MSDN and TechNet subscribers got their long awaited RTM build of Windows 8.1 earlier today, but Microsoft has also officially launched the release candidate build for its Visual Studio 2013 development tools as well (the RC build reportedly leaked to the Internet a few days ago).
In a post on the Visual Studio blog, Somasegar, the president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, writes that one of the new RC features is the Cloud Business App template, which makes creating apps that are designed for Office 365 easier. Somasegar states:
By default, without writing any code, Cloud Business Apps extend the Office 365 experience enabling your apps to facilitate collaboration and enable communication, and they provide an HTML based app UX that works great across the desktop and devices.
Visual Studio 2013 RC1 adds some features to the tool"s XAML editor, including IntelliSense for Data Binding and more. It also adds some more TypeScript tooling support, based on the programming language that Microsoft first introduced in October 2012. CodeLens, which was included as a way to offer programmers "deep contextual insights inline in your source code" has been updated in the RC build with Lync integration, new indicators for bugs and more.
Microsoft has still not announced a release date for the final version of Visual Studio 2013.
Source: Microsoft | Image via Microsoft