WWDC 2015 is the 26th Worldwide Developers Conference hosted by Apple in Moscone West. The conference started with a Keynote, during the keynote Apple announces their latest software (iOS, OSX) and, sometimes, new hardware is also announced (ex. iPhone, Macbook Pro, Mac Pro). Every year a new version of iOS and OSX will be released, and this year was no exception. iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, El Capitan, were announced. watchOS also received the same treatment with watchOS 2.
El Capitan is will be released this fall as a free update. Similar to its predecessors, Maverick and Yosemite, El Capitan contains minor tweaks to the UI and a few extra features to the existing apps. They change the look for Mission Control, enhance the search feature in Spotlight, add multiple tabs in the Mail app, give the ability to add an image to Notes and many more minor tweaks that weren’t shown in the demo.
The main focus for iOS 9 was improving Siri with proactive search (ex. show me my WWDC photos from last year). Other improvements include: 1) Multitasking on iPad now offers split view to allow users to have two apps running at the same time and picture-in-picture video. 2) The Maps app now has transit map support for a number of major cities. 3) A News app for your daily news.
watchOS 2.0 supports developers creating native applications for the watch. In the previous version, all third-party applications are required to run along-side the companion iPhone applications. The new OS has also opened up a few new APIs: access to the microphone and accelerometer on the watch. HomeKit, HealthKit, and MapKit data access are also available on the watch.
There are other features that weren’t mentioned in this review: 1) Apple’s new music streaming service is Beats One. 2) Carplay also got an upgrade with wireless, which means users no longer need to plug-in their iPhone to connect to Carplay. 3) One last mention is Apple Pay will be available in the UK in July.
