Apple's WWDC underwhelms on AI, but software gets biggest facelift in over a decade

Apple's annual developer conference on Monday lacked the splashy announcement that fans are used to seeing at WWDC. There was nothing like the Vision Pro reveal from 2023 or the Apple Intelligence announcement last year.

But there was an important software update that, later this year, will change the way all of Apple's major devices, from iPhones and Mac laptops to Vision Pro virtual reality headsets, will look. It's a new design language that runs across all of Apple's operating systems. The company is calling it Liquid Glass.

For Apple, it's the first significant redesign of its iPhone operating system since 2013, when the company announced iOS7. Apple says the lock screen will look like it's made out of glass. Buttons will turn into little glass pills, fluidly sliding over glass rails. And there are new animations, including when answering a phone call.

The unveiling underwhelmed Wall Street, which sent the stock down 1.2% on the day. Investors are pressuring Apple to make big changes to its artificial intelligence strategy, pushing it to match the frontier models capabilities of rivals such as Google and OpenAI.

"Many of the AI features announced were more incremental in our view, and already available through competitor applications," UBS analyst David Vogt wrote in a note on Monday. He has the equivalent of a hold rating on the stock.

Last year, Apple announced Apple Intelligence, its response to ChatGPT, complete with a demo of a "more personal" Siri that could intelligently parse through emails and messages to figure out the best time to make a restaurant reservation. Apple delayed the feature in March, had to pull ads that depicted it, and provided no update on timing on Monday.

"This work needed more time to meet our high quality bar," Apple software chief Craig Federighi said on Monday. He restated the company's "the coming year" timeline.

Apple's focus at WWDC was on providing new features and animations across its software that are "delightful," in CEO Tim Cook's words.

The new design language is heavy on transparent buttons, sliders, and other interaction elements. Users will be able to spot it as soon as they upgrade their phones to the new iOS, which will be available for beta testing this summer.

Instead of hard, sharp corners in rectangular windows, Apple's new design language has curved corners that match the device.

One reason Apple gave for rolling out the update now is that its computers and chips have become powerful enough to handle it. Apple said that its new look was directly inspired by the look of VisionOS, the company's software for Vision Pro.

"Apple Silicon has become dramatically more powerful — enabling software, materials and experiences we once could only dream of," Federighi said in a recorded video.

As with many Apple announcements, reactions are all over the map. Some people on social media were excited while others compared the update to the look of Windows Vista, which was released in 2007.

While Apple didn't make many significant changes to the Siri experience, the company did introduce a few significant improvements and changes to its AI capabilities.

Apple also expanded its integration with OpenAI's ChatGPT, integrating its image generation capabilities into an app that previously only used Apple's technology.

When a user takes a screenshot on an iPhone, a new button will send the image to ChatGPT, which can summarize blocks of text in the image, or even decipher what's happening.

One major improvement Apple is rolling out is in language translation.

During a phone call between two people who don't speak the same language, the phone app can translate a sentence after it's spoken and use an AI-generated voice to speak to the other party in the their language. Apple says the feature uses AI processed on the iPhone and doesn't require a connection to a server.

In some corners of the Apple fan universe, the most notable announcement on Monday may involve a simple number.

Since 2007, Apple had introduced a new version of its iOS every year. By 2024, Apple was on iOS 18. It's a meaningful number for users who want to know if they have the latest Apple features, and some 82% of users with recent iPhones had upgraded to iOS 18 within a year.

Now, Apple is naming its operating systems for the iPhone and other devices after the year that they'll be available for use by most consumers. In this case, it's 2026.

In September, users will upgrade to iOS 26. Apple also has iPadOS 26, WatchOS 26, tvOS 26 and Vision OS 26.

The name change will simplify how to refer to the various operating systems, which had gotten confusing given that each device was on a different generation. It also keeps the pressure on Apple to keep rolling out an update every year, or else the number will make it clear that its software is outdated.

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