The Apple Developer Tools are a suite of software tools from Apple to aid in making software dynamic titles for the macOS and iOS platforms. The developer tools were formerly included on macOS install media, but are now exclusively distributed over the Internet. As of MacOS 14.6.1, Xcode is available as a free download from the Mac App Store.
A graphical interface for JavaScript's Plug-in, which aids developers by demonstrating how Java applets perform on macOS. Provides tools to adjust the performance, behavior and user experience in applets in development.
Audio Unit Lab
A graphic presentation of audio units helping software developers to examine their results in decibels. AU Lab can be used to test audio units, conduct live mixing, and playback of audio content. Audio units are controlled visually with the audio unit's graphic interface and touch screen.[citation needed]
Computer Hardware Understanding Development Tools
A set of software tools, collectively Computer Hardware Understanding Development Tools (CHUD Tools) measure software performance on macOS, to aid in optimizing. Also provides hardware system benchmarks.
Core Image Fun House
Used in testing Core Image units, which function similar to Adobe Photoshop filters. Each has a specific action, with parameters customize the action. Showcases Core Image, a technology introduced in Mac OS X 10.4, supported by newer graphic hardware.
CrashReporterPrefs
A developer utility for setting report parameters for Apple's Crash Reporter application.
Basic: Shows a dialog asking the user what to do.
Developer: Provides additional debug info and automatically shows the mail to Apple window.
Server: Runs silent, but keeps all the logs.
None: Disables the dialog prompt. Crash reports are neither displayed nor logged.
FileMerge
A staple of macOS's developer tools since the days of NeXTSTEP, FileMerge graphically compares two or more versions of a file. True to its name, FileMerge allows the user to easily merge the two or more versions into one file. The utility is often used to track changes to source code.
macOS's opendiff command provides the ability to launch FileMerge from the command line. The -ancestor parameter can be used for three-way merging.
Views the resources for an .icns file, displaying the Mini, Small, Large, Huge, Thumbnail & Tile sizes in all color depths and masks.
Icon Composer
Icon Composer was an icon editor that does not have any editing features other than composing Apple Icon Image files and Windows ICO files. External editors must do all the image manipulation, then the results may be imported into the converter to create the finished icon. As of Xcode 8.2, Icon Composer is no longer available in Additional Tools, as it cannot create high resolution icons. Apple recommends using the command-line utility iconutil, which ships with macOS.[1]
Instruments is a GUI for tracing framework DTrace from Sun's OpenSolaris. It is used to profile time usage, memory allocations, system activity, call trace analysis, GPU performance analysis, energy logging (on iOS devices) etc.[2]
Jar Bundler
Java tool that aids in packaging an application's component files into a single double-clickable application. Properties can be modified to optimize the code.
MallocDebug
Assistance for assessing memory usage and detecting memory leaks in programs.
Assesses an application's memory usage by monitoring a user as they interact with an application, which allows MallocDebug to build a memory profile that unfortunately is limited in size.
OpenGL Driver Monitor
Real time access to the inner workings of the graphics processing unit. Runs locally or over a network using Bonjour which is less likely to interfere with the statistics it is gathering with the exception of some disk fragmentation devices.
OpenGL Profiler
This tool assists developers in debugging and optimizing OpenGL usage under macOS.
Supported features:
Launch or attach to an application
Breakpoints and execution control
Error detection including thread safety checks
Scripts
Buffer views
Resource viewing/editing
Statistics gathering
OpenGL call traces with stack traces and timings
OpenGL Shader Builder
An integrated environment to develop and debug OpenGL GPU programs (Shaders) under macOS.
Features supported by OpenGL Shader Builder:
Realtime entry
Preview window with shaders applied to a textured plane, sphere or teapot
Example shaders
Syntax checking
Debugging and analysis of vertex / fragment programs
Export to Xcode
One notable feature is 'Export to Xcode'. A sample Xcode project is created with C source code to initialize OpenGL (using the GLUT library) and run the shader program.
