Apple just announced a swathe of new software for your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac, as well as a new streaming service called Apple Music. Set your Apple Watches: it’s happening.
All The News
Don’t feel like scrolling the live blog? That’s ok: check out all the news from this morning right here.
iOS 9: Smarts, Security, And A Better Siri
Apple’s OS X El Capitan Finally Catches Up To Windows’ Full Screen Apps
Apple Music: Streaming Tunes From Apple And Beats At Long Freaking Last
Apple Music Is Coming To Android For $10 A Month
Apple Maps Finally Adds Transit Directions, But Not For Australia (Yet)
The Apple Watch May Actually Become Useful With Native Apps
iOS 9 Just Made The iPad More Work Friendly With Multitasking
Apple Axes Newsstand And Creates News, A Reader You Might Actually Use
HomeKit Will Let You Access Your Smart Home Via iCloud
Introduction
11:45am, 8 June
Hello there!
11:50am, 8 June
For the first time, Gizmodo Australia will be on the ground in San Francisco to bring you the news from Apple’s 2015 Worldwide Developer Conference.
11:55am, 8 June
We’ll be kicking off this event at 2:30am tomorrow morning, and all the action starts from 3am.
12midday, 8 June
In the meantime, check out what we expect to see at this year’s conference. Tell us what you want to see in the comments below!
2:20am, 9 June
Welcome back to Gizmodo Australia’s WWDC 2015 coverage!
2:21
We’re seated and strapped in for some sweet live blog action.
2:22
Apple usually plays some sweet tunes from WWDC, and this year is no exception. Stay tuned for later on when we put up a Spotify playlist you can jam out to with us!
2:22
In the meantime, check out what’s going on on social media.
Rise and shine, developers! #WWDC15
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) June 8, 2015
Oh hi, Jony Ive and @Pharrell. #WWDC15 pic.twitter.com/pam4rggaIX
— Joanna Stern (@JoannaStern) June 8, 2015
2:28
So here’s our Spotify playlist from WWDC 2015 so far.
2:43
We’re just over 15 minutes from the kick-off.
Other people have been Periscoping their experiences so far. Don’t worry if you didn’t catch a live Periscope stream. There’s nothing to see yet anyway.
2:55
We’ve just been given our five-minute warning: switch all phones to silent!
2:26
Something tells me that the music at WWDC wasn’t cleared through Apple employee Dr Dre…
3:01
Lights down!
3:02
There’s a sketch going on right now. Bill Hader dropping some comedy bombs.
3:03
So basically Apple told an agency to make an opening number, and then put Bill Hader in front of it to make fun of it.
3:05
Tim Cook is here!
3:06
This is the 26th WWDC and over 80 per cent of people are here from the first time.
3:07
The youngest attendee here on scholarship is a 12-year old girl from New York. Hey!
3:07
There are so many applause breaks I can’t even count.
3:08
Straight up, we’re talking about baseball.
A baseball player had his 100th career home run ball held hostage by his teammates and they asked for loads of Apple products.
Tim Cook “paid” the team in Apple products and now he has the ball. That’s cheating.
3:10
This morning we’re getting straight to it. Mac updates, new iOS update and native apps for watchOS.
3:11
Craig Federighi is here (Tim is skipping the latest update about how Apple is going) and we’re talking about OS X and iOS updates.
OS X: El Capitan
3:11
First of all, Yosemite is running on 55 per cent of Macs right now. Craig is gloating about the adoption rate between Windows 8.1 and Mac OS X.
3:12
Craig is dropping zingers about the new name of the OS X update.
3:12
It’s called OS X El Capitan.
Feel free to laugh a little bit. I know I did.
3:13
Spotlight is getting better, as are built-in apps and window management in Finder.
3:13
Live demo time.
3:14
There are new gestures: shaking your cursor back and forth makes it zoom out so you can find it on wake; swiping two fingers across the trackpad on Mail means you can keep a message, and swiping left means you delete it; swiping on Safari tabs means you can store them as a pinned tab, and there’s a button in the address bar that helps you identify and mute noisy tabs.
3:15
Spotlight and Mail now have natural language search in El Capitan. You can search like stuff for “slides from Luke about Gizmodo” and you’ll find something I sent you.
Wait, why am I sending stuff to you? Go away.
3:16
Swiping three fingers up into the trackpad still takes you into Mission Control, but El Capitan mimicks iOS and lets you create tabbed windows within apps like Mail.
