Consumer Electronics Technology
Apple’s WWDC25 Top Reveals: New OS, Features, Visual Changes And Liquid Glass
By Amrit Mehra
Updated on Tue, Jun 10, 2025
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Apple, the third-largest company by market capitalization (which has even held the top position), just commenced its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California.
WWDC25 was poised to offer the company a redemption arc to the disappointing year its Apple Intelligence has undergone, which saw an underwhelming response from consumers and critics, in a world led by ever-evolving artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI platform, was launched almost exactly one year ago at its 2024 edition of WWDC—WWDC24.
While consumers were expecting mind-blowing new products and features to be revealed, the company instead witnessed a 1.5% drop in its stock prices after a disappointing keynote speech. Additionally, tech enthusiasts and journalists noted that some of Apple’s “new” innovations were just rehashed features of yore.
Still, the company put on a good show and announced a host of new features that drew attention. Also, the event is scheduled from June 9 to 13, 2025, meaning there’s plenty of time for Apple to drop new announcements.
In the meantime, here are some of the top reveals from Day 1 of WWDC25:
Apple describes Liquid Glass as a “new material.” However, it isn’t an actual material, at least not in the traditional sense. Nor is it new, but we’ll get to that later.
Liquid Glass is a translucent display feature that behaves like glass in the real world—where background objects appear blurred. It comes as part of sweeping design updates that will be available across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. The feature is inspired by visionOS, uses real-time rendering, adapts to light and dark environments, and leverages Apple’s powerful advances in hardware, silicon, and graphics technologies.
The effect will be reflected across a wide range of elements, including buttons, switches, sliders, text, media controls, tab bars, sidebars, notifications, the Lock Screen, Home Screen, Control Center, and more. The feature affects the time displayed on the lock screen, as well as the Dock, app icons, and widgets on the home page.
“This is our broadest software design update ever. Meticulously crafted by rethinking the fundamental elements that make up our software, the new design features an entirely new material called Liquid Glass,” said Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of Human Interface Design.
“It combines the optical qualities of glass with a fluidity only Apple can achieve, as it transforms depending on your content or context. It lays the foundation for new experiences in the future and, ultimately, it makes even the simplest of interactions more fun and magical.”
While the design style is new to Apple, consumers pointed out Liquid Glass’ similarities to Windows’ 2007-released Windows Vista and its Aero Glass user interface (UI). Liquid Glass was one of Apple’s biggest reveals at WWDC25.
Apple revealed redesigned looks for application controls, toolbars, and navigation across apps such as Camera, Photos, Safari, FaceTime, Apple Music, Apple News, and Apple Podcasts.
Controls come with a distinctive functional layer that sits above apps and sports the Liquid Glass feature that refracts the content behind. Tab bars and sidebars are also inspired by this thought. The new iOS features shrinking tab bars, while the sidebars in iPadOS and macOS make apps such as Apple TV even more immersive.
This also sees the rectangular approach done away, which is replaced by rounded corners and concentric looks.
“Driven by the goal of bringing greater focus to content that’s instantly familiar, Apple’s design team considered every aspect of Apple’s platforms to identify improvements that could be made across the board,” said Apple.
Apple introduced new capabilities to Apple Intelligence, along with improvements to existing features.
These include: Live Translation enables real-time text and audio translation across Messages, FaceTime, and Phone—enabled by on-device Apple-built models; Visual Intelligence identifies content on-screen—such as products, events, or text—letting users take action, search, or ask questions instantly; Genmoji and Image Playground offers more expressive tools; Shortcuts allows users to build complex, context-aware automations; Mail and Wallet can summarize order tracking details; Messages suggests polls and lets users create personalized backgrounds; Reminders automatically extract tasks from emails or notes; and more.
These features and capabilities will be available across Apple devices and will come to eight more languages by the end of 2025, spanning Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (traditional), and Vietnamese.
“Last year, we took the first steps on a journey to bring users intelligence that’s helpful, relevant, easy to use, and right where users need it, all while protecting their privacy. Now, the models that power Apple Intelligence are becoming more capable and efficient, and we’re integrating features in even more places across each of our operating systems,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering.
