Delphi 10.4 Sydney has all the right ingredients. From support for Android OpenJDK up to the soon to be required iOS Storyboard; it’s all there. The all new LSP adds syntactic sugar and the per control Windows VCL styling is the finishing touch.

For me the timely support for iOS storyboard is the winner, as Apple requires us to start using this on June 30th.

Support for Android OpenJDK is very cool, as this opens up the Android environment even more. Although you could already customize and modify just about anything in Delphi on Android (adding APIs and even CPU code), this makes it easier still.

And what about this LSP, the Language Server Protocol? We now have all kinds of syntax, code, class completion and what not in multiple LSP processes! This is also very open, allowing you to add your own. Most important for you as a developer, it’s asynchronous, so you’ll never lose keystrokes again, when code completion kicks in.

Starting from this release we now have the same classic unified memory model for all platforms. This means that you no longer have to write specific code for ARC (Automatic reference Counting) anymore, because its gone (except for strings and interfaces). If you’ve adhered to the CTFF (Create Try Finally Free) pattern on mobile platforms there is no need to change any code, if not, you may want to add a Free at some places in your source code.

Last, but not least, per control Windows VCL styling. It’s now possible to use multiple VCL styles in one application at the same time, even on the same form. This will allow you to mix and match your main VCL style with form specific styling to better match specific styling of certain third-party controls you can not VCL style themselves. Finishing touch indeed.

All features can be found right here: http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Sydney/en/What%27s_New

You can download Delphi 10.4 Sydney from the new customer portal here: https://my.embarcadero.com/#downloadsPage The online web installer and the offline ISO installer are now compatible with one another. The ISO file contains the files the web installer would otherwise download, so you can choose the method you prefer.