Note that this program is no longer recommended for editing GLSL shaders as "GLSLEditorSample," available as an example program, is generally regarded as superior.
PackageMaker
Creates application .pkg installer bundles for installing applications using the Installer application.
Pixie
A magnifying glass application for magnifying small sections of the computer's screen, centered around the mouse cursor, giving the user a detailed view of the screen, as well as the pixel coordinates of the mouse. Provides several levels of zoom, "locking" the image under the mouse for closer examination, and saves the magnified image one of several formats. Helps ensure visual elements are aligned precisely.
Property List Editor
Edits application preference plist files. As of Xcode 4, Property List Editor is no longer included as a separate application and all editing of plist files is done within Xcode. The last stand-alone version was version 5.3 in Xcode 3.2.6.
A visual programming language for processing and rendering data. Using OpenGL, Core Image, Core Video, and other technologies to build an API and serves as a simple visual programming paradigm. Quartz Composer is a core technology of the macOS. Quartz Composer creations work in any QuickTime-aware application (beginning with Mac OS X 10.4), from the Quartz Composer application, or embedded into Cocoa or Carbon applications.
Quartz Composer has many similarities to Max/MSP although its primary usage is for graphical rather than audio processing. Offers the ability to construct interactive video compositions that react to audio or MIDI signals and can be played from any QuickTime aware application.
Pierre-Olivier Latour originally developed the predecessor to Quartz Composer under the name PixelShox Studio.[3]
A resurgence in interest in Quartz Composer has come about, as the Facebook design team has been showcasing their utilization of the program to prototype interactions that they couldn't have otherwise depicted with flat mockups in Photoshop.[4]
Repeat After Me
Optimizes the performance of the built-in text-to-speech software for macOS. Tests the operating system's phonemic translation engine, creates graphs of the generated tone, to visually adjust the intonation, and records samples for reference.
Shark
Shark is a profiler, used by software developers to optimize software programs on macOS. It samples software at set time intervals (or driven by hardware performance monitors events) taking snapshots of the stack, showing the functions which require more of the application's resources. Includes tools to analyze the data produced by a sampling run. Since Mac OS X 10.7, it is not on the Apple site any more and was replaced by Instruments.
Spin Control
Spin Control is a performance tool used for monitoring hang activity in software programs. The program gets its name from the spinning pinwheel on macOS.[5]
Discontinued as of Xcode 4.2.
Thread Viewer
Thread Viewer is a performance tool which graphically displays activity across a range of threads. It provides color-coded time-line views of thread activity and can display backtraces of activity at specific points in time. It was merged in Instruments app, and can be accessed via "System Trace" instrument.
Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface (API) for its desktop operating system macOS.
GNUstep is a free software implementation of the Cocoa Objective-C frameworks, widget toolkit, and application development tools for Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project.
Carbon was one of two primary C-based application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Apple for the macOS operating system. Carbon provided a good degree of backward compatibility for programs that ran on Mac OS 8 and 9. Developers could use the Carbon APIs to port (“carbonize”) their “classic” Mac applications and software to the Mac OS X platform with little effort, compared to porting the app to the entirely different Cocoa system, which originated in OPENSTEP. With the release of macOS 10.15 Catalina, the Carbon API was officially discontinued and removed, leaving Cocoa as the sole primary API for developing macOS applications.
AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control over scriptable Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in all versions of macOS as part of a package of system automation tools. The term "AppleScript" may refer to the language itself, to an individual script written in the language, or, informally, to the macOS Open Scripting Architecture that underlies the language.
WebObjects is a discontinued Java web application server and a server-based web application framework originally developed by NeXT Software, Inc.
Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 16, released on September 16, 2024, and is available free of charge via the Mac App Store and the Apple Developer website. Registered developers can also download preview releases and prior versions of the suite through the Apple Developer website. Xcode includes command-line tools that enable UNIX-style development via the Terminal app in macOS. They can also be downloaded and installed without the GUI.