“We’re also taking the huge step of giving developers direct access to the on-device foundation model powering Apple Intelligence, allowing them to tap into intelligence that is powerful, fast, built with privacy, and available even when users are offline. We think this will ignite a whole new wave of intelligent experiences in the apps users rely on every day. We can’t wait to see what developers create.”
Ordinarily, Apple would’ve introduced iOS 19 this year (following last year’s iOS 18), but now the company wants to take a new approach to naming its operating systems. New operating software names will retain numbers, but those numbers will be the year in which the new OS will be released.
Meet iOS 26.
It’s not just the iPhone that’s getting a new OS.
Meet macOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, visionOS 26, tvOS 26.
To save time, they all come with Liquid Glass.
IOS 26 will come this fall. It features a new look, added Apple Intelligence capabilities, updated apps, and other enhancements.
For the most part, iOS 26’s updates are backed by improvements and new capabilities offered through Apple Intelligence.
Ahead of this, the Phone app combines Favorites, Recents, and Voicemails in one place. The Call Screening feature gathers unknown caller information, such as name and the reason for calling, before ringing. Similarly, users can screen messages. Hold Assist keeps a user in line and notifies them when a live agent comes on the call.
Apple Music brings lyrics translations, pronunciations, and AutoMix for song transitions. Apple Maps’ Visited Places provides users with information about places they’ve visited before. Apple Pay allows users to pay in installments or rewards for in-store purchases. CarPlay enhancements include a compact view for incoming calls, pinned conversations in Messages, Live Activities, and other widgets. Apple Games comes as an all-in-one destination for their games.
Apple also made enhancements to Apple Wallet, AirPods, Safari, parental controls, accessibility features, and more.
“Experiences are more expressive and personal, from the Lock Screen and Home Screen, to new capabilities across Phone and Messages that help users focus on the connections that matter most. And with powerful new Apple Intelligence capabilities integrated across the system, users can get things done easier than ever,” said Craig Federighi.
The new macOS is called Tahoe, and it comes in with a fresh design and a host of enhancements similar to those offered in iOS 26, adjusted considering the device type. These include the Phone app, Live Translations, Call Screening, Hold Assist, Live Activities, shortcuts, Genmoji, Image Playground, Apple Games, Safari, and more.
Apple Intelligence also powers Reminders, which can review an email, website, note, or other content on a Mac to find the most relevant action items.
Spotlight, the search feature, sees its biggest ever update. Now, users will find all results—including files, folders, events, apps, messages, and more—listed together and ranked intelligently. It comes with new filtering options, the ability to take hundreds of actions directly, display results for documents stored on third-party cloud drives, the ability to run shortcuts and perform actions from the menu bar of the app in use, and more.
Messages offers Backgrounds, Polls, and a redesigned details view. Journal makes it easy to capture and write about everyday moments and special events. Photos throws an updated design, along with enhancements for customization, easier workflows, and more. Other updates span FaceTime, Notes, Accessibility Reader and accessibility features, Passwords, and more.
“macOS is the heart and soul of the Mac, and with Tahoe, we’re building on what users love most. Whether you’re a power user or just getting started on Mac, there’s something for everyone, with even more features to turbocharge productivity and make working across Mac and iPhone more seamless than ever before,” said Craig Federighi.
iPadOS 26 marks Apple’s biggest iPadOS release ever. This, too, comes with a fresh new look and Apple Intelligence enhancements similar to iOS 26 and macOS 26. Furthermore, Apple is bringing Journal, Apple Games, Messages updates, and others to iPadOS 26.
Other than that, it offers users a new powerful and intuitive windowing system; new ways to manage, access, and edit files; the Preview app to sketch, view, edit, and mark up PDFs and images using Apple Pencil or touch; the ability to perform computationally intensive Background Tasks; audio features offering more flexible input and streamlined recording; the new reed pen to enable calligraphy experiences; Calculator’s new 3D graphing capabilities; the ability to import and export a note into a markdown file; Accessibility Reader and accessibility features; and more.
watchOS 26 comes with a new look, Liquid Glass enhancements, Apple Intelligence improvements, and updates for Workout Buddy, Smart Stack, and Messages.
