Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Recap With iOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and More - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Recap With iOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and More

Apple's annual developer conference has come to a close for 2025, and WWDC was packed with announcements right from the start of Monday's keynote. As expected, we got a unified numbering scheme across Apple's platforms, as well as a redesign that makes for a more cohesive experience.

top stories 2025 06 14
Alongside the redesigns, all of Apple's operating systems are also seeing a host of feature additions and improvements, and developers are able to access beta versions now to help get their apps ready for a public release of the new operating system versions later this year. Read on below for a high-level overview of Apple's WWDC announcements!

Everything Apple Announced at WWDC 2025 in 10 Minutes

At this week's WWDC 2025 keynote event, Apple unveiled a new design that will inform the next decade of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS development, so needless to say, it was a busy day. Apple also unveiled a ton of new features for the iPhone, an overhauled Spotlight interface for the Mac, and a ton of updates that make the iPad more like a Mac than ever before.

Everything WWDC25 Thumb 3
Apple's event lasted for an hour and a half, but we've recapped all of the announcements in a 10-minute video, just in case you don't want to sit through the entire spiel. We've also rounded up all of our coverage from the day, so you can dive deeper into any of the new features, while Dan and Hartley sat down with Kevin Nether at Apple Park for an on-location episode of The MacRumors Show discussing Apple's announcements.

Apple Announces iOS 26 With 'Liquid Glass' Design, Live Translation, Overhauled Phone App, and More

Apple at WWDC announced iOS 26, introducing a comprehensive visual redesign built around its new "Liquid Glass" concept, alongside expanded Apple Intelligence capabilities, updates to core communication apps, and more.

Apple WWDC25 iOS 26 hero 250609
Liquid Glass is a translucent material that reflects and refracts surroundings to create dynamic, responsive interface elements, according to Apple. The new design language transforms the Lock Screen, where the time fluidly adapts to available space in wallpapers, and spatial scenes add 3D effects when users move their iPhone. Meanwhile, app icons and widgets gain new customization options, including a striking clear appearance.

Apple Unveils macOS Tahoe With Liquid Glass Design, Phone App, Live Translation, and More

Apple this week announced macOS Tahoe 26 at WWDC 2025, introducing a striking visual redesign alongside expanded Apple Intelligence capabilities and new Continuity features that further integrate Mac and iPhone workflows.

macos tahoe
Similar to iOS 26, macOS Tahoe updates center around what Apple calls a "gorgeous new design" built with Liquid Glass, a translucent material that reflects surrounding elements. The Dock, sidebars, and toolbars have been refined to emphasize content, while a completely transparent menu bar makes displays feel larger. Users gain extensive personalization options, including colorful app icon tints, customizable folder colors with emoji symbols, and enhanced Control Center layouts.

Apple Announces watchOS 26 With Liquid Glass Design, Workout Buddy, and Smart Stack Intelligence

Apple announced watchOS 26 at WWDC, carrying over the "Liquid Glass" design language from iOS 26 to the wrist while delivering a new AI-powered fitness feature called Workout Buddy and updated Smart Stack functionality.

watchOS 26 Apple Newsroom
Liquid Glass uses real-time rendering to create translucent interface elements that reflect and refract content. The design appears across Smart Stack widgets, Control Center, notifications, and in-app navigation. The Photos watch face also receives numerals made of Liquid Glass, showing more of users' photos through the display.

Workout Buddy uses Apple Intelligence to analyze workout data and fitness history, providing spoken motivation during exercise sessions, while the Smart Stack adds a hints feature using contextual data, sensor information, and routine patterns for actionable suggestions. These appear as visual prompts on the display, such as Backtrack in remote locations or workout suggestions when arriving at fitness locations.

tvOS 26 Adds These New Features to Your Apple TV

Apple this week announced tvOS 26, which is now available in developer beta. The upcoming software update includes a handful of new features for the Apple TV, although some of the changes are only available on newer models.

tvOS 26 Apple Newsroom
The most obvious change is the new Liquid Glass design, which was also introduced across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and watchOS 26. The new design language includes shimmery app icons, and translucent elements that reflect colors. The new design is only visible on the Apple TV 4K (2nd generation) and Apple TV 4K (3rd generation).

