Analysis of the WWDC 2025 keynote: Apple wants to look good (again)
Apple is renovating the look of its operating systems and courting developers. But how much is the AI issue breathing down the iPhone manufacturer's neck?
(Image: mki / heise online)
Apple wants to look good again. The iPhone manufacturer is renovating the design of all its operating systems. The new look called Liquid Glass in iOS 26 and Co. may remind some of Windows Vista and its glass decoration. But Apple's approach of making the controls more three-dimensional and more tactile than before goes far beyond this in 2025 and looks much more natural and effective in use. It is a pretty redesign at first glance, but it does not require users to get used to it because most of it remains familiar. In addition, the iPhone manufacturer is finally fulfilling the wish of many iPad users to have multitasking worthy of the name and is opening up Apple Intelligence to developers.
In the midst of a constant stream of news, Apple is not doing itself an injustice if these three features are described as the outstanding, truly relevant highlights of this year's World Developer Conference WWDC and the new software versions. The fact that Apple will in future number its versions by year was not even worth a big headline. There were many other little things that sometimes seem more, sometimes less useful. But the three functions mentioned have one thing in common: firstly, they affect and appeal to many users and, secondly, they primarily bring developers on board. And that was undoubtedly the central message of this developer conference. After years in which it was primarily about new hardware (Vision Pro) or shareholders and customers (AI), it should once again focus on what a developer conference should actually be about.
Apple lumps everything together
But of course, Apple was also concerned with itself. The main topics of the past two years each had a short half-life – to put it mildly. Critics, and by no means just the usual suspects, put it much more harshly. The Apple Vision Pro may still be considered a technology with potential, as a device that has found its friends in a niche market. Even with visionOS 26, it certainly wasn't and still isn't the much-celebrated dawn of the age of spatial computing. And generative artificial intelligence was already an uncomfortable topic for Apple before they themselves addressed it in 2024 with Apple Intelligence.
This year, therefore, almost everything was lumped together that could finally guarantee lasting satisfaction with this WWDC: Long-standing user wishes were fulfilled, the call for a redesign was answered, developers were provided with new, free and immediately available APIs. There is a lot of potential here if you talk to developers on site – but the next few weeks will show whether the models will stand up to the ideas and wishes. The redesign of the Photos app has been partially reversed, with the tab bar returning and the camera app, which is overloaded with buttons, being redesigned.
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The "Vision expanded"
And even though Apple Intelligence tended to keep a low profile – it was sprinkled in everywhere, but nothing really new was essentially delivered – Apple has nevertheless eliminated the biggest construction sites: The Swift Assist programming assistant, which was announced last year but never appeared, has had its "vision expanded", as Apple puts it in the nicest marketing language. In German: ChatGPT has now been integrated. Anthropic can also be integrated with Claude as an option. The whole thing will not be available at some point, but immediately. The developers watching the technical keynote, the State of the Union, later on Monday in Apple Park applauded vigorously – and rightly so: Apple has finally delivered here.
On the consumer side, Image Playground, the app for generating images, can now also control ChatGPT – and users can look forward to being able to reliably create something useful with it for the first time. Apple is also getting help from OpenAI for image recognition Visual Intelligence and shortcuts – This can be seen as a non-verbal admission that the reality of its own models has clearly fallen short of its ambitions.
Apple takes a step back – that doesn't have to be a bad thing
With its developer conference, Apple is clearly breaking away from the chorus of its competitors. At Google and Microsoft, there was hardly any other topic than AI. In a way, it's refreshing to hear something different from Apple, especially as the list of construction sites and requests in the non-AI area is long enough.
And on the ground in Cupertino, observers are already speculating that the Glass design may be coming now so that it will be supported by all apps in a few years' time. When the fabled mixed reality glasses in the style of a normal visual aid may arrive. Is this the same idealism and dreaming of Apple fans that ultimately leads to disappointment? One thing is certain: If that is the plan, Apple would look really good at that moment – and not just, as it does now, for the moment.
(mki)