“Apple Watch is an indispensable companion for millions of people around the world, and watchOS 26 uses intelligence to offer an even more personalized experience,” said David Clark, Apple’s Senior Director of watchOS Engineering.
“From a gorgeous new design, to Workout Buddy with Apple Intelligence, personalized music suggestions in the Workout app, and more intelligence in the Smart Stack and Messages, we’re excited about the many ways watchOS 26 will support each user in staying active, healthy, connected, and safe throughout their day.”
This comes with groundbreaking spatial experiences with widgets that integrate into a user’s space, and new features for Apple Vision Pro that make everyday interactions more immersive and personal. It also adds support for 180-degree, 360-degree, and wide field-of-view content from Insta360, GoPro, and Canon, as well as PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers. Furthermore, new enterprise APIs allow organizations to create unique spatial experiences unique to visionOS.
Liquid Glass comes to the largest screen in the house along with other updates, making Apple TV even more immersive, enjoyable, and convenient, while updates to Apple Music Sing allow users to sing along with friends using an iPhone.
Apple announced it was making various new technologies and enhancements available to developers to allow them to create more beautiful, intelligent, and engaging app experiences across Apple platforms.
Developers using SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit can access an updated set of APIs to build apps using the Liquid Glass feature along with updated controls. Furthermore, they can use the Foundation Models framework to leverage on-device intelligence and Xcode 26 to use ChatGPT, and access Xcode’s Coding Tools and other intelligent features.
These new resources add to Apple’s extensive offering for developers, which includes over 250,000 APIs that allow them to integrate their apps with Apple’s hardware and software features.
“Developers play a vital role in shaping the experiences customers love across Apple platforms,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s VP of Worldwide Developer Relations. “With access to the on-device Apple Intelligence foundation model and new intelligence features in Xcode 26, we’re empowering developers to build richer, more intuitive apps for users everywhere.”
Apple plans to make hardware-related announcements in its September event, with this year’s WWDC focusing on software and features.
Yet, it didn’t offer much information regarding Siri—its flagship voice assistant.
What do you think about Apple’s latest reveals made at its WWDC event?
Let us know in the comments below!
WWDC25 was poised to offer the company a redemption arc to the disappointing year its Apple Intelligence has undergone, which saw an underwhelming response from consumers and critics, in a world led by ever-evolving artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI platform, was launched almost exactly one year ago at its 2024 edition of WWDC—WWDC24.
While consumers were expecting mind-blowing new products and features to be revealed, the company instead witnessed a 1.5% drop in its stock prices after a disappointing keynote speech. Additionally, tech enthusiasts and journalists noted that some of Apple’s “new” innovations were just rehashed features of yore.
Still, the company put on a good show and announced a host of new features that drew attention. Also, the event is scheduled from June 9 to 13, 2025, meaning there’s plenty of time for Apple to drop new announcements.
In the meantime, here are some of the top reveals from Day 1 of WWDC25:
Liquid Glass
Apple describes Liquid Glass as a “new material.” However, it isn’t an actual material, at least not in the traditional sense. Nor is it new, but we’ll get to that later.
Liquid Glass is a translucent display feature that behaves like glass in the real world—where background objects appear blurred. It comes as part of sweeping design updates that will be available across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. The feature is inspired by visionOS, uses real-time rendering, adapts to light and dark environments, and leverages Apple’s powerful advances in hardware, silicon, and graphics technologies.
The effect will be reflected across a wide range of elements, including buttons, switches, sliders, text, media controls, tab bars, sidebars, notifications, the Lock Screen, Home Screen, Control Center, and more. The feature affects the time displayed on the lock screen, as well as the Dock, app icons, and widgets on the home page.
“This is our broadest software design update ever. Meticulously crafted by rethinking the fundamental elements that make up our software, the new design features an entirely new material called Liquid Glass,” said Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of Human Interface Design.
“It combines the optical qualities of glass with a fluidity only Apple can achieve, as it transforms depending on your content or context. It lays the foundation for new experiences in the future and, ultimately, it makes even the simplest of interactions more fun and magical.”
While the design style is new to Apple, consumers pointed out Liquid Glass’ similarities to Windows’ 2007-released Windows Vista and its Aero Glass user interface (UI). Liquid Glass was one of Apple’s biggest reveals at WWDC25.
