All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
Apple held its annual developer conference today, and as usual used the keynote address to announce all of the new software features coming to Apple’s many products this fall.
This year’s WWDC is occurring at a moment of unprecedented economic uncertainty. Apple’s sales are expected to take a hit as President Trump continues to threaten the company with increased trade tariffs. The event also comes in the aftermath of the very AI-heavy conference of Apple’s archrival Google, putting pressure on Apple to show off what has so far been a delayed and underwhelming foray into consumer-facing artificial intelligence. (It probably also caused some headaches in Cupertino that OpenAI just announced a partnership with the former Apple designer of legend Jony Ive.)
The company will focus on new hardware at its September event, but WWDC was all about the software. Many of the big updates of WWDC 2025 trickled out ahead of time, so Apple’s keynote had only a few surprises. Did Apple software SVP Craig Federighi wear a blue shirt and do some silly action movie stunts? He sure did. Did Apple announce a bunch of updates to things that have been done elsewhere? Yes, the company did that too.
Here’s everything Apple announced at WWDC 2025.
Liquid Glass
Apple’s entire family of operating systems has a fresh redesign with the goal of making objects on the screen—icons, buttons, menus—easier to see. Or, at least, easier to see through. Liquid Glass is Apple’s new translucent aesthetic and the first major visual overhaul to its software user experience in a decade.
Liquid Glass puts icons and windows in smooth, clearish bubbles that let some of the background seep through as you scroll or move around the operating system. It’s a broad visual change that aims to unify the user experience across multiple platforms; the new look is coming to iOS, macOS, and iPadOS, as well as Apple Watches and Apple TV.
There are some personalization options within Liquid Glass, but mostly the result will be a bubbly, glassy, see-through look for all your menus and touchpoints on the screen. At first look, it seems as though the design might also blend in with the system a little too well, potentially making it harder for people with vision issues to find the exact thing they’re looking for.
Does the glassy new look mean we’ll finally get ’90s style translucent iPhones? God only knows.
Another big change Apple announced for its operating system is a new naming convention. Instead of the sequential numbers it has used in the past, Apple will rename its OSes in the style of a new car model or Madden game—with the last two digits of the forthcoming year. So the new iOS this year will be called iOS 26. Next year, it'll be iOS 27. And so on, unless Apple changes its mind about all that.
Phone Calls & Messages
There are new updates to Apple’s phone app, lots of which you’ll probably recognize if you, say, use an Android device.
First is a revamped call screening feature that lets you avoid spam callers. Just tap a button in the phone app to have a synthetic voice ask the caller to say what they’re calling about. You’ll see a transcription of what they say, then you can decide to swipe to take the call or decline it. Second, a Hold Assist feature can detect when you’ve been placed on hold, then offer to wait on the call for you, alerting you when an actual human gets on the line.
There are some other updates to group chats in the Messages app, which lets you add polls to settle on tonight’s restaurant or split the bill by sending money to each other with Apple Cash directly in a group chat.
Live translation is also available in both phone and messages, so you can translate voice or text conversations in close to real time. (In the taped demo, it took a few seconds to hear each translation.) Apple says that the AI-powered translations happen on your device, and your conversations do not get sent to Apple for translating. Live translation also comes to Apple Music, with lyrics translation and pronunciation that allows you to sing along with all your favorite K-pop songs.
Another notable Apple Intelligence feature coming this fall is a Visual Intelligence enhancement that lets you take a screenshot or tap on something in a picture, then ask a variety of questions about it. It works a lot like Google Lens and Gemini AI but for the iPhone.
Also be sure to read Will Knight's WIRED story about Apple's latest AI features, and how the company is approaching their development when it doesn't have a state-of-the-art model.
iPad OS
As WIRED’s Lauren Goode astutely called years ago, Apple’s ultimate endgame for the iPad is to make it work as much like a Mac as possible. Today, that dream took a huge leap.
Finally, the iPad has windowed apps. Apps still open in full screen as the default, but you can resize, reposition, and tile app windows just like you can on the Mac desktop. You also get Exposé to see all your open apps. The iPad now even has a menu bar.
