At Apple’s WWDC conference this week the company announced watchOS 2. The new operating system will allow 3rd party developers to create apps that fully live on the Apple Watch and utilize of all the sensors and inputs available. With version 1 of the operating system, 3rd party apps only had access to the touch screen and were required to stream from an iPhone. This change will have a huge impact on the depth, quality, performance of apps. It will be exciting to see what developers dream of! The beta of the new OS is available now to developers and will officially launch this fall, likely along side iOS 9. Besides development tools, watchOS 2 does not offer much else new. The update, announced 6 weeks after Apple Watch started shipping, is likely comprised of features that were originally scheduled to be included at launch (the “new” watch faces, for example, had already been shown last September) but were not ready in time.