App Designs
Apple revealed redesigned looks for application controls, toolbars, and navigation across apps such as Camera, Photos, Safari, FaceTime, Apple Music, Apple News, and Apple Podcasts.
Controls come with a distinctive functional layer that sits above apps and sports the Liquid Glass feature that refracts the content behind. Tab bars and sidebars are also inspired by this thought. The new iOS features shrinking tab bars, while the sidebars in iPadOS and macOS make apps such as Apple TV even more immersive.
This also sees the rectangular approach done away, which is replaced by rounded corners and concentric looks.
“Driven by the goal of bringing greater focus to content that’s instantly familiar, Apple’s design team considered every aspect of Apple’s platforms to identify improvements that could be made across the board,” said Apple.
Apple Intelligence
Apple introduced new capabilities to Apple Intelligence, along with improvements to existing features.
These include: Live Translation enables real-time text and audio translation across Messages, FaceTime, and Phone—enabled by on-device Apple-built models; Visual Intelligence identifies content on-screen—such as products, events, or text—letting users take action, search, or ask questions instantly; Genmoji and Image Playground offers more expressive tools; Shortcuts allows users to build complex, context-aware automations; Mail and Wallet can summarize order tracking details; Messages suggests polls and lets users create personalized backgrounds; Reminders automatically extract tasks from emails or notes; and more.
These features and capabilities will be available across Apple devices and will come to eight more languages by the end of 2025, spanning Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (traditional), and Vietnamese.
“Last year, we took the first steps on a journey to bring users intelligence that’s helpful, relevant, easy to use, and right where users need it, all while protecting their privacy. Now, the models that power Apple Intelligence are becoming more capable and efficient, and we’re integrating features in even more places across each of our operating systems,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering.
“We’re also taking the huge step of giving developers direct access to the on-device foundation model powering Apple Intelligence, allowing them to tap into intelligence that is powerful, fast, built with privacy, and available even when users are offline. We think this will ignite a whole new wave of intelligent experiences in the apps users rely on every day. We can’t wait to see what developers create.”
Operating Systems
Ordinarily, Apple would’ve introduced iOS 19 this year (following last year’s iOS 18), but now the company wants to take a new approach to naming its operating systems. New operating software names will retain numbers, but those numbers will be the year in which the new OS will be released.
Meet iOS 26.
It’s not just the iPhone that’s getting a new OS.
Meet macOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, visionOS 26, tvOS 26.
To save time, they all come with Liquid Glass.
IOS 26
IOS 26 will come this fall. It features a new look, added Apple Intelligence capabilities, updated apps, and other enhancements.
For the most part, iOS 26’s updates are backed by improvements and new capabilities offered through Apple Intelligence.
Ahead of this, the Phone app combines Favorites, Recents, and Voicemails in one place. The Call Screening feature gathers unknown caller information, such as name and the reason for calling, before ringing. Similarly, users can screen messages. Hold Assist keeps a user in line and notifies them when a live agent comes on the call.
Apple Music brings lyrics translations, pronunciations, and AutoMix for song transitions. Apple Maps’ Visited Places provides users with information about places they’ve visited before. Apple Pay allows users to pay in installments or rewards for in-store purchases. CarPlay enhancements include a compact view for incoming calls, pinned conversations in Messages, Live Activities, and other widgets. Apple Games comes as an all-in-one destination for their games.
Apple also made enhancements to Apple Wallet, AirPods, Safari, parental controls, accessibility features, and more.
“Experiences are more expressive and personal, from the Lock Screen and Home Screen, to new capabilities across Phone and Messages that help users focus on the connections that matter most. And with powerful new Apple Intelligence capabilities integrated across the system, users can get things done easier than ever,” said Craig Federighi.
macOS Tahoe 26
The new macOS is called Tahoe, and it comes in with a fresh design and a host of enhancements similar to those offered in iOS 26, adjusted considering the device type. These include the Phone app, Live Translations, Call Screening, Hold Assist, Live Activities, shortcuts, Genmoji, Image Playground, Apple Games, Safari, and more.
