How to co-watch the WWDC 2022 keynote and session videos together with friends

Learn how to co-watch the WWDC 2022 keynote and session videos together with friends and colleagues, with everyone’s playback kept in sync.

The Apple Developer app icon is displayed in the center of this featured image, set against a light blue gradient in the background

Organizing a WWDC watch party, aren’t we?

Apple lets you watch its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, in a myriad of ways. You’ll be able to follow along via apple.com, through the company’s YouTube channel and in the official Apple TV app, to mention just a few examples. But wouldn’t it be great if you could co-watch the WWDC keynote and session videos along with friends and colleagues? Everyone could react in real-time and learn what others think of any particular announcement—right as it happens. Read: How to message someone on WhatsApp without saving their number first

As it turns out, there’s an app for that! So without further ado, follow along with our quick step-by-step tutorial right ahead to learn how to organize a watch party to enjoy the WWDC keynote and other videos with the people who matter to you.

How to watch the WWDC keynote together with friends

To watch the WWDC keynote with others, use the most recent version of the Apple Developer app which now supports SharePlay. For those unfamiliar with SharePlay, it’s one of the tentpole new features in iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1 and macOS Monterey 12.2. With it, you can watch and listen together on FaceTime on your iPhone, iPad or Mac. Read: How to co-watch videos in FaceTime with SharePlay

The Apple Developer website:

The Developer app now supports SharePlay so that you can watch videos together with your friends and colleagues. To get started, simply initiate a FaceTime call, then go to the Developer app to begin playback. Once inside the app, you can choose whether to play the video on your own device or share it with everyone on the call. On iOS and iPadOS, you can also start SharePlay from the share sheet.

SharePlay lets you enjoy TV shows, movies and music with friends on a FaceTime call. The biggest things about SharePlay: Synced playback and shared controls. Not only does SharePlay ensure everyone sees and hears the same moments at the same time but also adjusts the audio dynamically as people on the call start chatting.

This year’s WWDC runs from June 6 through June 10. This WWDC will also be an all-online event that anyone will be able to attend from the comfort of their sofa. The pre-taped keynote is set to start broadcasting on Monday, June 6, at 10am PDT.

What does the Apple Developer app do?

If you’ve never used the Apple Developer app, it’s your hub for everything WWDC, whether it be the latest technical information, news, developers’ stories, features and whatnot. You can also browse content from previous WWDCs and download videos to watch offline. You need version 10.0 of the app to take advantage of SharePlay.

Aside from support for SharePlay, the update also packs in a redesigned interface for macOS with the new Discover and WWDC tabs. The Discover tab is where you catch up on the latest stories, news, videos and more. The WWDC tab is, of course, for all things regarding the conference. You’ll be able to browse this tab throughout the WWDC 2022 for the complete schedule of each day’s session videos, labs, Digital Lounge activities and Coding and Design Challenges. You can even sign up for labs and Digital Lounges right in the app to connect with Apple engineers.

There’s a new interface to search for existing sessions, videos, articles and news more easily. Also, Apple Developer 10.0 lets you download and favorite content to read or watch later. You don’t need to be Apple’s registered developer to download and use the app. Read: How to live-stream to YouTube from Apple devices

WWDC videos, a gold mine of fresh new information

You’d be right to think that only true geeks watch WWDC keynotes. The normals who may not have even heard about WWDC will learn about the most important announcements from their favorite newspapers the following day. But if you’re a techie, a developer or just a true fan who’s excited to see what’s in store for Apple’s operating systems, you should watch the keynote.

And not just the main keynote, but also the Platforms State of the Union talk that’s more of a deep dive into Apple’s new platform technologies that the actual keynote, which only surfaces the most headline-worthy features. And on top of that you have tons of session videos. And if you’re a developer or an enthusiast who knows what to look for (and where), you’ll find these videos a gold mine of the little things, under-the-hood improvements and other features that couldn’t fit in the main keynote.

You can download the Apple Developer app for free [App Store link]