Apple Worldwide Developers Conference-WWDC 2025: iOS 26 released, AI models open to third parties

On June 10, Apple held the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2025), introducing Apple's many innovations in software and services.

Apple CEO Tim Cook

Well-known technology journalist Mark Gurman believes that WWDC brings many highlights, including a new design language, a new operating system naming method, and updates to iPhone's phone and camera applications. He particularly pointed out that the iPad's new multitasking system that imitates the Mac is "exciting."

Launching a new "Liquid Glass" design

At this WWDC, Apple announced the launch of a new operating system design, which is the first major design innovation for iOS since 2013.

The new design extends to iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26.

iOS7 in 2013 completely eliminated realistic elements such as simulated leather and metal buttons, and reconstructed the logic of digital interfaces with pure color blocks, thin fonts, and layered translucent layers. iOS7 defined the design language for the next few years.

Apple calls this new look "Liquid Glass". This translucent texture reflects and refracts the surrounding environment and changes dynamically with the content, helping users focus more on the core content and giving new vitality to elements such as controls, navigation bars, app icons, and widgets.

Liquid Glass combines the optical properties of glass with the fluidity that only Apple can achieve, transforming according to content or background.

This design is the first to achieve cross-platform coverage, with iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26 building a more coordinated and unified experience while maintaining the unique characteristics of each platform.

"At Apple, we always believe that the deep integration of hardware and software can make technology interactions intuitive, beautiful and enjoyable," said Alan Dye, Apple's vice president of human-computer interface. "This is our largest software design update ever. We rethought the basic elements that make up the software and carefully created a new material called 'Liquid Glass'. It combines the optical properties of glass with Apple's unique fluidity, which can change dynamically with the content or scene. This design lays the foundation for new experiences in the future, and ultimately makes the simplest interactions full of fun and magic." In terms of adaptation support, Apple introduced that for developers using SwiftUI, UIKit and AppKit, Apple provides a set of updated APIs to facilitate easy adaptation to the new design. By calling the "Liquid Glass" material and the updated control components, developers can easily refresh the application design. iOS 26 will be officially launched in the fall. Apple software director Craig Federighi said that Apple's operating system will be named by year, replacing the consecutive numbering of each version in the past, which will unify the naming conventions of Apple products. This means that the latest software versions of all Apple products will end with the number 26, namely iOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, macOS 26, visionOS 26 and iPadOS 26. This makes Apple's software more consistent across platforms, making it easier for consumers to know whether their products are running the latest software.

Previously, there has been confusion in the naming convention due to the different launch times of the core operating systems of Apple phones, watches and other devices, resulting in different products using different numbered operating systems.

In his closing remarks at the end of the event, Apple CEO Cook revealed that the new operating system will be released as a developer beta version today, and the public beta will be gradually launched next month. The new operating system will be launched to all users this fall.

AI models are open to developers and ChatGPT is deeply integrated

In terms of artificial intelligence, Apple took the first step last year, officially announcing Apple Intelligence and launching features such as collaboration tools. At this year's WWDC, Apple announced a series of new features for Apple Intelligence, including upgrades to emoji Genmoji and Image Playground, which will be released with iOS 26 and the company's other updated operating systems.

Apple is deepening its collaboration with OpenAI, announcing the addition of ChatGPT's image generation capabilities to its Image Playground app. Apple also said that user data will not be shared with OpenAI without user permission, but will only run locally.

The Playground app integrates Chatgpt image generation capabilities

The translation feature may become a signature feature of Apple Intelligence in the next generation of operating systems. In the presentation, the Apple team revealed that real-time translation will be integrated into the Message, Phone, and FaceTime apps. Real-time translation will be powered by an on-device AI model, and when translating during a call, the translation will be read aloud by an AI voice and displayed as text subtitles.

With real-time translation, users can communicate across languages.

Visual Intelligence is also about to be upgraded: in addition to working with the iPhone camera, the tool can also scan content on the screen and enable cross-APP search. Visual Intelligence will also benefit from deep integration with ChatGPT, allowing you to ask the chatbot what you see. At the same time, you can also find pictures or products that may match the visual for cross-APP purchases, etc.

Gurman believes that Image Playground has ushered in a very good update, including the integration of ChatGPT image generation. In this regard, Apple did not take the self-developed route, but further deepened its cooperation with OpenAI.

At last year's WWDC, Apple released a smarter, more practical, and AI-enhanced version of Siri. But later, Apple postponed the release of the new upgraded version of Siri indefinitely. Apple software director Craig Federighi said that more information about the Siri upgrade will be announced later this year.

It is worth mentioning that Federighi introduced that Apple is now opening up the basic AI model built into its devices to third-party application developers. This means that iOS users can use more AI functions on third-party applications.

He said, "We are opening access to all applications, allowing them to directly use the large language model built into Apple's core devices."

macOS Tahoe will be the last update for Intel chip Macs

Apple showed the next major version of macOS, macOS Tahoe 26, which Apple said will be the last macOS version that supports Intel processor Macs.

A highlight of this version is also Apple's Liquid Glass design language. The entire system interface is more transparent and dynamic, and can be reflected and rendered according to the environmental content. The bottom Dock, application sidebar and toolbar are redesigned to highlight the content itself; the top menu bar is completely transparent for the first time, widening the visual space. Users can customize the color of application icons and folders, add Emoji expression logos, and the layout of the control center is more free, which greatly improves the personalization of the system.

Apple Intelligence will also be applied to the Mac version of Shortcuts, allowing users to more easily automate tasks. For example, users can now set shortcuts to automatically compare meeting notes with recordings and add important details.

Mac's Spotlight function can also perform more actions on behalf of users in various Mac applications, such as sending emails without leaving the home screen.

Taken together, the Shortcuts and Spotlight updates appear to be Apple's response to competitors releasing "AI agent" products that promise to automatically perform more complex actions on behalf of users.

The most important iPadOS release yet

Apple is making it easier to work across multiple windows on iPad.

While keeping the iPad simple, iPadOS 26 introduces a new window system with new features that help users control, organize, and switch between apps.

Apple Intelligence features are also more prominent in iPadOS 26, including real-time translation, new ways to create with Genmoji and Image Playground, and smart actions with shortcuts.

The new window settings system allows users to fluidly resize app windows, place them where they want, and open more windows at the same time.

In the new system, users can resize windows, and the window size will remain the same even if the user closes and reopens the window. The "tiled" layout also allows users to swipe windows to the sides or corners of the screen and automatically resize multiple windows at the same time based on the app the user is currently using.

“iPadOS 26 is our most significant release of iPadOS yet, with powerful features that take the experience to the next level and revolutionize what users can do on iPad,” said Federighi. “iPadOS 26 features a beautiful new design, a new powerful and intuitive windowing system, more features driven by Apple Intelligence, major improvements in file handling, and new features that empower workflows for creatives, making our most versatile device even more powerful.”