Apple Intelligence also powers Reminders, which can review an email, website, note, or other content on a Mac to find the most relevant action items.
Spotlight, the search feature, sees its biggest ever update. Now, users will find all results—including files, folders, events, apps, messages, and more—listed together and ranked intelligently. It comes with new filtering options, the ability to take hundreds of actions directly, display results for documents stored on third-party cloud drives, the ability to run shortcuts and perform actions from the menu bar of the app in use, and more.
Messages offers Backgrounds, Polls, and a redesigned details view. Journal makes it easy to capture and write about everyday moments and special events. Photos throws an updated design, along with enhancements for customization, easier workflows, and more. Other updates span FaceTime, Notes, Accessibility Reader and accessibility features, Passwords, and more.
“macOS is the heart and soul of the Mac, and with Tahoe, we’re building on what users love most. Whether you’re a power user or just getting started on Mac, there’s something for everyone, with even more features to turbocharge productivity and make working across Mac and iPhone more seamless than ever before,” said Craig Federighi.
iPadOS 26
iPadOS 26 marks Apple’s biggest iPadOS release ever. This, too, comes with a fresh new look and Apple Intelligence enhancements similar to iOS 26 and macOS 26. Furthermore, Apple is bringing Journal, Apple Games, Messages updates, and others to iPadOS 26.
Other than that, it offers users a new powerful and intuitive windowing system; new ways to manage, access, and edit files; the Preview app to sketch, view, edit, and mark up PDFs and images using Apple Pencil or touch; the ability to perform computationally intensive Background Tasks; audio features offering more flexible input and streamlined recording; the new reed pen to enable calligraphy experiences; Calculator’s new 3D graphing capabilities; the ability to import and export a note into a markdown file; Accessibility Reader and accessibility features; and more.
watchOS 26
watchOS 26 comes with a new look, Liquid Glass enhancements, Apple Intelligence improvements, and updates for Workout Buddy, Smart Stack, and Messages.
“Apple Watch is an indispensable companion for millions of people around the world, and watchOS 26 uses intelligence to offer an even more personalized experience,” said David Clark, Apple’s Senior Director of watchOS Engineering.
“From a gorgeous new design, to Workout Buddy with Apple Intelligence, personalized music suggestions in the Workout app, and more intelligence in the Smart Stack and Messages, we’re excited about the many ways watchOS 26 will support each user in staying active, healthy, connected, and safe throughout their day.”
visionOS 26
This comes with groundbreaking spatial experiences with widgets that integrate into a user’s space, and new features for Apple Vision Pro that make everyday interactions more immersive and personal. It also adds support for 180-degree, 360-degree, and wide field-of-view content from Insta360, GoPro, and Canon, as well as PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers. Furthermore, new enterprise APIs allow organizations to create unique spatial experiences unique to visionOS.
tvOS 26
Liquid Glass comes to the largest screen in the house along with other updates, making Apple TV even more immersive, enjoyable, and convenient, while updates to Apple Music Sing allow users to sing along with friends using an iPhone.
Developers
Apple announced it was making various new technologies and enhancements available to developers to allow them to create more beautiful, intelligent, and engaging app experiences across Apple platforms.
Developers using SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit can access an updated set of APIs to build apps using the Liquid Glass feature along with updated controls. Furthermore, they can use the Foundation Models framework to leverage on-device intelligence and Xcode 26 to use ChatGPT, and access Xcode’s Coding Tools and other intelligent features.
These new resources add to Apple’s extensive offering for developers, which includes over 250,000 APIs that allow them to integrate their apps with Apple’s hardware and software features.
“Developers play a vital role in shaping the experiences customers love across Apple platforms,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s VP of Worldwide Developer Relations. “With access to the on-device Apple Intelligence foundation model and new intelligence features in Xcode 26, we’re empowering developers to build richer, more intuitive apps for users everywhere.”
Apple plans to make hardware-related announcements in its September event, with this year’s WWDC focusing on software and features.
Yet, it didn’t offer much information regarding Siri—its flagship voice assistant.
What do you think about Apple’s latest reveals made at its WWDC event?
Let us know in the comments below!
First published on Tue, Jun 10, 2025
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