3:18
Mac OS X El Capitan is also getting Window Snapping. You know, like in Windows. Sorry not sorry, Microsoft.
3:19
Mission Control will also allow you to drag and drop stuff into new desktops and create split desktops with a drag.
Lots of oohs and aahs from the crowd.
3:20
Moving on to performance.
3:21
Apple is promising El Capitan will have 1.4x faster app launching, 2x faster app switching, and 4x faster PDF opening in Preview.
3:22
Oooh here’s something: Apple is bringing Metal — its gaming engine for iOS — to the Mac.
Basically it’s going to make gaming, drawing and image rendering on your MacBook even better.
Adobe, for example, is bringing it to Creative Cloud for Macs.
3:24
Josh Adams and Billy Bramer from Epic Games are showing off Fortnite built on Metal.
3:27
Fortnite demo over, we’re back with Craig Federighi.
3:28
So when can you get your hands on El Capitan? Well, Developers get it today, in July a public beta opens up again, and Aussies get it in Spring.
iOS 9
3:29
Now, onto iOS.
3:30
You guessed it: it’s iOS 9!
3:31
First, Siri.
Siri is getting smarter, mercifully.
Siri will now look like she does on Apple Watch, and she can also give you more contextual reminders. Take that, Cortana.
She also has context: open a page in Safari and ask Siri to remind you about it later, and she’ll know what you’re talking about.
Apple is also bringing “Proactive Siri” to the iPhone. For example, when you plug in your headphones it brings up the Now Playing information on the home screen. If it knows you’re in the car, it can also bring up the audiobook you were listening to.
She also gives you Time To Leave reminders and auto-scrape
Here’s an awesome feature I know Campbell Simpson will like: Siri will take unrecognised numbers, and scan your phone before you answer and let you know who it might be.
3:33
Search on iOS is also getting better: you can look at Movie recommendations from VEVO, YouTube and the iTunes Store and play them from the Search field.
Search is also getting an API so you can look for stuff inside your apps once devs tie them together to get results from inside your phone.
3:39
We’re looking at how Apple is bringing something it’s calling Intelligence to iOS 9. It’s all contextual.
3:40
Apple is making a promise that all this stuff happens on the device and it stays on the device. “We just don’t wanna know!” Craig says. Everything is anonymous.
3:41
It’s also worth knowing that Apple has made the noise for Siri cleaner in iOS 9.
3:41
Apple Pay time.
“I hope you’ve all tried Apple Pay,” Jennifer Bailey, VP of Apple Pay tells the crowd.
lolnope: not if you’re in Australia.
3:42
For what it’s worth, Jennifer Bailey is one of the first female presenters at a WWDC ever. Hooray!
3:43
Pinterst is launching Buyable Pins, so you’ll be able to purchase stuff in on iOS only.
3:44
Apple Pay is launching in the UK in July. Sorry, Australia.
When Apple Pay launches in the UK next month, you’ll be able to use it in loads of different retailers, as well as on the London Underground and other British transport institutions.
Store-based credit and debit cards are also being integrated into Apple Pay, as well as loyalty cards from places like Dunkin’ Donuts.
Please don’t talk about donuts, Apple. I haven’t had breakfast yet!
10:46
Apple is renaming Passbook. It’s now called Wallet for all your cards, of course.
10:47
Craig is back, with an update to Notes.
About 50 per cent of people use Notes on iOS, and now it’s getting formatting, picture and To Do list support.
You also get to draw stuff inside Notes on iOS 9, too.
Share sheets are also being updated to let you scrape links from your browsers into Notes. It’s becoming your do0-everything notebook.
iPad, iPhone and Mac Notes will soon be updated.
Apple Maps & Transit
3:48
Maps time. Here we go.
Maps is adding Transit support. You get multi-modal routing, stop information, line information, line maps and indoor maps of underground stations.
“We’ve taken special care to get the details right,” Craig says. Hmmmm.
Siri also knows about Transit inforation. Apple is rolling it out in about 8 cities around the world, and around 300 in China. None of these cities, in case you were wondering, are in Australia.
Bugger.
3:51
There’s also a new feature that lets you click on businesses to see if they support Apple Pay.
Apple News
3:52
Here comes Apple’s Flipboard competitor: it’s called News. Looks to be replacing Newsstand.
3:53
Susan Prescott is here to talk about News!
3:54
News lets you choose a bunch of interests relevant to you, and then puts it into a personalised view for you.
Publishers can create great new animated page turns.
