Developing for iOS 9
iOS 9 SDK includes new APIs and services that enable new categories of apps and features. Multitasking and gaming APIs help enhance app functionality and create immersive games. Expanded search capabilities, and new support for CloudKit, HomeKit, HealthKit, and MapKit extend iOS to more places than ever before.
Take advantage of 3D Touch.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus introduce an entirely new way to interact with your phone. For the first time, iPhone senses how much pressure you apply to the display.
Multitasking
Multitasking in iOS 9 help users get more done more easily, and takes advantage of the large display on iPad to create new experiences with two iPad apps running at the same time. Use size classes in Interface Builder to support multitasking in your app and let your users take advantage of Slide Over, Split View, and Picture in Picture.
Slide Over is a quick way to interact with a second app without leaving the app you’re in.
With Split View, users can have two apps open and active at the same time.
Picture in Picture lets users continue watching a video while moving from app to app.
Search
Make it easy for users to discover information in your apps by surfacing the content of your apps and websites in Search on iOS 9. And with seamless universal linking, you can take users to the best place to view the results.
Build even more amazing games.
With the latest advancements in SceneKit, SpriteKit, and Metal, games on iOS are better than ever. iOS 9 brings even more powerful, easy-to-use gaming technologies. GameplayKit makes it simple to build better quality games that involve complex rules, states, and behaviors. Model I/O gives you powerful control over the rendering of physical object models with materials and realistic lighting. ReplayKit lets users easily record and share great game content.
GameplayKit
Leverage the GameplayKit tools to develop complex rule-based games with an easy-to-use rule engine. Agent and behavior features let you map real world behavior on game characters. A state machine helps manage game and player states and a randomization engine creates challenging gameplay.
ReplayKit
Games can leverage ReplayKit to record video of their content, and allow the user to quickly edit the video within the app and share it online.
Model I/O
Model I/O provides physically-based materials, models, and lighting for SceneKit, GameplayKit, and Metal that you can integrate into your games.
App Thinning
With iOS 9, the App Store allows users to download apps that are specifically optimized for their device. This means apps will download, install and launch faster while taking up less storage space than before. Build support for slicing, on-demand resources, and bitcode, and give your users smaller, more convenient updates to your apps.
HomeKit
HomeKit gives iOS users the ability to set up and control HomeKit enabled accessories easily and securely with Siri and third party apps. With iOS 9, we have expanded support for the types of accessories you can use, made set up even easier, and provided more ways to interact with accessories, including remotely with iCloud.
HealthKit
HealthKit allows apps providing health and fitness services to access shared health-related information in one place. New data points are now available to store reproductive health, UV exposure, water intake, and sedentary state.
MapKit
Customize your maps with more options for displaying callouts and pins. And with iOS 9, you can offer directions via public transit and enable Flyover within your app.
CloudKit
CloudKit keeps your iOS and Mac apps connected and up-to-date. And now, with CloudKit JS, you can provide a web interface for your users to access the same data as your apps, making it easier to build apps that work together like never before.
Safari and Web Content
More features of Safari are now available to your app, including Reader mode, support for AutoFill, and access to browsing history. Apps can also provide extensions for Safari that block content and surface shared links.
News Publisher
The new Apple News Format allows publishers to craft beautiful editorial layouts and custom typography in the all-new News app. News Publisher makes it easy to distribute interactive and engaging stories optimized for iPhone and iPad.
Swift 2. Now everyone can build amazing apps.
Swift is an innovative programming language with modern features that produces safe, lightning-fast apps for OS X, iOS, and watchOS. Swift 2.0 builds on the incredible popularity and power of Swift, delivering features that help developers write even better code, including advanced error-handling, availability checking, and lots of enhancements to syntax. And Swift will reach an even larger audience later this year when Apple makes it available as an open source project.
Xcode 7 and iOS SDK
Download Xcode 7 and iOS 9 to build and submit your apps today.
WWDC Session Videos
Watch and learn from our engineers as they explain how to bring the best of Apple technologies to your apps.
Documentation
Find a comprehensive set of programming guides, reference, and sample code for iOS 9.