A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs, that can be combined to accomplish a task, much as one might use multiple hands to fix a physical object. The most basic tools are a source code editor and a compiler or interpreter, which are used ubiquitously and continuously. Other tools are used more or less depending on the language, development methodology, and individual engineer, often used for a discrete task, like a debugger or profiler. Tools may be discrete programs, executed separately – often from the command line – or may be parts of a single large program, called an integrated development environment (IDE). In many cases, particularly for simpler use, simple ad hoc techniques are used instead of a tool, such as print debugging instead of using a debugger, manual timing instead of a profiler, or tracking bugs in a text file or spreadsheet instead of a bug tracking system.
Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (MPW) is a software development environment for the Classic Mac OS operating system, written by Apple Computer. For Macintosh developers, it was one of the primary tools for building applications for System 7.x and Mac OS 8.x and 9.x. Initially MPW was available for purchase as part of Apple's professional developers program, but Apple made it a free download after it was superseded by CodeWarrior. On Mac OS X it was replaced by the Project Builder IDE, which eventually became Xcode.
Mac OS X Tiger is the 5th major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Included features were a fast searching system called Spotlight, a new version of the Safari web browser, Dashboard, a new 'Unified' theme, and improved support for 64-bit addressing on Power Mac G5s. Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger also had a number of additional features that Microsoft had spent several years struggling to add to Windows with acceptable performance, such as fast file search and improved graphics processing.
Core Image is a pixel-accurate, near-realtime, non-destructive image processing technology in Mac OS X. Implemented as part of the QuartzCore framework of Mac OS X 10.4 and later, Core Image provides a plugin-based architecture for applying filters and effects within the Quartz graphics rendering layer. The framework was later added to iOS in iOS 5.
Quartz Compositor is the display server in macOS. It is responsible for presenting and maintaining rasterized, rendered graphics from the rest of the Core Graphics framework and other renderers in the Quartz technologies family.
Quartz Composer is a node graph system provided as part of the Xcode development environment in macOS for processing and rendering graphical data. It is capable of making sophisticated animations for keynote or presentations and creating animated screensavers.
Carbide.c++ is a software development tool for C++ development on Symbian OS. It is used to develop phones that use the OS, as well as applications that run on those phones. It is based on the Eclipse IDE platform enhanced with extra plug-ins to support Symbian OS development. The product is provided by the Symbian Foundation under an open source model. In April 2009, Nokia transferred Carbide.c++ and many other software developer tools to the Symbian Foundation. Members of the Symbian community now manage and contribute code to the Carbide.c++ product.
Instruments is an application performance analyzer and visualizer by Apple Inc., integrated in Xcode 3.0 and later versions of Xcode. It is built on top of the DTrace tracing framework from OpenSolaris, which was ported to Mac OS X v10.5 and which is available in all following versions of macOS.
The iOS SDK, formerly the iPhone SDK, is a software development kit (SDK) developed by Apple Inc. The kit allows for the development of mobile apps on Apple's iOS and iPadOS operating systems.
The Java Development Kit (JDK) is a distribution of Java technology by Oracle Corporation. It implements the Java Language Specification (JLS) and the Java Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS) and provides the Standard Edition (SE) of the Java Application Programming Interface (API). It is derivative of the community driven OpenJDK which Oracle stewards. It provides software for working with Java applications. Examples of included software are the Java virtual machine, a compiler, performance monitoring tools, a debugger, and other utilities that Oracle considers useful for Java programmers.
Metal is a low-level, low-overhead hardware-accelerated 3D graphic and compute shader API created by Apple, debuting in iOS 8. Metal combines functions similar to OpenGL and OpenCL in one API. It is intended to improve performance by offering low-level access to the GPU hardware for apps on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS. It can be compared to low-level APIs on other platforms such as Vulkan and DirectX 12.
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