Run release and beta version of XCode

Question

I am wondering how to handle running two versions of xcode on a mac, or if it is even possible.

I currently have a number of production apps that I service with the release xcode7. I must have this available for uploading app versions to the app store.

I also have a ipod touch device I have the ios9.1 beta running, and want to test and write code for the new os.

However, xcode7 says I can't test ios 9.1 beta, that I have to install xcode beta. Also, I've read that you can't push apps to the app store with the beta. So how can you maintain current apps, as well as, build new functionality?

Maybe I have missed something? some setting that allows me to toggle between these xcodes? or will the mac allow me to have two different versions of XCode installed? I assumed it would just override the other.

I don't want to buy another mac, or to partition the one I have, or keep downloading and installing different versions on all the devices, if I don't have to.

Any information would be helpful, how does everyone else handle this?

Answer 1

You simply need to rename them in /Applications ; for example:

Xcode 6.4: /Applications/Xcode6.app

Xcode 7.0: /Applications/Xcode7.app

Xcode 7.1 beta: /Application/Xcode-beta.app (the default anyway).

They will co-exist perfectly happily, however if you do command line builds, you'll want to use xcode-select to select the version you want to use when using xcodebuild or clang , etc.

Answer 2

You can install both versions. They will happily co-exist in your /Applications folder. One will be called Xcode, the other will be called Xcode-Beta

Answer 3

The betas generally come with the name Xcode-beta.app (this is true for the iOS 9.1 beta), so you can just download it and copy it to the /Applications folder as usual.

In the rare cases where that's not true, you can just rename Xcode.