GoKawiilTim Cook went out with a goodbye speech bookending his last appearance as CEO helming Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference; next year, barring unforeseen problems, we'll have John Ternus on the stage in his new role. While there were performance and display rendering enhancements announced across all the device operating systems, which are always welcome, Apple fast-forwarded through them to make way for Apple Intelligence. The company also introduced reworking controls and protections for kids.
Whether you love it, hate it or simply choose to ignore it, Apple Intelligence (and its eyes, Visual Intelligence, and words, Siri) is the centerpiece of the company's chatbot-slash-agent-slash-generative strategy for MacOS 27 Golden Gate, iOS 27, iPadOS 27, WatchOS 27 and VisionOS 27.
Initially announced at WWDC24 and then drastically dialed back for a slower-paced rollout, at this year's WWDC, Apple ramped it up to where it would have been -- where everyone else's AI is -- in the absence of a delay.
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It wasn't until I began writing, though, that I realized there's a lot here that was interesting, though not always flashy. Here are my highlights, and you can check out CNET's WWDC live blog for more details.
Liquid Glass
At launch last year, the Liquid Glass interface for all Apple devices needed refinements, as is typical of operating system redesigns. In particular, some people found that the icons' transparency made visibility harder than before (me, included).
This year, we're getting granular control, via a slider, over opacity and tint across the entire operating system, along with some rendering enhancements to make the icons look sharper. That, plus some tweaks to the appearance of menus and sidebars. I'm persnickety, but I don't really care about the consistency of corner radii in MacOS, although it looks like some of my colleagues do.
What I'm still disappointed with, in this respect, is the lack of streamlining in the settings organization across all of the operating systems. For instance, burying a lot of settings under Accessibility when they're more generally appearance and behavior focused, like motion behavior, makes them harder to find or even to know they're adjustable.
Of course, Apple may be relying on Apple Intelligence to find and fix settings, a trend I've increasingly noticed and had meh experiences with in software.
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