Data and stats are also integrated into the new News app.
3:56
News also learns what you like to give you way more info. It’s tracking over a million interests. Search for “Swift” for example and you get info on everything from Taylor Swift through to Apple’s programming language, Swift. You can then add it to your favourites and follow everything you like.
3:58
The New York Times will deliver 30 articles for free every day; Conde Naste will bring free articles to the app; ESPN will bring free content and partners like Vox, Buzzfeed and
Australia, UK and US are launch markets for news.
Something we can use! Yay!
Split-Screen iPad Multi-Tasking
4:00
Craig is back talking about iPad.
Shortcuts have now been added to the QuickType suggestion bar: cut, copy, paste, bold, italic and insert attachment are all there.
You can also move the cursor by putting two fingers down on the bar to let you use it as a trackpad.
App Switching shortcuts are also coming.
4:02
Holy crap: Multi-Window view is here!
Double tapping the Home button gives you a new app switcher window, but sliding in from the left allows you to bring in another app to take up a quarter of your screen.
Tapping the divider also allows you to make that split-screen window bigger or smaller. It’s about time!
Oooh. Video windows now support Picture-In-Picture multi-tasking so you can bunk off and watch sports while you’re working.
4:07
Multi-tasking will be supported on iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 2 and iPad Mini 3.
4:08
Apple is also giving devices an extra hour of use with iOS 9.
To help extend your battery, Apple is giving you a low-power mode to extend life for an additional three hours on top of that additional hour.
iOS 9 tweaks
4:09
Here comes some fast news:
Free space required for OTA updates are also getting refined. From iOS 7 to iOS 8, you needed 4.6GB of free space. Now you only need 1.3GB free.
Developer APIs are also getting better: SpriteKit, SceneKit and Metal are all being updated, and three new APIs are being introduced. Gameplay Kit for advanced AI pathfinding, Model I/O for 3D models and ReplayKit for recording gameplay footage and sharing it.
Health is also about to track a bunch of new stuff, including hydration, UV exposure and reproductive health.
HomeKit is getting iCloud support so you can activate your smart home from anywhere.
CarPlay will now allow you to control stuff like your A/C and lights from the CarPlay UI. It’s also getting wireless support so you don’t have to plug your phone in when you get in the car.
4:13
Apple is now talking about Swift 2: the update to Apple’s own programming language introduced last year.
Swift 2 is going to be made Open Source. That has sent the developers into a standing ovation!
4:16
Developer Beta for iOS 9 comes in today, there’s also a public beta coming in July. The rest of us get it in Australia’s Spring.
Nobody gets dropped, either! Everything from iPad 2 onwards gets supported!
4:17
Tim Cook is back, presumably to talk about Watch OS.
4:18
Tim Cook says that over 100 billion apps have now been downloaded, and Apple has paid out over $30 billion to developers. Goodness.
4:19
Video time.
Presumably everyone’s Apple Watch is telling them to stand up right now. Everyone’s disobeying their wearable.
Apple WatchOS 2
4:26
Apple watchOS time. Native apps are coming to the device just six weeks after the Watch went on sale.
4:27
Kevin Lynch is here to talk more about the new version of watchOS, named watchOS 2.
We’re getting new timepiece functions, fitness gear, Apple Pay updates, Maps updates and Siri updates. Let’s get into it.
New faces include Photo face and photo album face, which lets you choose photos from your album to make faces out of, and Time Lapse face: Apple has shot time lapses in Hong Kong, New York, Shanghai and London that shows you the light in that city throughout the day.
There’s a new feature called Time Travel that lets you rotate the digital crown and advances the information on your complications as you rotate it.
You also get a Bedside Mode for when you’re charging your device that rotates it onto its side and lets you use it as a nifty alarm clock.
Developers can also make their own complications in WatchOS 2.
4:32
Digital Touch allows for drawings in multiple colours, and you can now group different people into different Friends circles on your Watch now too.
FaceTime Audio and Mail replies are getting supported in WatchOS 2, and native workout apps are also supported.
You can now tell Siri to start your workouts for you, and you get sexy new Achievements for when you score fitness goals. Those new achievements are also shareable.
4:34
Siri is also compatible with Transit directions and HomeKit gadgets for your smart home.
Holy crap. That’s a lot of new gear.
4:35
Native apps mean the App Logic (the smarts) run locally on your Watch so everything happens faster, smoother and cleaner from your Watch so you don’t have to wait as long.
