A GATHERING of digital professionals will watch Apple’s announcement of its latest innovations as it is beamed live from California tonight.

Mobile Dorset, the informal gathering of mobile developers and designers, is hosting a screening of Apple boss Tim Cook’s keynote presentation from the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in California, from 5.30pm.

He is expected to announce a music streaming service to rival Spotify, alongside software updates for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The latest version of its iOS mobile operating system will be iOS 9 and there will be a new generation of Mac OS X, which runs on its desktops and laptops.

Tonight’s Bournemouth event – believed to be the only one of its kind in the area – will take place at the County Gates offices of app creator 3 Sided Cube. It will feature local professionals and students.

A similar gathering to watch Google’s last update attracted around 40 people and was one of a small number taking place in the UK outside London.

Matt Cheetham, lead iOS developer at 3 SIDED CUBE, recently blogged about his expectations of the announcement.

He hoped it would include bug fixes and Proactive, the equivalent of the Google Now intelligent personal assistant app for Android.

“We really, really want Apple to have spent the last year making iOS more stable,” he wrote.

“We aren’t the first people to point out that the stability and quality of Apple’s software has been in decline. iOS 7 wasn’t anywhere near stable until 7.1 and iOS 8 dropped a bunch of unfinished APIs (application program interfaces) and an unstable health app onto our plates. It seems like the yearly release cycle is just too much for Apple to handle, always desperate to release new features and wow the world.

“To be honest, as developers all we really want is a stable operating system with some well thought out, functional API’s to build on top of.”

This year, a lot of attention is on how Apple will approach the music streaming business, with the California-based firm expected to announce a revamp of the Beats Music app.

The app came to Apple as part of their acquisition of Dr Dre's Beats Audio for £1.9bn last year, and is now set to be used to power the new service, which is set to take on Spotify and Jay-Z's TIDAL platform.

There have been rumours that musicians such as Drake and Pharrell Williams have curated special playlists to be included in the service.

No details have been confirmed, but early reports suggest a £9.99 a month subscription-based system will form the backbone of the app.

Remaining tickets for tonight's Bournemouth event are available via an Eventbrite link at mobiledorset.com.

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