12 Core Mac Best Apps

Below are the benchmarks tests for Multi-Core tests on Geekbench 4 and my upgraded Mac Pro 5,1 cheese-grater would slot in just under a late 2013 3.0GHz 8 core Mac Pro trash can and it would take a 3.2GHz i7 Mac Mini 2018 to beat it. Note that a 3.0Ghz 6 core i5.

With an all-new design that looks great on macOS Big Sur, Xcode 12 has customizable font sizes for the navigator, streamlined code completion, and new document tabs. Xcode 12 builds Universal apps by default to support Mac with Apple Silicon, often without changing a single line of code.

Designed for macOS Big Sur.

Xcode 12 looks great on macOS Big Sur, with a navigator sidebar that goes to the top of the window and clear new toolbar buttons. The navigator defaults to a larger font that’s easier to read, while giving you multiple size choices. New document tabs make it easy to create a working set of files within your workspace.

Document tabs.

The new tab model lets you open a new tab with a double-click, or track the selected file as you click around the navigator. You can re-arrange the document tabs to create a working set of files for your current task, and configure how content is shown within each tab. The navigator tracks the open files within your tabs using strong selection.

Navigator font sizes.

The navigator now tracks the system setting for “Sidebar icon size” used in Finder and Mail. You can also choose a unique font size just for Xcode within Preferences, including the traditional dense information presentation, and up to large fonts and icon targets.

Code completion streamlined.

A new completion UI presents only the information you need, taking up less screen space as you type. And completions are presented much faster, so you can keep coding at maximum speed.

Redesigned organizer.

An all-new design groups all critical information about each of your apps together in one place. Choose any app from any of your teams, then quickly navigate to inspect crash logs, energy reports, and performance metrics, such as battery consumption and launch time of your apps when used by customers.

SwiftUI

SwiftUI offers new features, improved performance, and the power to do even more, all while maintaining a stable API that makes it easy to bring your existing SwiftUI code forward into Xcode 12. A brand new life cycle management API for apps built with SwiftUI lets you write your entire app in SwiftUI and share even more code across all Apple platforms. And a new widget platform built on SwiftUI lets you build widgets that work great on iPad, iPhone, and Mac. Your SwiftUI views can now be shared with other developers, and appear as first-class controls in the Xcode library. And your existing SwiftUI code continues to work, while providing faster performance, better diagnostics, and access to new controls.

Universal app ready.

Xcode 12 is built as a Universal app that runs 100% natively on Intel-based CPUs and Apple Silicon for great performance and a snappy interface.* It also includes a unified macOS SDK that includes all the frameworks, compilers, debuggers, and other tools you need to build apps that run natively on Apple Silicon and the Intel x86_64 CPU.

Updated automatically

When you open your project in Xcode 12, your app is automatically updated to produce release builds and archives as Universal apps. When you build your app, Xcode produces one binary “slice” for Apple Silicon and one for the Intel x86_64 CPU, then wraps them together as a single app bundle to share or submit to the Mac App Store. You can test this at any time by selecting “Any Mac” as the target in the toolbar.

Test multiple architectures.

On the new Mac with Apple Silicon, you can run and debug apps running on either the native architecture or on Intel virtualization by selecting “My Mac (Rosetta)” in the toolbar.

Multiplatform template

New multiplatform app templates set up new projects to easily share code among iOS, iPadOS, and macOS using SwiftUI and the new lifecycle APIs. The project structure encourages sharing code across all platforms, while creating special custom experiences for each platform where it makes sense for your app.

Improved auto-indentation

Swift code is auto-formatted as you type to make common Swift code patterns look much better, including special support for the “guard” command.

StoreKit testing

New tools in Xcode let you create StoreKit files that describe the various subscription and in-app purchase products your app can offer, and create test scenarios to make sure everything works great for your customers — all locally testable on your Mac.

Get started.

Download Xcode 12 and use these resources to build apps for all Apple platforms.

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In this article, you'll learn how to install .NET on macOS. .NET is made up of the runtime and the SDK. The runtime is used to run a .NET app and may or may not be included with the app. The SDK is used to create .NET apps and libraries. The .NET runtime is always installed with the SDK.

The latest version of .NET is 5.0.

Supported releases

The following table is a list of currently supported .NET releases and the versions of macOS they're supported on. These versions remain supported either the version of .NET reaches end-of-support.

  • A ✔️ indicates that the version of .NET Core is still supported.
  • A ❌ indicates that the version of .NET Core isn't supported.
Operating System.NET Core 2.1.NET Core 3.1.NET 5.0
macOS 10.15 'Catalina'✔️ 2.1 (Release notes)✔️ 3.1 (Release notes)✔️ 5.0 (Release notes)
macOS 10.14 'Mojave'✔️ 2.1 (Release notes)✔️ 3.1 (Release notes)✔️ 5.0 (Release notes)
macOS 10.13 'High Sierra'✔️ 2.1 (Release notes)✔️ 3.1 (Release notes)✔️ 5.0 (Release notes)
macOS 10.12 'Sierra'✔️ 2.1 (Release notes)❌ 3.1 (Release notes)❌ 5.0 (Release notes)

Unsupported releases

The following versions of .NET are ❌ no longer supported. The downloads for these still remain published:

  • 3.0 (Release notes)
  • 2.2 (Release notes)
  • 2.0 (Release notes)

Runtime information

The runtime is used to run apps created with .NET. When an app author publishes an app, they can include the runtime with their app. If they don't include the runtime, it's up to the user to install the runtime.

