Apple’s biggest event of the year is their developers’ conference. So what’s in store at this week’s shindig?

IT’S the biggest event on the Apple calendar. So what does the tech giant have planned for this week’s developers’ conference?

THE Apple Watch is set for a major change just a few months after its launch with app developers invited to create smarter and better apps that directly use the sensors built into Apple’s wearable device.

Rather than unveiling another new iGadget, one of the big announcements coming this week (June 8-12) at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco will allow developers to use specific features of the Watch, including the Digital Crown, motion and the heart-rate sensors.

GAME CHANGER: How the Apple Watch was developed

Delayed release ... developers are about to get their hands on even more features of Apple’s Watch. Pictures: Justin Lloyd

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Although when the Watch was launched in April it came with more than 1000 third-party apps, the makers of those apps were locked out from directly using many of the Watch’s best features.

While Apple specialises in secrecy, operations chief Jeff Williams recently said that a new Watch app developers kit would be unveiled at the conference that is the biggest event of the year in the Apple calendar.

The delayed release of tools for app developers to use some of the Watch’s features follows the path the tech company has followed in allowing app developers to use the features of the iPhone.

When the iPhone was released, there was no App Store and it only came with Apple apps.

Even long after the App Store was created, it’s only relatively recently that Apple has opened up some of the iPhone’s features for use by third-party developers - additional keyboards being just one example.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is likely to give an update on the launch of the Apple Watch. There is some evidence to suggest that the Watch is the most successful Apple product yet, at least in terms of initial figures. Cook might use WWDC to confirm that.

What next? ... Since Apple bought Beats headphones the tech and music world have been wondering what their plans are.

Golden ticket ... the $24,000 gold Apple watch, shown here on the paw of the dog of Wang Sicong, the only son of Chinese billionaire and Jewel developer Wang Jianlin.

What else can we expect? Here’s five predictions.

1. New tools for Watch app developers and perhaps an update on the launch

of the next Watch.

2. Update to iOS, the software that runs your iPhone and iPod. This won’t

be a major redesign but tweaks around the edges.

3. The desktop won’t be ignored and Cook, or one of his colleagues, will

announce improvements to OSX, the desktop operating system.

4. When Apple bought Beats for $4 billion, many people asked why. The

answer is likely to come this week with news of a Beats streaming

music service. Let’s hope it launches in Australia.

5. Ready to live in a smarthome? Apple will announce an update to HomeKit

which will see more app-controlled products making life at home that

little bit easier.

Six things not to expect this week at WWDC

1. A new Apple Watch. Yes, Apple are working on the next version of the

Watch, with extra health sensors a likely improvement. But it’s not

coming just yet.

2. Apple is, if the rumours are true, working on its own self-driving

car. Maybe, or maybe not. If so, it won’t be arriving any time soon.

3, Back in the day, Apple used WWDC to unveil its new iPhones. But now

September is iPhone season so don’t look for an update to your iPhone

6 just yet.

4. There were great expectations for a new Apple TV but the smart money

is saying Apple has yet to finalised its content deals and that will

come later.

5. Apple has recently launched the new MacBook and updated the

MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and the iMac. Don’t expect anything new in

those areas yet.

6. Our head says Apple won’t be unveiling the long rumoured 12-inch

iPad pitched as a productivity tool. But our heart says please make it

so.