It’s the dawn of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2025, and everyone is looking forward with bated breath as this is sure to be a monumental year from the Apple’s software perspective. Rumor has it that iOS 26 will be the star of the show with the biggest design shake-up since iOS 7, and some major AI enhancements under the “Apple Intelligence” flag.
The most significant alteration is reportedly going to be a system-wide appearance revamp, which has been internally named “Solarium.” This new look takes a lot from visionOS in that it is more translucent, with a glass-like look and feel to many of the interface elements, and subtle motion effects including more rounded corners throughout the user interface.
This seamlessness of design language is intended to be carried over to future versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS and visionOS, in order to create a more consistent, and simple experience for Apple users on all the company’s gadgets in its ecosystem. Even app icons could get subtle design changes, though their basic shape probably wouldn’t be much changed.
iOS 26 won’t just be about looks either, as there are some useful improvements planned. The Phone app is also reportedly getting a larger merged view that combines favorite contacts, recent calls, and voicemails into a single, scrollable area. Safari should see an updated, glassy address bar design, while the Camera app is getting a single-tap friendly interface with pop-out menus for simplified settings.
The Messages app may also get poll creation and customizable background images, and Genmoji would get a major update that would let people mix and match existing emojis.
In the world of artificial intelligence, while Apple Intelligence debuted in 2024, WWDC 2025 will likely follow up on that with refinement and more application. Key AI improvements include improved live translation for phone calls and text messages that works across all Apple operating systems.
Siri should also be smarter, with better app integration and the ability to manage more complex, multi-step tasks by using contextual knowledge from your personal emails, messages and photos. Crucially, Apple are expected to provide access to their underlying AI models to developers, in order to let other developers build towards similar AI abilities in their apps.
There’s also said to be a new dedicated Games app that aggregates all titles together across all of Apple’s devices along with Arcade integration and features like leaderboards and friends. The upcoming iOS 26 is also due to receive big multitasking enhancements, getting it closer to the macOS experience, alongside improvements to the Apple Pencil.
WWDC 2025, will be a milestone moment, which will reflect Apple’s ambition to push the boundaries of design while leveraging AI in its services and ecosystem in a much more practical manner. The cohesive look and more intelligent AI is going to change how its users will interact with their Apple devices, and create a new benchmark for overall UX in the future.