There’s something tremendously Mac-like about the iPadOS 26 experience, and it should make iPad hardware more appealing to those users who feel like they’re missing out whenever they don’t have their MacBook with them.
Read more about all the Mac-like features coming to the iPad.
Apple Games
Apple says more than half a billion people play games on the iPhone. To serve that audience, Apple has redesigned the games experience in a new app called, simply, Games.
The app combines all the games you’ve downloaded from the App Store and puts them in one easily accessible place. There is a dedicated tab to Apple Arcade, Apple’s gaming subscription plan. Another tab, called Play Together, keeps track of your friends’ playtime and lets you join or invite them to a game.
WatchOS
The Apple Watch, which just turned 10 (hbd, buddy), has some new updates powered by Apple Intelligence. There is a new wrist flick gesture, a pimped out Liquid Glass overhaul, and live translations in Messages that also work in chats on the Apple Watch.
The Workout app has a new Workout Buddy—an AI voice companion that keeps track of your workout data and can talk to you (though your AirPods) while you’re running, tell you how you did on a run, or select music to hype you up.
Smart Stack, the watchOS feature that uses contextual awareness to show shortcuts to the apps you might want to open, is getting features that make it smarter about your surroundings. It can make suggestions based on your location, like suggesting that you turn on BackTrack, Apple’s step-retracing feature, when you go into a remote area that might have less service. It can also measure how loud your surroundings are to adjust the volume of your incoming message pings.
tvOS
Apple’s Liquid Glass aesthetic comes to Apple TV as well. The most striking change is a glassy see-through menu that lets you change settings without blocking as much of the on-screen visuals.
Apple also took a few minutes of the WWDC keynote to announce a bunch of new content coming to Apple TV+, including a Formula 1 movie that Apple heavily marketed at the beginning of the presentation, the Murderbot series, a movie starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera about a school bus being caught in the 2018 Paradise Fire, and a new show starring Jason Momoa that will hopefully do better than Apple TV’s last go at that.
macOS
Apple’s new desktop operating system is called macOS Tahoe. It also incorporates the Liquid Glass aesthetic, with a completely free-floating menu bar at the top of the screen.
There are some fun enhancements. Live Activities is a new menu-bar shortcut that can sync with apps running on desktop or your phone, alerting you to upcoming meetings or keeping track of your incoming Uber Eats orders.
Spotlight, Apple’s search feature on device, incorporates more contextual awareness to better find what you’re looking for on your desktop. It can also interact with features directly in a program or pull up information from a website you’ve looked at recently.
Also, this appears to be the end of the road for Intel-based Macs. Some late-model Intel Macs will be able to run macOS Tahoe, but not the next version of the operating system, as Apple is ending support.
VisionOS
Apple still thinks people really do want to wear its bulky, heavy headset around their homes. VisionOS has spatial widgets now—virtual objects like digital photos, calendars, and “Now Playing” Apple Music cards that you can plonk onto your real-world surroundings. The widgets stay in place even if you move around the room.
One of the main problems with VR headsets is that they are fundamentally lonely devices; when you’re strapped into a headset, you’re the only one who can really see what you’re doing. But Apple wants to change that, adding features that let you sync your view with another person to share a movie or some other VR experience. You’ll both need to be wearing an Apple Vision Pro, so if you’re trying to cuddle on the couch be prepared to bonk your unwieldy bespectacled heads.
Maps
Apple is also introducing a number of features that have long been available in competitors like Google Maps. A “Visited Places” feature in maps keeps track of the places you’ve been, complete with photos taken there. This is entirely opt-in, so you have to turn it on, and your location history stays encrypted on your device. It’s basically Google Map’s Timeline feature but just for Apple people.
CarPlay
Some additional updates to Apple’s CarPlay software were announced today. The next CarPlay adds customizable widgets and better screening for incoming calls. You can also tap a button to respond to texts with emoji while you’re driving. What could go wrong?
We first saw some CarPlay updates last month when Apple partnered with Aston Martin. These updates come at a time when carmakers are starting to embrace physical buttons again, given that lots of people seem to hate the touchscreens in their cars.
Siri
There was almost no mention of Apple’s voice assistant in the WWDC keynote. Curious.
