Bits & Pixels WWDC 2015 Special Edition

Welcome to a special special edition of the Bits & Pixels newsletter. Not only are we recapping Apple developer conference, affectionally known as WWDC, but we are also pushing this version of the newsletter on Medium’s new Letters platform.

While there were a ton of new programs, features and announcements, the 4 most important takeaways from the 2015 WWDC keynote session were the following:

#Apple Music

• Without a doubt the biggest announcement of the keynote was Apple Music. After years of a rumored overhaul to iTunes Music, prepitated after the Beats purchased, Apple unveil a new app / service that allows users to stream unlimited music for a fixed monthly fee. While folks quickly compared it to Spotify, Apple Music is a much more grandiose bet. Apple wants to combine the catalog of Spotify with the library of demos, uncut and unfinished tracks that live on Soundcloud. Apple wants this to be the only stop for music.As a music fan, this is great news, as I won’t have to scour 1001tracklist for the latest EDM music and Spotify to get my Pet Shop Boys fix.
• Using a similar strategy as iTunes, Apple Music, while available at first on iOS, will be launched on Android devices soon thereafter.

#iOS 9 and Siri

• While iOS 7 and 8 ushered in a new look and feel and features respectively, one of iOS 9 key focus was to squash bugs and make the inner workings of the operating system not only faster but have it take a smaller footprint. Because of those offers, iOS 9 will take less space to install and help some iOs device gain an entire extra hour of battery life.
• Another mini-announcement within iOS 9 was a new layer called Proactive. Think of Proactivenot so much of an app but rather a layer that permeates several key features such as Siri and Spotlight (desktop search). This layer will enable Siri and the your phone to suggest search results of apps based on your location and what you usually do (behavior)
• Not to be outdone by the Microsoft Surface tablet, Apple announced a set of new multitasking features, led by Splitview, a feature in iOS9 that would allow you to have two apps opened at the same time side-by-side.

#El Capitan

• The Next Operating System from Apple was announced as expected . And it’s obvious from the feature touts that Apple really spent this next released, dubbed El Capitan, on improving performance. Touting improvements by factors of 4 in the speed a PDF opens up in preview to programs opening twice as fast, the engineers and leaders at iOS wanted to get ahead of some of the calls about their last operating system being a bit bloated.

#News App & Apple Pay

• Apple also announced, News, a totally new version of Newstand. News allows you to get articles based on your personal taste from any content publisher that is part of the program.
• Content publishers who are launch partners include The Economist, Vanity Fair, Financial Times, Time, Wired, BuzzFeed,Vox, the New York Times, Bloomberg Business and TheVerge. While the News app will read normally constructed articles, content publishers will also be able to construct articles in a proprietary format to take advantage of some of the apps experiential features like inline video and asset animation. Looks like content publishers will have to publish articles in a variety of formats to take advantage of the various platforms.
• Apple announced that Square, the if-you’ve-ordered-from-a-lunch-truck-you’ve-ordered-through-square startup will be releasing an Apple Pay compatible reader this fall. Additionally Apple Pay will be making it’s debut in the United Kingdom

If you think we’ve missed an important announcement let us know by replying below