Apple, known for its steady stream of slick consumer electronic devices, used its annual developer conference in San Francisco to roll out a raft of millennial-friendly texting tools to enhance emojis, image sharing and add animations to messages. Among a two-hour stream of product announcements at the annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) event, Apple engineers demonstrated the latest update of Apple's smartphone software iOS, which will now let iPhone users add larger emojis, see photos and videos appear in a stream of text messages, add animated effects and "emojify" messages by converting typed words into emoji. Opening the event with a moment of silence for the victims of the weekend's shooting at a gay night club in Orlando, CEO Tim Cook – who has become a leader on gay rights issues since talking about his own sexuality in 2014 – called the attacks a "senseless unconscionable act of terrorism and hate aimed at dividing and destroying". Cook then set about laying out his vision for a future where Apple's software forms the central hub of its customers' lives, helping track their fitness, send love notes, navigate the road and trade pictures of cute dogs. Apple is clearly responding to the voice of the consumer; messages is the most popular app on iOS, and the new features are designed to offer more playful options that replicate some successful third party messaging apps. "We're providing emoji predictions as you type," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering.

If Apple's battle with the FBI in the case centered on the iPhone 5C of the San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook showed the world anything, it was that the company is serious about protecting its customers' privacy. Consistent with engaging in a high-profile fight with the law enforcement agency over its insistence on keeping all its customers' data on their iPads and iPhones, Apple has fallen behind the likes of Facebook, Google and Microsoft in leveraging the power of cloud computing to launch more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) features in operating systems and applications. Apple doubled down on that privacy stance Monday, even as the company revealed it was working on a new technology that would allow it to roll out more advanced AI features while keeping its customers' data safe from prying eyes. Called "differential privacy," this technology enables both the anonymity of data and the spotting of trends, with one privacy expert describing it as "visionary." The firm not only opened its digital assistant Siri to third-party app developers but also made it available on desktop personal computers.

Kevin Lynch, Apple's vice president of technology, previewed a new operating system for the Apple Watch that will make the wearable operate faster and will include new health, fitness and navigation capabilities when it becomes available in the fall. Users have noted the device's slow load time for apps as one of its major shortcomings, but Lynch said "in watchOS 3, your favorite apps should respond instantly."

Apple has made a landmark change to its 15-year-old desktop and laptop operating system. OS X has become macOS Sierra. The change was announced on stage in San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium by Apple's Craig Federighi, ditching the naming scheme devised under the watch of founder Steve Jobs on his return to the company in 1997. The OS X nomenclature had reached OS X 10.11 with El Capitan, but Apple's next version will be simply named macOS Sierra, bringing it in line with the naming convention for its mobile and tablet operating system iOS. Apart from a name change, Apple has overhauled iTunes and Apple music, while macOS will finally gain full Siri integration, after Apple's voice assistant was first introduced on iOS with the iPhone 4S in October 2011.

The next version of Apple's software for the iPhone and iPad, iOS 10, will feature enhanced 3D touch features, expanded Siri and an improved lock screen plus overhauls to Photos, Music and Messages. Apple has also improved notifications, allowing apps to provide rich notifications that are activated via 3D touch gestures in the notification pane, as well as the widget pane and via the lock screen. Siri is now open to third-party developers, which means apps like WeChat can be accessed straight from the voice-control window. While the Apple QuickType keyboard now has part of Siri's machine learning to allow it to predict your responses based on what is happening on the rest of the phone. Apple Photos now has facial, scene and object recognition built in, which is performed on device, as well as the ability to view your photos on a map and to automatically group photos for topics, trips, people and other activities in what Apple calls "Memories".

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is taking place in San Francisco, where Tim Cook and other executives are expected to reveal changes to Apple operating systems, give Siri a bigger role, and make the App Store more compelling for developers. We'll be live-blogging here, as our reporters at the Bill Graham Auditorium, follow the coverage. Thanks the audience and Apple community and ends WWDC. App varies from teaching young people simple code to introducing more complicated coding features. "Swift Playground will revolutionize the way people learn to code," Cook said.

Apple's developer conference kicked off in San Francisco Monday. SAN FRANCISCO – Apple unloaded an avalanche of evolutionary news at its developers conference Monday, an effort to tout the power of its iOS ecosystems. From confirming speculation that Siri would be opening up to app creators to a new messaging app that can suggest emojis, Apple's top executives offered a smorgasbord of updates that were all about making it easier for consumers to interact with Apple's hardware. "You're a part of everything we do now," Apple CEO Tim Cook told the 5,000 developers gathered at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for the kickoff to WWDC 2016. "We think it's crucial that we provide the best tools so you can create the best apps."

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn just lit up the cloud wars. The giant maker of Windows software missed out on the consumer boom. Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft is reaching for riches in the "cloud," doubling down on software and services delivered over the Internet on a variety of platforms and devices. With the 26.2 billion acquisition of the Facebook of professional networks, Microsoft is placing a big bet that bringing together its "professional cloud" and LinkedIn's professional network will help the pair create valuable services for business customers and accelerate Microsoft's shift from traditional software to the cloud, where it's taking on fellow titans of technology Amazon.com and Google. As more companies realize the benefits of shifting software and data off their own computers, tech giants and a slew of start-ups are battling ever more aggressively for these clients.

In case Siri coming to macOS wasn't enough for you, Apple Pay is joining the virtual assistant on desktops and laptops. That means you'll now be able to use the service on the web, making it faster and simpler to check out on some of your favorite shopping sites. Meanwhile, to help with productivity, macOS Sierra will feature a picture-in-picture mode, similar to what we've seen on the iPad. Without a doubt, the biggest announcement is Siri expanding outside of iOS. Functionality-wise, Siri for macOS can control apps and do web searches -- and tell you jokes, of course, because we all know how important that is. For its part, macOS Sierra is set to release in the fall as a free upgrade.

Siri has been spreading its wings over the last year. Apple introduced the voice-activated helper to its watch and TV to make life more hands-free for the users. But the virtual assistant steered clear of the desktop until now. As reported earlier this year, Siri is coming to the Mac.