Vibes at WWDC 2025
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has been serving the company as the premier stage for product and service announcements since the very beginning in 1983. Few key historical milestones revealed during WWDCs include the App Store launch and iPhone 3G announcement in 2008, introduction of Swift - a new programming language designed to replace the old Objective-C in 2014. Most recently, WWDC 2020 announced Apple's historic transition from Intel to Apple Silicon that fundamentally changed the Mac development trajectory.
WWDC 2025, held from June 9-13 at Apple Park, arrived at a particularly critical juncture for the company. Following a year of delayed AI promises and mounting competitive pressure from Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, this conference was seen as Apple's opportunity to demonstrate its artificial intelligence strategy and software innovation capabilities.
Liquid Glass Design
Apple is famous for its great design. But somehow unexpectedly the centerpiece of WWDC 2025 was Liquid Glass - Apple's most radical visual product redesign since iOS 7. Inspired by visionOS Liquid Glass introduced translucent, dynamic user interface elements that create depth and fluidity. The design emphasizes transparency, allowing background content to show through interface elements while maintaining functionality that seems so familiar and easy to use.
Key design principles include crystal-like visual elements, improved touch responsiveness, and unified aesthetics across major Apple software systems: iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26. The Lock Screen adapts more dynamically to wallpaper content, while core apps like Camera, Safari, and Phone received significant visual overhauls with streamlined interfaces and contextual control presentation.
Developers can easily adopt the new design using SwiftUI, UIKit or AppKit with updated APIs featuring Liquid Glass materials and refreshed controls which makes apps more intuitive and engaging.
Apple Intelligence
Despite high expectations for breakthrough AI announcements, Apple's AI integration approach remains “less revolutionary” since the very beginning. The company introduced foundation models which allows third-party developers to access Apple's on-device large language models for the first time. This represents a significant shift toward opening Apple's AI infrastructure while maintaining privacy-first principles.
New Apple Intelligence features included Live Translation capabilities across Messages, FaceTime, and phone calls, enhanced Visual Intelligence for screenshot analysis and contextual search (-which reminds a bit Google Lens...) and expanded Image Playground and Genmoji capabilities with ChatGPT integration. Apple Watch was upgraded with Apple Intelligence that incorporates a user’s workout data and fitness history to generate personalized and motivational insights. However, the much-anticipated personalized Siri improvements were notably absent and delayed until "the coming year".
Spatial visionOS 26
The Apple Vision Pro received many updates via visionOS 26 introducing spatial widgets that integrate seamlessly into physical environments. New widgets are customizable, with a variety of options for frame width, color, and depth.
Persona avatars received significant improvements and now appear more natural and realistic. They support full side profiles, detailed hair and skin – all that can be created, adjusted in seconds on device.
Media Reviews
Most of the tech media outlets and observers expressed disappointment about WWDC 2025. Mashable missed anything “tangible” - “more than anything else, Apple's updates were mere vibes. Apple Intelligence is a vibe. The "liquid glass" design refresh is a vibe. Craig Fedherigi is definitely a vibe…”. Apple Insider had similar impressions: “so, if you felt like this year's WWDC was a bit underwhelming - you're not alone”. Wired pointed out that “many of the big updates of WWDC 2025 trickled out ahead of time, so Apple’s keynote had only a few surprises”.
From a business perspective Business Insider wrote about risks - “OpenAI, which partnered with Apple last year to bring ChatGPT to Siri, recently tapped Apple's former design lead Jony Ive to work on wearable AI hardware. The recent OpenAI hire has analysts concerned that Apple's position as a frontrunner in innovation is slipping”. Engadget was concerned that nowadays “the technology is moving faster than Apple's annual release schedule, with new, more powerful models being announced almost every week”. Tech Crunch summarized that Apple “has yet to deliver on some of the key technology advances that could modernize developers’ apps for the AI era.”
Should You Be Disappointed?
WWDC 2025 revealed that Apple is struggling between maintaining its privacy-first principles and competing in an AI-driven market which increasingly rewards aggressive user data exploitation. On the other hand many people still see AI more as an up-selling tool rather than a helpful assistant, particularly in shopping.
Today Apple is in transition - maintaining strong product design and working to develop competitive AI solutions respecting privacy. Whether this will lead to success remains to be seen, but WWDC 2025 clearly indicated that Apple's AI journey will take more time than initially anticipated.