There are three different runtimes you can install on macOS:

ASP.NET Core runtime
Runs ASP.NET Core apps. Includes the .NET runtime.

.NET runtime
This runtime is the simplest runtime and doesn't include any other runtime. It's highly recommended that you install ASP.NET Core runtime for the best compatibility with .NET apps.

Windows

SDK information

The SDK is used to build and publish .NET apps and libraries. Installing the SDK includes both runtimes: ASP.NET Core and .NET.

Dependencies

.NET is supported on the following macOS releases:

.NET Core VersionmacOSArchitecturesMore information
5.0High Sierra (10.13+)x64More information
3.1High Sierra (10.13+)x64More information
3.0High Sierra (10.13+)x64More information
2.2Sierra (10.12+)x64More information
2.1Sierra (10.12+)x64More information

Beginning with macOS Catalina (version 10.15), all software built after June 1, 2019 that is distributed with Developer ID, must be notarized. This requirement applies to the .NET runtime, .NET SDK, and software created with .NET.

The runtime and SDK installers for .NET 5.0 and .NET Core 3.1, 3.0, and 2.1, have been notarized since February 18, 2020. Prior released versions aren't notarized. If you run a non-notarized app, you'll see an error similar to the following image:

For more information about how enforced-notarization affects .NET (and your .NET apps), see Working with macOS Catalina Notarization.

libgdiplus

.NET applications that use the System.Drawing.Common assembly require libgdiplus to be installed.

12 Core Mac Best Apps App

An easy way to obtain libgdiplus is by using the Homebrew ('brew') package manager for macOS. After installing brew, install libgdiplus by executing the following commands at a Terminal (command) prompt:

Install with an installer

macOS has standalone installers that can be used to install the .NET 5.0 SDK:

Download and manually install

As an alternative to the macOS installers for .NET, you can download and manually install the SDK and runtime. Manual install is usually performed as part of continuous integration testing. For a developer or user, it's generally better to use an installer.

If you install .NET SDK, you don't need to install the corresponding runtime. First, download a binary release for either the SDK or the runtime from one of the following sites:

  • ✔️ .NET 5.0 downloads
  • ✔️ .NET Core 3.1 downloads
  • ✔️ .NET Core 2.1 downloads

Next, extract the downloaded file and use the export command to set variables used by .NET and then ensure .NET is in PATH.

To extract the runtime and make the .NET CLI commands available at the terminal, first download a .NET binary release. Then, open a terminal and run the following commands from the directory where the file was saved. The archive file name may be different depending on what you downloaded.

Use the following command to extract the runtime:

Use the following command to extract the SDK:

Tip

The preceding export commands only make the .NET CLI commands available for the terminal session in which it was run.

You can edit your shell profile to permanently add the commands. There are a number of different shells available for Linux and each has a different profile. For example:

  • Bash Shell: ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc
  • Korn Shell: ~/.kshrc or .profile
  • Z Shell: ~/.zshrc or .zprofile

Edit the appropriate source file for your shell and add :$HOME/dotnet to the end of the existing PATH statement. If no PATH statement is included, add a new line with export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/dotnet.

Also, add export DOTNET_ROOT=$HOME/dotnet to the end of the file.

App

This approach lets you install different versions into separate locations and choose explicitly which one to use by which application.

Install with Visual Studio for Mac

Visual Studio for Mac installs the .NET SDK when the .NET workload is selected. To get started with .NET development on macOS, see Install Visual Studio 2019 for Mac.

.NET SDK versionVisual Studio version
5.0Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.8 or higher.
3.1Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.4 or higher.
2.1Visual Studio 2019 for Mac version 8.0 or higher.

Install alongside Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a powerful and lightweight source code editor that runs on your desktop. Visual Studio Code is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

While Visual Studio Code doesn't come with an automated .NET installer like Visual Studio does, adding .NET support is simple.

12 Core Mac Best Apps Windows 10

  1. Download and install Visual Studio Code.
  2. Download and install the .NET SDK.
  3. Install the C# extension from the Visual Studio Code marketplace.

Install with bash automation

The dotnet-install scripts are used for automation and non-admin installs of the runtime. You can download the script from the dotnet-install script reference page.

The script defaults to installing the latest long term support (LTS) version, which is .NET 3.1. You can choose a specific release by specifying the current switch. Include the runtime switch to install a runtime. Otherwise, the script installs the SDK.

12 Core Mac Best Apps Downloads

Note

The previous command installs the ASP.NET Core runtime for maximum compatability. The ASP.NET Core runtime also includes the standard .NET runtime.

Docker

Containers provide a lightweight way to isolate your application from the rest of the host system. Containers on the same machine share just the kernel and use resources given to your application.

.NET can run in a Docker container. Official .NET Docker images are published to the Microsoft Container Registry (MCR) and are discoverable at the Microsoft .NET Core Docker Hub repository. Each repository contains images for different combinations of the .NET (SDK or Runtime) and OS that you can use.

Microsoft provides images that are tailored for specific scenarios. For example, the ASP.NET Core repository provides images that are built for running ASP.NET Core apps in production.

12 Core Mac Best Apps Download

For more information about using .NET Core in a Docker container, see Introduction to .NET and Docker and Samples.

Next steps

  • How to check if .NET Core is already installed.
  • Working with macOS Catalina notarization.
  • Tutorial: Get started on macOS.
  • Tutorial: Create a new app with Visual Studio Code.
  • Tutorial: Containerize a .NET Core app.