5 most important announcements at WWDC 2015

Tim Cook kicked off WWDC 2015 with more confidence and swagger than we’ve ever seen from the Apple CEO before. There’s little wonder Cook was in such a relaxed mood: Apple is currently fighting many different battles… and winning most of them.

WWDC 2015 was Apple’s most wide-stretching conference to date. With the world’s biggest technology company covering tech from the Apple Watch, to the new Mac OS X El Capitan, to CarPlay for in-car tech.

To help you make (quickly) make sense of the the event, here are the 5 most important announcements at WWDC 2015.

1. OS X El Capitan

OS X Yosemite was a huge success for Apple, smashing records with installations that dwarfed Windows 8 and 8.1’s figures. 2015 sees Yosemite step down and OS X El Capitan take the limelight. Spotlight, window management and built-in apps are the three areas Apple has focused most on improving in its Mac OS. Read more about OS X El Capitan.

2. iOS 9: Apple Pay, Siri, Maps and News all get updated

Apple is giving iOS a massive overhaul. Perhaps the biggest news about iOS 9, to us in the UK, is that Apple Pay will be available here from July. Siri has also been upgraded, making it more intelligent and proactive as a digital assistant – in fact, it was noticably similar to Android’s Now on Tap feature, which was announced at Google I/O 2015. However, the biggest cheer of the night come from the announcement that the programming language, Swift 2, would be made open source. Read more about iOS 9’s new features here.

3. HomeKit gets Apple Watch and iCloud support, plus CarPlay goes Wireless

Apple has completed the next logical step in its CarPlay journey by making the system completely wireless – users can now keep their iPhones in their pockets and still access native apps using CarPlay. HomeKit has received an update, too. Now users can control any of their HomeKit-connected devices through iCloud. Make sense of what Apple is doing with HomeKit and CarPlay in 2015 here.

4. $9.99 Apple Music coming on 30 June

As expected, Apple Music was announced too. The new service, also available on Android, will be available from $9.99 from 30 June and will offer users a Siri-integrated (on iOS) music-streaming service to rival Spotify. Apple Music music is far from a clone of Spotify though, with scores of interesting new features and ways to interact. Learn about them all in our introduction to Apple Music article.

5. Apple previews watchOS 2

Apple Watch has only been around for a couple of months and it’s already set to receive a software update. The update brings new watch faces, third-party app information and closer ties with native apps. Find out about the Apple Watch updates here.