During the keynote address on the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), the company made a number of noteworthy announcements. The new streaming music service is getting most of the attention from consumers, but the company also unveiled a number of updates of interest to enterprise developers, including the following:
- iOS 9: The latest version of the mobile operating system offers better battery life, security enhancements, built-in transit maps and multi-tasking for iPads. In addition, the Siri personal assistant is becoming more proactive, and the iOS will open commonly used apps automatically, which could boost app usage stats for mobile development firms.
- WatchOS 2: The original watchOS was just released this spring, but it’s already getting an update. It adds new watch faces, new communications capabilities and a Time Travel feature. In addition, the new WatchKit allows developers to access the Digital Crown, Taptic Engine, heart-rate sensor, accelerometer, microphone and audio and video playback and animation.
- Swift 2.0: Apple announced it is open sourcing the programming language and that it will roll out libraries for iOS, OSX and Linux by the end of the year.
Apple also announced a new version of OS X named El Capitan and updates to Apple Pay.
