Apple's WWDC 2025 Keynote Recap
Apple's World Wide Developer Conference 2025 Keynote was streamed today. As expected, Apple introduced a slew of new features, including enhancements for all of Apple's platforms. Let us start with numbering.
Numbering
Apple has a number of operating systems, six to be exact. This includes iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. Each of these has been introduced at different times, so their numbering has varied. Last year, iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS were all version 18. visionOS was 2, macOS was 15, and watchOS was 11. This could make it more difficult to be able to figure out which of an operating system correlates to another. This year, this all changes. The various numbers are hard enough for developers to keep track of which versions are compatible, let alone most users.
Now, all of Apple's operating systems, and some apps, including Xcode, will all have the same number, 26. As an example, iOS 26, or macOS 26. This means that it should become significantly easier to figure out if your devices are on the same versions. You might be thinking "it is 2025, so why is it 26“? Well, it is similar to car models, where the car released this year is for next year's model number. Similarly, Apple's operating systems are released in the fall, and most users do not get updates until November, so this approach makes sense.
The numbering is not the only big change; there is also an all-new design, so let us look at that.
Liquid Glass
The last major redesign for Apple's platforms was with iOS 7, back in 2013. When Apple did the design for iOS 7, they focused just on one operating system, and then brought it to macOS in 2014 with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite. After 12 years, there is a new design, called Liquid Glass. Liquid Glass is a redesign of more than just iOS. This time, it spans across all of Apple's operating systems. This will give them all a common look, but will still allow each operating system to be its own.
Liquid Glass is designed to have controls be transparent and show the background. Much like actual glass, the background colors will shine through and the background will refract through the elements to shine through. This applies to all operating systems and controls across them.
The new material, Liquid Glass, is translucent and behaves like glass in the real world. Its color is informed by surrounding content and intelligently adapts between light and dark environments. Born out of a close collaboration between the design and engineering teams, Liquid Glass uses real-time rendering and dynamically reacts to movement with specular highlights. This creates a lively experience that makes using iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV even more delightful.
Beyond the look, the new design is also designed to get out of the way when necessary. As an example, for the tab bar, it is now floating. Within the Music app, the "Now Playing" items float towards the bottom, and are expanded, like they are below.
Yet, when you scroll the tab bar will collapse, as to get out of the way, so you can see more of your content, like the image below shows.
Having a consistent look across all of Apple's operating systems should be a good thing. There are some that will not like the new look of Liquid Glass at first glance, but Apple is likely to tweak things, but it is not guaranteed. We will have to see what Apple ultimately chooses to do. Let us now move to another item, Communications.
Communications
One of the most used features of Apple's operating systems is to communicate with others. This may be through email, FaceTime, the Phone, and of course Messages. Messages will be getting a few enhancements, like background images for chats, and even polls, so everyone can vote on something. Additionally, typing indicators, and Apple Pay will be integrated into group chats. Messages will now also automatically filter out "Unknown Senders" to their own group, they will not show in your main list. Instead, they will be go to a separate list. You can set them as "known senders" and they will appear in main list. These changes will come to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS.
The Phone app is also getting some new features. This includes Hold Assist, Call Screening, and Live Translations. With Hold Assist, your call can stay connected, but you can continue to use your phone. You will be notified when an agent comes onto the line. Call Screening will allow you to screen phone calls before picking them up. Live Translations will allow you to automatically have speech by others translated into your language and vice versa. The Phone app also gets a redesign with Favorites, recents, and voicemails all appearing in a single view. You can also pin your favorites to the top so you can easily place a call with a single tap.
Furthermore, the Phone app now comes to iPad and the Mac, and they also get the same features. This means you can make phone calls directly from you other devices, albeit through your iPhone.
Let us look at some iPad specific changes.
iPadOS
When the iPad was first released, it was effectively a larger version of an iPhone without the phone. This worked okay for a while, but the iPad is its own device. In 2019 Apple separated iOS into two versions, iOS for the iPhone, and iPadOS, for the iPad. This was done because the iPad is its own device and has its own unique interactions and control mechanisms. Even with the changes, like TrackPad support, the Magic Keyboard, things like Stage Manager, many have noticed that the iPad hardware has far outpaced the iPad software. iPadOS 26 makes some major changes.
iPadOS 26 brings a new multitasking approach to the iPad, with windowing. You can now have multiple windows, minimize, resize, and tile any windows. You can tap on an icon and bring back up the windows for that app. One of the most important aspects to this feature is how iPadOS will remember your previous window size and positions. This works not just on an iPad, but also with external displays.
Windows will have familiar features, like the "Stoplights", to close, minimize, and maximize buttons. Along with this, you have a resize anchor in the lower right corner of all windows. Having windows, and being able to arrange them as needed is great. However, there may be instances when you would prefer to be able to quickly access features. This is now possible with the Menu Bar.
Much like on macOS, iPadOS apps can now display a Menu Bar. This can make apps feel even more like those on macOS and it will allow you to quickly access features, without needing to hunt for them.
Games
Apple is adding a new app to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS called Games. The Games app will allow you to view all of your current games in one spot. You can also check out Apple Arcade games and invite friends to play. Along with this, you can also challenge your friends on leaderboards in specific games to try and beat their score. Additionally, Apple is adding support for the Playstation VR2 Sense controller for the Vision Pro.
Apple Intelligence
Apple is continuing to expand Apple Intelligence with some new features like integration with ChatGPT so you can create additional styles in Image Playground, like making an image look like an oil painting. Visual Intelligence is expanding beyond what you see on your camera to include anything that you are viewing within an app. So, now you can take a screenshot and take an action, like finding where to buy a lamp, or even adding a calendar entry for an event you want to go to.
WatchOS will help you with your workouts by giving you updates on your current workout, but also including historical workouts. As an example, if you are on a run and your last mile was your best one, your Apple Watch may say "You just ran your best mile this week at a pace of 8 minutes and 36 seconds", or something along those lines.
The big thing, for developers anyway, is that they can now use Apple's own on-device models. This means that they do not need to include a device model within their app. This means that they can reduce the size of their app downloads and use on-device processing, including extended background processing.
Compatibility
It is not uncommon for new versions of Apple's operating systems to drop support for older devices. Here are the supported devices.
iPhone
- iPhone SE 2nd Generation and later
- iPhone 11 and later
iPad
- iPad mini (5th generation and later)
- iPad (8th generation and later)
- iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
- iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later)
- iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later)
Apple Watch
- Apple Watch SE (2nd generation)
- Apple Watch Series 6 and later
- Apple Watch Ultra
Macs
- Mac Pro (2019 and later)
- Mac Studio (2022 and later)
- Mac mini (2020 and later)
- iMac (2020 and later)
- 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019 and later)
- MacBook Pro (13‑inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
- MacBook Air with Apple Silicon (2020 and later)
- MacBook Pro with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
Closing Thoughts
What I have provided above is just a brief overview of the list of changes. There are a bunch more changes, like Apple Intelligence gaining new functions and features, or Spotlight on macOS getting new features like natural language search, or the Files getting more features like assigning colors to a folder, or even adding an emoji.
You can check out all of the features on Apple's OS Previews page.
Sources:
Apple Newsroom: