Apps shine at Apple's WWDC

Apple Inc's Worldwide Developers Conference held in San Francsico's Moscone Center could be pretty much summed on as "The app that I can't live without."

Kicking off their 25th annual WWDC on Monday, Apple chose to forgo the revelations of new hardware in favor of updates to software and the introduction of new developer-focused features, including a new coding language.

The conference, which lasts a week, features 100 different sessions and 120 labs where developers can interact and learn to create applications for Apple products with the help of over 1,000 Apple engineers.

Originally started in 1989 with about 1,300 attendees, Apple's WWDC has become one of the world's major technology events.

As is tradition at the WWDC, Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage to detail updates in statistics in the Apple world. Cook noted rise in the number of registered developers, gains in operating system user base, and made a typical jab at competitors.

The kick off "reveal" of the day was the announcement of Apple's desktop operating system, OS X Yosemite. The current OS X, Mavericks, released last year was seen as a major overhaul of the 13-year-old operating system. This update is essentially a facelift for OS X. New features on Yosemite include better search integration, notifications with widgets, and windows with transparency.

Perhaps the biggest addition to OS X is a new feature set called Continuity. With Continuity, Apple users now have better integration between their desktop and mobile computing. Users can move content and work seamlessly between the MacBook and the iPhone. The MacBook can connect with the iPhone and make phone calls. Federighi demonstrated the phone call ability with a quick call to Apple's newest "employee" the famous hip-hop musician and mogul Dr. Dre.

Moving on from the desktop operating system, Apple also introduced new updates to its mobile operating system iOS with the announcement of iOS 8.

Cook claimed the previous, iOS 7 has an overall satisfaction rating of 97% and that "nearly half of our customers in China have switched from an Android to an iPhone".

According to Apple, iOS 8 builds on the clean and slick design of iOS 7. The biggest new features include new interactive notifications, health tracking, as well as the same Continuity features found on the Mac.

Apple also upgraded the messages application to include features that are found on popular messaging apps such as Tencent's WeChat and Line Corps Line.

Apple's long rumored foray into health and fitness came in the addition of Health Kit to iOS 8. Health Kit's application, Health, can keep track of various health and fitness statistics as well as integrate with third-party hardware that tracks fitness.

Another major feature of iOS 8 is Family Sharing which shares content between devices and keeps tracks of accounts. Family Sharing has a feature that alerts parents to children who are trying buy and app and allows them to complete or cancel the child's purchase.

The latter half of the WWDC keynote was focused purely on developers and technologies that enable developers.

Apple is also planning to release a big update to its software development kit. This new SDK will include application programing interface tools that help developers create applications that use Apple's hardware to the fullest extent.

On top of opening up Apple hardware to developers, Apple has now put forward a new software coding language called Swift. The new coding language is said to make content creation much easier, with the addition of real time monitoring.

OS X Yosemite and iOS will be free when released to the masses this fall. So far there is no word on any new Apple hardware.