WWDC 2025 ●

June 10, 2025

Some thoughts:

• I deeply struggle with the coaching/presentation/choreography style of Apple's pre-recorded events. I'm all for irreverence, but the humour is cheesy and off-putting. Worse, the wide stances, hand gestures, and general tone of the presentations immediately pull me out of the moment. In context of the broader challenges Apple has been contending with, I think this style does significant disservice to their objectives.

• In terms of overarching changes, the new design language — 'Liquid Glass' — looks fine. During the event, I thought everything looked a little blown out and over-saturated. Excessively bright. Apple's preview pages reinforce elements of those concerns, whilst relieving others. As with iOS 7, I expect a lot will be evened out over the coming months. I'll reserve too much judgment for now. (I'd encourage the many Apple enthusiasts falling on their fainting couches over the readability of certain elements to do the same for the time being.)

• The entire presentation seemed to revolve around commerce. Visualisation of a product, using credit card points, live activities to track deliveries across platforms, etc. If someone were inclined, there's probably a fairly bleak point to make regarding the implications.

• On iOS, I thought the call and message handling features looked great. Spam calls/texts are a major problem in the US and, while I no longer live there, I'm pleased Apple is creating more tools to tune out some of the noise.

• I've been using Apple Maps for much of the past year and have found it to be great. (Controversial, I know.) The new functionality around preferred routes and pre-emptive warnings over delays will be a godsend for school drop-offs on small, traffic-prone British roads.

• Relatedly, the tweaks to Carplay looked good. (Albeit with the same asterisks regarding design elements as with all other platforms.)

• The live activities for — and improved functionality around — boarding passes looked great.

• On watchOS, the wrist flick to dismiss notifications looks useful. An unremarkable thing, but I can see myself using it regularly.

• I have mixed feelings on the 'Workout Buddy' feature, beyond the awful name. In terms of positives, I think having a more dynamic 'coach,' of sorts, is a good idea. As I've written before, Nike's guided runs helped me build a durable exercise habit in large part due to the personality and perspective of their coaches. On the other, 'Workout Buddy' insights sounded slow and clunky, which is already something I find frustrating when running with my Apple Watch. You prepare to mark a new segment, get your music organised, and start the new segment... only to have to listen to a buzz-killing 10-15 seconds of slow recaps of the prior segment. If it's anything like that, I won't be thrilled. But I don't think this sort of feature is particularly for me.

• On tvOS, the changes looked unremarkable and fine. We almost exclusively use Apple TV for media consumption. I welcome any positive attention and signs of life possible. The landscape of alternatives is bleak, so I'm hopeful tvOS is — at least — kept afloat.

• macOS, similarly, seemed fairly unremarkable. I use Magnet for window management and, as a result, expect I may not love the transparent menu bar. But everything else looked fine. I've become very fond of iPhone Mirroring, but have found it to work very inconsistently. I like the prospect of live activities and more reliable widgets, etc., but I'm skeptical it'll work seamlessly. The new Spotlight, on the other hand, looks great and might finally pry me away from Alfred.

• I'm an Apple person, but I've still never used a Vision Pro. I'm glad it's getting updates and showing signs of life. But it's just not for me as it stands.

• On iPadOS, I thought all of the changes looked positive. I have loved iPad hardware over the years, but, like everyone else, I've been frustrated by their software shortcomings. I don't think these changes will necessarily kickstart a groundswell of development activity to bring improved apps to the App Store, so I'm not expecting a major behavioural shift. Perhaps the conversation will start to shift in a more positive direction, though.

• Semi-relatedly, it seems like Apple's interoperability angle is ratcheting up. Between live activites, the new cross-platform Phone app, etc., Apple is pushing for more and more seamlessness between devices. I suspect that philosophy means Apple will have a lot more to tweak with the iPad's experience over the coming years, presumably bringing it closer and closer to macOS. It'll just be a question of pace.

For it all, I thought the event was fairly painful to watch. The output and work appears to be good as always. But Apple's tone feels as though it's growing more out of touch and offputting as a whole.

The Federighi banter got some laughs when it started with their live events — a little unexpected and fun — but, if they did them live now, I expect the laughter would be muted at best.

I'm all for fun in these events, but the heavily choreographed, totally risk averse, perfectly edited speeches, and the like have stripped the humanity and dynamism of Apple's keynotes. The humour feels stilted — possibly even tone deaf — and the messaging continues to speak volumes with all the topics it ignores.

I'm not looking for them to step into political/cultural conversations, but, within their ecosystem, perhaps some more words toward developers would be welcome.

Most of all, I think Apple used to act, feel, and sound like a leader during these events. That came with making bold announcements, unscripted quirks, and being reactive to the time. There's plenty of innovation and 'leadership' embedded in some of their ideas and principles, but I find myself increasingly mourning the character that felt so magnetic and exciting in years past.

What does that change for me? Nothing, really. Apple continues to produce best in class products, which I will continue to rely on. But I do feel an increasing appetite for competition. If someone were to come along with a certain degree of audacity and the right philosophy around design/privacy/etc., I'd be a vulnerable customer for Apple. I expect the same holds true for a lot of my friends.

The likelihood of that is, obviously, fairly low. And that, in turn, is why Apple has been enabled to skip out of community events and produce these glossy, over-rehearsed events. Which is a shame.