started with Xcode 8 Development

We, 9series has started looking forward for the latest version of IDE for iOS App Development i.e. Xcode 8. At WWDC 2016, Apple announced Xcode 8, the latest version of its IDE for iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. With every major release, the company enhances its developer tools and adds a number of compelling new features. Xcode 8 is released with major improvements like Swift 3, address and thread sanitizer, a new editor extension architecture, and more.

9series strongly believe that by using these latest features, development can be done faster and can be pushed ahead with the next strides.

Before downloading the latest version of Xcode i.e. Xcode 8, let’s check with its compatibility.

Compatibility:

Xcode 8 requires a Mac running macOS El Capitan version 10.11.4 or later. It includes SDKs for iOS 10.0, watchOS 3.0, macOS Sierra version 10.12, and tvOS 10.0.

Swift Migration Tool:

Projects that are built with Xcode 8 uses Swift 3 by default. Fortunately, Xcode 8 includes a build setting that provides developers the ability to stick with Swift 2, Swift 2.3 to be precise. A Swift Migrator is implemented to help upgrade your Swift code to the latest Swift 3 language specification and SDK requirements.

Source Editor Extensions:

Xcode 8 adds support for Xcode source editor extensions. Application extensions provide additional commands in the Xcode Editor menu. These extensions can manipulate and navigate both text and selections. To perform them, use the new Xcode Source Editor Extension target template in the macOS Application Extensions section when building a new project. Apple emphasizes that extensions are currently focused on manipulating and navigating the contents of the source editor hence source editor extensions. It runs in a separate process. It means a crashing extension doesn’t cause Xcode to quit unexpectedly. Another great benefit is that you can create your own extension and distribute using your developer account.

Interface Builder:

• No longer generating implicit constraints for perspectives without constraints
• Combined with a new mode for quickly introducing variations, it’s easier than ever to see what your UI looks like across multiple devices, orientations, and adaptations like Slide Over and Split View on iPad.
• Storyboard and xib files support smooth zooming across iOS, tvOS, and watchOS, as well as editing at any zoom level
• Interface Builder supports colors in the Display P3 color space.
• Font – San Francisco Mono (That comes with Xcode 8)
• Line Highlighting (Which indicates current line)
• Code Completion for Images & Colors
• Asset Catalogs – Expressive Messaging feature support (“Stickers”)

Signing Made Easy and Powerful:

The new automatically managed code signing generates all the assets you need to properly sign, provision, and run your apps on a connected Apple device. Simply choose your team and Xcode will do the rest. You also have the option of hand-picking your provisioning profiles and setting up the signing process for each build configuration.

Debugging:

Xcode 8 introduces runtime issues in addition to build time issues. If you run Auto Layout issues at runtime, Xcode shows you the issue as a runtime issue in the Issues Navigator on the left. This is very esteemed addition.

Apart from above, there are few more additions to Xcode mentioned below:

• Memory Debugging
• Documentation (new documentation format looks awesome and the documentation browser is fast and easy itself).

Though no softwares can be complete or in finished version. There may be some issues, pros, cons and enhancements, which Xcode can also have. There are many improvements in Xcode 8 and we can definitely go for it and use it.

In this article, we, 9series, have only covered a subset of what is new in Xcode 8. Developers need to spend more time to review these points in detail and of course, rest of them needs to have more experience of this latest tool.

Feel free to share your own experience of Xcode 8 with us.