Core Technologies in OS X

OS X incorporates advanced core technologies that improve performance throughout the system. As a developer, you can use these advanced technologies in your app to make it faster, more responsive, and able to take advantage of the latest Mac hardware.

Grand Central Dispatch

All of OS X is multicore-aware and optimized for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. With Grand Central Dispatch, the responsibility for managing threads and their execution is moved from apps to the operating system, so you can can write less code to deal with concurrent operations in your apps. The system can perform more efficiently on single-processor machines, large multiprocessor servers, and everything in between. Learn more about GCD


OpenCL accelerates apps by tapping into the amazing parallel computing power of modern GPUs and multicore CPUs. Using a runtime compiled C99-based language with a flexible API for managing data-parallel workloads, OpenCL provides a new range of computationally intensive algorithms for use in your app. Possibilities include incorporating advanced numerical and data analytics features, performing cutting-edge image and media processing, and delivering accurate physics and AI simulation in games. On OS X, OpenCL development is made easier through integration with Xcode and Grand Central Dispatch. Learn more about OpenCL

64-bit Throughout

OS X runs a 64-bit kernel, enabling the Mac to address massive amounts of memory — a theoretical 16 billion gigabytes. 64-bit computing allows the Mac to crunch twice the data per clock cycle as 32-bit computing. Building for 64-bit takes advantage of an optimized CPU instruction set and more registers, terabytes of address space, and the ability to use lots of physical RAM, boosting the performance of your network services and other I/O-intensive apps. Learn more about 64-bit