Outside Apple WWDC 2015, Excitement Builds For Apple Watch, HomeKit

SAN FRANCISCO -- Just minutes before the start of Apple's 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference, a line of hundreds of eager developers wrapped around the conference's Moscone West building. Unsurprisingly, many in the line were wearing Apple Watches and hoping Apple would announce more developer tools to create better apps for the wearable device.

"I heard that they were going to reveal the new [software developer kit] for the watch, which is interesting because right now it’s kind of limited. I’m looking forward to that, and I can start to imagine what other people are going to build with it,” said Camille Kander, an iOS developer who has owned his stainless steel Apple Watch for about a month.

Along with Kander, hundreds of other conference attendees donned Apple Watches of all kinds — all-black versions, blue with white straps or for the extra fancy, Apple Watches with leather straps. It’s only been a little more than a month since the Watch went on sale, and there is still a high level of excitement for the device from the developer community.

“I think [the Apple Watch] can change the way you make things,” said Raquel Chebabi, a Brazilian computer science researcher who flew 14 hours from São Paulo with her colleague for the conference. Chebabi does not yet own an Apple Watch but she said she was hoping to get one soon so she can start to tinker with it.

Besides the Apple Watch, there is also hope from developers that Apple will improve HomeKit, which is the technology Apple uses to let the iPhone communicate with connected devices, like smart speakers or smart appliances.

“I’m looking to some announcements around HomeKit and how that’s going to interact with Apple TV. That would be awesome, and it’d be possible to use within hotel rooms,” said Steven Sobotka, a project manager for Hyatt, who said he would love for his hotel guests to be able to control gizmos around their rooms using nothing more than their iPhones.