Apple is hosting its big fall event on September 9th, 2025, to announce its latest iPhones and Apple Watches. We’re expecting Apple to unveil the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and a brand-new thinner model called the iPhone Air. The big question: Do people want thinner phones? Will it sacrifice battery life? Also on deck: AirPods Pro 3 are possible, and we’ll likely see the Apple Watch Series 11, a new budget Apple Watch SE, and the Apple Watch Ultra 3.
Big changes are in store across Apple’s platforms, from a design refresh to major multitasking improvements for the iPad.
As of October 2024, it was set to launch “early next year,“ but now the Ultimate Edition of the game will launch on the Mac App Store “later this year,” according to a footnote at the end of Apple’s Platforms State of the Union video. At least the game is out on Switch 2.
So pointy! Apps are getting a real menu bar, too.
Apple is pushing visual intelligence features that build on Apple Intelligence, allowing users to go beyond searching for context using their device’s camera and now also “search and take action on anything they’re viewing across their apps.” The feature can also recognize when a user is looking at something they may like to attend and pre-populate a calendar event with time and place.
“Users can ask ChatGPT questions about what they’re looking at on their screen to learn more, as well as search Google, Etsy, or other supported apps to find similar images and products,” according to Apple. To access the feature, a user can act like they’re taking a screenshot — they will then be prompted to either save the screenshot or search using Apple Intelligence.
At WWDC 2025, Apple just showed off a new update coming to its wearables this fall.
Once watchOS 26 is available, Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 wearers will be able to dismiss notifications, silence times and alarms, and ignore calls just by turning their wrist over and back like this (below), in addition to the existing double tap gesture.
Apple is updating Genmoji and Image Playground with new styles, powered in part by ChatGPT. With Image Playground, users can now tap into ChatGPT to change a friend’s photo into the style of an oil painting, for instance.
Image Playground sends the description you write out, or your image, to ChatGPT to create the results, but “nothing is shared with ChatGPT without your permission,” according to Apple.
Apple announced at WWDC 2025 that it’s debuting live translation Apple Intelligence features that allow you to translate between languages in Messages, FaceTime, and phone calls.
For a phone call, that’ll mean live translation aloud as you talk, and with FaceTime, it means live captions displayed on the screen. It’s all powered via Apple-built models that run on-device.
There’s a bunch of good new stuff in group messaging for Apple Messages — polls, better notification management for unknown senders, and more — but the best quality-of-life thing here is definitely typing indicators for group chats. This is going to make chaotic family messaging so much less chaotic.
This year at WWDC, Apple announced it’s opening up access for any app to tap into the on-device large language model at the core of Apple Intelligence, giving developers direct access. It will “ignite a whole new wave of intelligence experiences” in the apps users frequent, per Apple, and it cuts out cloud API costs due to on-device access.
Software redesigns, some new names, and probably more AI. Probably.
We were just driven around the spaceship in a golf cart that may or may not have had party speakers. The keynote is scheduled to start in less than an hour. More to come soon.
Shawn Hickman, who makes an app I really like called Sofa, has eight developer-specific requests for Apple at WWDC. Some are technical, some are business-focused, some are pure vibes. Hickman is just one dev, obviously, but he covers bunch of frustrations I’ve been hearing for years. It’s a good frame ahead of next week.
