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Briefly: WWDC keynote online, developer programs merged
Apple's mammoth 2.5-hour WWDC 2015 keynote address was made available for on-demand viewing late Monday, and is now available on both the company's website and through its iTunes "Apple Events" podcasts at various resolutions. The six-minute film "The App Effect," seen during the keynote and demonstrating how apps can go beyond entertainment to give developers and users life-changing possibilities, is also available on Apple's YouTube channel, alongside other short films seen during the presentation.
The apps film addresses both the larger picture of how apps have changed the world generally (including the statistic that the average person has 119 of them), to specific examples, from Instagram's success starting from two guys in a garage to one developer who uses the platform to help deaf people "feel" music -- sometimes for the first time in their lives -- through bone conduction. The presentation includes an overview of the next versions of OS X and iOS as well as watchOS, and a look at Apple Music, a revamp of the iOS Music app that now includes an optional subscription component.
OS X, iOS, watchOS developer programs merged into one
Given the increasing convergence of utility and programming-level commonality between the three major Apple OS versions, Apple on Monday quietly announced it would merge the existing separate Mac and iOS developer programs in favor of a single, unified Apple Developer Program that also includes the now-emerging watchOS. A membership to the new program will remain at $99 a year, with members who have recently paid under the old system receiving pro-rated refunds.
For app makers who wanted to work on both iOS and Mac programs, the move cuts the cost of being a registered developer in half, which should also impact smaller companies that are sometimes hesitant to join. In addition to access to early betas and other benefits, two big advantages of being an Apple Developer Program member for Mac devs is being able to sell programs on the Mac App Store, as well as digitally sign apps, which allows the programs to pass through Apple's tough security program Gatekeeper, built into recent OS X versions. The new unified program also now offers developers to incorporate Apple Pay into their apps if desired.
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