Watch can also run with known Wi-Fi networks when you move away from your phone.
Developers are getting access to a bunch of stuff in WatchOS 2, including:
• microphone
• audio speaker support and Bluetooth speaker support
• video playback
• native access to HealthKit including streaming heart rate data for apps like Strava
• HomeKit native support
• Accelerometer access and support
• Taptic Engine for haptic feedback
• Digital Crown access for custom UI elements
That means your Watch apps are about to get so much better.
4:38
Demo time.
4:43
WatchOS 2 follows the same timeline that all the new software does: new developer beta out today, regular folk get it in Spring in Australia.
Apple Music
4:44
Tim Cook is back for one more thing!
4:45
Hot damn. Here comes the music service.
But before that, a look back at Apple’s contribution to music in a new video.
4:46
“Today we’re announcing Apple Music,” says Tim Cook, as he brings up Jimmy Iovine to talk about it.
Jimmy said something about the fusion of art and music, there’s a video playing now, and it looks freaking gorgeous.
It allows you to stream from iPhone, gives you hand-picked playlists and gives you access to Beats One: a 24/7 music streaming radio station.
Artists will also be able to share stuff to their fans with the new music streaming service thanks to a feature called Connect. Hello again, Ping.
Iovine says it’s “all the ways you love music, in one place”. It’s one app for your iDevice that lets you access your tunes.
“The most important thing about the song you’re listening to is what comes next,” Iovine says. He adds that next tracks are often a buzzkill, because “algorithms alone can’t do that emotional task”. So Apple will create a hand-picked, on-demand music streaming service to give you better playlists to have sex to, essentially.
4:55
Here’s what we don’t know: library size, price, release date, supported devices, or whether Taylor Swift will be on it.
4:55
Eddy Cue is here to tell us more, hopefully.
4:57
It starts with your Music on device, where you get everything you own and have on your iDevice. Then you get to For You, which is recommendations, then New, which is a weekly updated chart-style section.
4:58
BBC’s Zane Lowe is up to talk about the Beats One radio station. People are making shows for it, it’s 24/7 and it’s coming from New York, LA and London. Excited? Kinda.
4:59
For Connect, we’re focussing on Pharrell, who is in the audience, mind you.
5:00
Drake is now here to talk us through it.
5:00
Drake is talking about how tech changes what he does for a living. “I’m from Toronto, Canada,” he says to huge woo-hoos.
Drizzy is talking to devs and consumers about Connect, saying that all of the new mixtapes, photos and notes go straight to fans.
It’s a bit of waffle, but at least he’s got a rad, vintage WWDC jacket.
5:04
Eddy Cue is here to give us a look at the new Music app.
There’s a new persistent bottom bar that always keeps your Now Playing present, and album artwork is getting a spruce too.
Oh Jesus: Eddy Cue is dad-dancing. Someone make that a GIF ASAP please.
5:06
You can now add your own artwork to playlists, too. It gets the full iOS 9 treatment and gives you transparent colours and glass looks.
5:07
Apple’s For You section makes you choose a few genres you like, then a few artists you like to make some recommendations. From there, it connects you with human-curated playlists.
Another Pharrell mention. $20 says he’s here to perform…?
5:10
So, now we’re listening to Beats One. It feels very BBC Radio 1.
5:12
We’re now looking at Connect. Everyone from Pharrell through to Alabama Shakes are getting the Connect treatment, posting new stuff for their fans. The most interesting thing is that unsigned artists are able to post their new stuff. That’s really great.
5:14
Siri now has deeper integration into Music: you can ask her to play the Top 10, and she can do that. You can even get specific with Siri and Music: asking her to play a top track from a particular year means that she’ll do it. You can also get her to play songs from movies.
Whoops, bit of a Siri snafu right there.
5:15
It’s launching on June 30 with iOS 8.4, and there’s a new Windows iTunes client coming, as well as (wait for it) an Android version. Whoa.
It’s $US9.99 per month for individuals and $US14.99 per month for up to six family members. The first three months will be free for everyone too.
No Australian pricing yet, but we’ll keep you posted.
5:19
Tim Cook is back, wrapping us up and thanking Apple employees.
5:21
The Weekend just debuted a new track in a live performance at WWDC! It had bass so strong my eyes were nearly pulled from my head.
5:27
And that’s all she wrote! We’ll try to bring you hands-ons with new products later on today!
5:28
Thanks for joining us.
Luke Hopewell travelled to WWDC 2015 as a guest of Apple.