Intel The new compilers contain auto-parallelizing capabilities

Intel Releases Apple Leopard Toolset Upgrade

The new compilers contain auto-parallelizing capabilities and new application programming interfaces for building multithreaded applications.


Intel (NSDQ: INTC) on Wednesday released an upgrade of its Mac OS X tool suite, which has been optimized for Leopard, the latest version of Apple's operating system.
Version 10.1 of the toolset includes the Intel C++ and Fortran compilers, as well as threading building blocks, math kernel libraries and performance primitives. All have been optimized for Apple's Leopard and Xcode 3.0 development environment launched last month.

The combination of Apple and Intel tools enable developers to take advantage of Intel multi-core processors inside Mac computers, Intel said. The compilers, for example, contain auto-parallelizing capabilities; and Leopard includes new application programming interfaces for building multithreaded applications.

Intel introduced the Mac OS X tool suite in January 2006. Development teams in Apple, Adobe Systems and Autodesk use the toolset. "Intel's software works well in our Xcode environment, and the Intel engineering team does a great job supporting our Apple engineers and Mac OS X developers," Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior VP of software engineering, said in a statement.

Intel launched the toolset nearly two years ago with the compilers, kernel libraries and primitives. The company added threading building blocks a year later. The Intel evaluation Web site also includes free testing products for Intel's line of Mac development tools.

Mac sales have been increasing, in part by the success of Apple's iPod line of portable media players, which has drawn consumer interest in the company's other products. Nevertheless, development of the Mac platform could be affected by Apple's decision to include in Leopard a utility called Boot Camp that lets users boot Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Windows.

Apple has warned investors that the utility may discourage developers from building software for Mac OS X, if the same software is available on Windows.