Other new features in tvOS 26 include an optional new user profile selection screen at wake-up, the ability to use an iPhone as a microphone for Apple Music Sing, FaceTime improvements, new Aerial screen savers, and more.

visionOS 26 Announced With Spatial Widgets, Shared Experiences, Enhanced Personas, and More

Apple at WWDC announced visionOS 26, bringing spatial widgets, dramatically improved Personas, and new collaborative experiences to Apple Vision Pro users.

visionos 26
Apple says the update transforms widgets into spatial objects that integrate seamlessly into users' physical environments. These customizable widgets — including Clock, Weather, Music, and Photos — offer unique interactions and persist in space each time users don Vision Pro. Users can decorate their surroundings with panoramas, spatial photos, distinctive clock faces, and quick access to Apple Music playlists. The new Widgets app helps discover compatible widgets from iOS and iPadOS apps, according to Apple.

Elsewhere, Personas receive their most significant upgrade yet, leveraging volumetric rendering and machine learning for striking expressivity and sharpness. The enhanced avatars now display full side profiles with remarkably accurate hair, lashes, and complexion details.

MacRumors Newsletter

Each week, we publish an email newsletter like this highlighting the top Apple stories, making it a great way to get a bite-sized recap of the week hitting all of the major topics we've covered and tying together related stories for a big-picture view.

So if you want to have top stories like the above recap delivered to your email inbox each week, subscribe to our newsletter!

Popular Stories

imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
ios 26 4 pastel

iOS 26.4: Top 10 New Features Coming to Your iPhone

Friday March 20, 2026 2:44 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 isn't the major update with new Siri features that we hoped for, but there are some useful quality of life improvements, and a little bit of fun with an AI playlist generator and new emoji characters. Playlist Playground - Apple Music has a Playlist Playground option that lets you generate playlists from text-based descriptions. You can include moods, feelings, activities, or...

Top Rated Comments

AndiG Avatar
10 months ago

I like the liquid glass, and iPadOS updates

🧊🥳
There’s always someone who likes it. I hope Apple responds to the massive negative feedback. Transparency hurts usability, and those overblown animations are just lipstick on a pig — they waste CPU and GPU power.

Tim Cook has somehow managed to reverse the roles of Android and iOS. While Android evolves and becomes simpler to use — sometimes even offering fewer options than iOS — iOS keeps getting more complex. This is all driven by Cook’s “features, features, features” approach.

I want to go back, strip away the bloat, and make iOS dead simple to use again. Most of these features could be provided by third-party apps, allowing us to have a lean and efficient core OS that focuses on stability and usability.

But that won’t happen until Tim steps down.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
10 months ago
Looking at those liquid glass screenshots it looks like Apple wants to promote illiteracy.

Neither the notifications nor the chat screen are actually readable. They want to force users to use Siri^H^HApple Intelligence to read them the text?

Or I guess we should all just express ourselves with stickers. Those seem to still be readable. Unless they make them translucent in the final version.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
10 months ago
Let's all hope there is a setting you can set to tell IOS you have poor vision, and the phone will then never show you white text on a white background. The only thing worse than white on white is "clear text" that is always the same color as the background.

I don't mind what they do as long as there is a way to turn it off.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Emanuel Rodriguez Avatar
10 months ago
Liquid Glass looks interesting, there are at least a couple problems with it.

First, on the lock screen where the background shines through blurred, is a huge problem if the background happens to be pretty white. White text on a white (even blurred) background, will not be visible. You have to darken the background at least somewhat to compensate for the possibility of a very white background (although they do do that in macOS, generally), and they are not doing that here.

Second, the app icons being essentially black and white + transparency, loses a ton of very important visual information to easily identify apps, and will require more inspection when a user is attempting to identify the app they wish to launch. Black and white was dropped a long time ago for a very good reason, and we shouldn't return to that.

Transparency inherently looks nice (Microsoft tried it in Windows Vista/7), but there are many problems with it, and it's always a tremendous resource hog compared to an opaque background. Ill-advised, and definitely form over function.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
10 months ago
Sad to see Apples slow demise.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WU27f1xcCs Avatar
10 months ago
I like the liquid glass, and iPadOS updates

🧊🥳
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Related Apple News: Motoring | World News | Reviews | Iphone | South Africa