In announcing WatchKit and an accompanying SDK for developing apps for the Apple Watch, the Cupertino firm originally said in a November 2014 press release that “starting later next year, developers will be able to create fully native apps” for the wrist-worn device.
As Apple's op-chief Jeff Williams joined journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher on stage at Recode Conference earlier this morning, we got our official confirmation that native watch apps are indeed arriving this fall.
Apple on Tuesday seeded the fourth beta of the upcoming OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 software to both developers and public testers. The update, labeled build 14E26a, is available through the Update tab in the Mac App Store, and the Dev Center for all registered Mac developers.
OS X 10.10.4 has been in testing since mid-April, and we have yet to see it bring about any significant user-facing changes or new features. It appears that the release will be more of a maintenance update, as Apple attempts to iron out remaining bugs and other known issues.
Apple began sending out emails to registered developers on Wednesday, announcing that App Analytics Beta is now available to all devs, no request needed. The company debuted the analytics platform, which will give developers a detailed look at their app statistics, earlier this month in a limited request-only beta test.
The feature is free to those with a $99/year iOS Developer Program membership, and offers up a wide range of useful data for app-makers. With it, developers can view information like active app users, length of sessions, total number of sessions, and see which websites or promotions are driving the most traffic to their apps.
Apple seeded iOS 8.4 beta 3 to developers this morning. The build number is 12H4098c, and it can be downloaded over-the-air by folks running beta 2, or via Apple's developer portal. Additionally, Apple has released iOS 8.4 beta 2 to testers part in the public beta program.
The release comes two weeks after iOS 8.4 beta 2 posted, and roughly a month after the original. The timing is also interesting because Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, where it is expected to introduce the next major version of iOS (iOS 9) is just 3 weeks away.
Apple touts rich personalization through custom faces as one of the cornerstones of its wearable device, but not everyone agrees. Skimming through your comments paints quite a different picture as tinkerers and jailbreakers alike are clearly big on the idea of third-party faces for the Apple Watch.
As much as built-in ones are customizable with tint colors and complications, surely official Twitter or Facebook faces that showed current status, photos and what not would have been much appreciated, am I right?
As third-party faces development is a highly polarizing issue among the Apple faithful, we're curious to hear your position on the matter.
So, should Apple deliver?
Microsoft just wrapped up this morning's lengthy Build 2015 keynote in San Francisco, California, where it mades several announcements. Most of the stage time was devoted to upcoming products like the HoloLens and the new Windows 10 platform, but there was some talk of iOS and Mac in there, which we've rounded up for you.
Apple has begun notifying developers who signed up for the Apple Watch Sport lottery on the Developer Center if they have been randomly selected to make the purchase. It allows many who pay the $100 iOS Developer Program fee to bypass the long waitlist of Apple Watch orders the public is facing and get the Watch earlier.
Apple on Tuesday began sending out emails to select iOS developers, giving them the chance to purchase a 42mm Apple Watch with a Blue Sport band that is guaranteed to arrive by April 28, 2015. Supplies are of course extremely limited, so Apple says that it is choosing the developers via a lottery system.
The move is part of an ongoing effort to help app developers test their WatchKit apps directly on Apple Watch, which can help them gather much better performance data than the Mac simulator. Prior to pre-orders, Apple was said to be inviting some developers to its Cupertino headquarters for such testing.
Were you lucky enough to get a ticket to the "epicenter of change"?
Instead of putting up tickets and letting the fastest purchase them within minutes, Apple now uses a lottery system to sell tickets to its World Wide Developers Conference.
The 2015 lottery for a chance to get a WWDC ticket ended at 10AM PST on Friday, and over the weekend, Apple began notifying developers who signed up for a chance to attend the five-day, twenty-sixth in a row WWDC if they get a ticket or not.
Today, Apple's made good on its promise to make ResearchKit available to developers and medical researchers. As announced in a media release Tuesday, medical researchers can tap into ResearchKit to write custom apps while developers are permitted to contribute new research modules to ResearchKit.
ResearchKit was designed as an open source software framework to help doctors and scientists mass-gather accurate data from participants using specialized iPhone apps. With today's ResearchKit release, it's now possible to create medical apps for Android in a true open-source fashion.
Apple this morning announced that its annual developers conference will be kicking off on Monday, June 8, and already social media is trending with news of a revised terms prohibiting the use of selfie sticks and monopods at the show.
“You may not use selfie sticks or similar monopods within Moscone West,” or in the whole Yerba Buena Gardens area around it for that matter, as per this note describing attendance policy available on Apple's WWDC 2015 webpage.
So what's going on here?
Apple's annual summer pilgrimage for its Mac and iOS developers, the Worldwide Developers Conference, is kicking off on Monday, June 8, 2015 and lasting through Friday, June 12, the company confirmed this morning.
The five-day conference, twenty-sixth in a row, will take place at San Francisco’s Moscone West, “with more sessions than ever before streamed” online.
Like prior WWDCs, this year's conference will give Apple's developer community and users around the world much more than a glimpse into the future of iOS and OS X.