(Updated on September 7, 2022)
Embarcadero has just released the new version of RAD Studio 11 Alexandria, and we want to start sharing with you some of the features of RAD Studio 11 Alexandria Release 2 (or RAD Studio 11.2).
Delphi iOS Simulator Support*
A few years back, Delphi supported the iOS Simulator platform, running on Intel 32-bit Macs or 64-bit Macs offering 32-bit support. When Apple dropped this last feature, we retired the old iOS Simulator support. This year, we have been working to add a new target platform to Delphi and offer again the support for iOS Simulator, but this time on the new macOS ARM 64-bit platform, that is the M1 and M2 Apple Silicon chips.
As a Delphi developer, there isn’t much you’ll have to do. Once we release this feature you’ll be able to pick the new iOS Simulator platform among the target platforms for a FireMonkey multi-device project:
The availability of the iOS Simulator support enables developers to test and debug their Delphi applications on different Apple devices and on multiple form factors using the iOS Simulator, without the need to buy the specific hardware. It also helps fulfill the Apple Store request to provide screenshots of the apps running in multiple form factors.
FireMonkey Apps in the iOS Simulator
In general, you’ll only need to select the new target and rebuild the app, with no changes to the source code. Once you build the app, you can deploy it to a connected ARM-64 Mac via PAServer, and run it in the iOS Simulator using one of the different available formats.
iOS Simulator on iPhone format and iPad format running FireMonkey PhotoEditorDemo
FireMonkey MobileControls demo running on iPhone, horizontally
Much More to Come
There are many other features coming in the next release of RAD Studio, along with a very large number of quality improvements in all of the product subsystems, from compilers to toolchains, from runtime libraries to the IDE. Stay tuned for more information over the coming weeks.
* Again, no commitment to ship any of these at any time until the GA release of the product