OS X Yosemite for Developers

OS X Yosemite is every bit as powerful as it looks. You now have more power to extend the OS X experience, and with the new Swift programming language, app creation is more fun and interactive. With advances in SpriteKit and SceneKit, Safari, iCloud, and more, your most beautiful apps are yet to come.

Download and Install

OS X Yosemite and Xcode 6

To build apps for OS X Yosemite, make sure you have OS X Yosemite and Xcode 6.1 installed on your Mac. With these releases, Swift is now final and you can submit your Mac apps written with Swift to the Mac App Store.

Develop for Yosemite

App Extensions

Now any app can add powerful new functionality to OS X Yosemite, including Today view widgets and Share sheet extensions, enabling access to app features from almost anywhere. Once a user installs an app from the Mac App Store, the extensions embedded within that app enable new capabilities across OS X.

SpriteKit

SpriteKit makes it easy for developers to create graphically rich, fluidly animated 2D sprite-based games that are perfectly optimized for iOS and OS X. SpriteKit’s new enhancements let you create even better games with new levels of realism and expression.

More Flexible Physics

Now you can use field forces that vary with distance to create springs, magnets, and gravity wells. And the interaction between sprites can be calculated on a per-pixel basis to accurately portray collisions between complex-shaped sprites and scenery.

Level Editor

Xcode 6 includes a new SpriteKit editor that makes it simple to lay out game levels by dragging and dropping sprites into a scene, complete with live simulation that previews the scene’s lighting, animation, and physics.

SceneKit Integration

Tight integration with SceneKit makes it simple to add true 3D geometry into a SpriteKit scene with great performance.

SceneKit

This high-level 3D graphics framework helps you create 3D animated scenes and effects in your apps. SceneKit in OS X Yosemite adds new capabilities, including key features for 3D games.

Physics

Modeled on the physics capabilities of SpriteKit, 3D objects can now have physical properties which influence the animated interactions between them.

Improved Animation

Support for inverse kinematics lets 3D models with joints move and respond naturally.

3D Particle System

A high-performance 3D particle system makes it easy to create visual effects such as sparks, explosions, and smoke.

Alembic Support

SceneKit can now load 3D models stored in the production-friendly Alembic file format.

Handoff

Using a simple API in Foundation, your app can participate in Handoff to let users start an activity on one device and seamlessly resume the activity on another device.

Safari

With WebGL, you can create immersive, 3D experiences that work natively. Advanced HTML5 video technologies make it possible to deliver high-performance, energy-efficient web video. New WebKit features let you create websites with engaging, adaptive layouts that work in Safari on iOS and OS X. Safari has powerful, built-in developer tools for building and debugging web apps. And by following a few best practices, you can make your website work seamlessly with Safari’s new features.

Swift

Swift is an innovative new programming language for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch with concise yet expressive syntax. Writing Swift code within an Xcode 6 playground shows instant results, while finished apps are compiled into high-performance native machine code. The Swift language is fast, modern, safe, and interactive.

Storyboards

Xcode 6 supports storyboards for OS X, taking advantage of new View Controller APIs in OS X Yosemite. With Storyboards, you can quickly wire together multiple views, define relationships and containers, and choose segue animations, all without writing any code. Storyboards for OS X encourage interfaces that follow Mac standards, so apps behave the way users expect.

Prepare your Mac Apps for Distribution

Mac App Store and Developer ID

Submit your apps to the Mac App Store and make it easy for millions of users in over 150 countries to discover and download your apps. If you plan to distribute applications outside of the Mac App Store, make sure to sign them with your Developer ID to give users confidence that they can safely install and run your applications.