WWDC 2025: all the news from Apple’s annual developer conference – The Verge

The biggest changes coming to your iPhone with iOS 26

2025-07-24T13:54:59-04:00

Apple recently announced iOS 26, the next major software update for iPhones, and it's packed with a whole bunch of new features. The biggest change is a new design, but there are lots of smaller improvements and additions as well that could make a difference in how you use your iPhone every day.

If you want to kick the tires before the update's wider release this fall, you can try it now in a public beta. Here's a bit more detail on what you can expect from iOS 26 when you install it on your device.

A refreshed design across the OS

Apple has a new design language called "Liquid Glass" that it's being introduced across all of the company's …

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All the Android features Apple announced at WWDC

2025-06-12T14:49:04-04:00

The latest edition of iOS Doing Android Things.

Apple announcing Android features years after Google shipped them is a tale as old as time, but that doesn't make it any less fun to point out whenever it happens. This year's WWDC felt especially Android-y - not helped by Siri essentially sitting this year's announcements out while Apple put its new Liquid Glass design language front and center.

The imitation goes both ways: Android is launching its version of iOS' Live Activities and is following Apple's lead by adding more customization options to quick settings tiles. Still, I couldn't help noticing a string of new features from Apple's the keynote that I've definitely seen somewhere b …

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Apple’s updated parental controls will require kids to get permission to text new numbers

2025-06-11T14:06:43-04:00

Apple is introducing a suite of updated child safety features, including one that will give parents more control over who their kids can communicate with. The features are set to arrive with iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, visionOS 26, and tvOS 26, which will launch this fall.

Children will now be required to get parental approval when they want to communicate with a new phone number. Requests will appear in the Messages app, and parents can tap a button to approve or decline. Apple is also launching a "PermissionKit" that will let developers fold a similar feature into their apps so that kids can "send requests to their pare …

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Praise be, my visionOS 26 persona is significantly less cursed!

2025-06-10T16:48:23-04:00

I look much more like myself in the visionOS 26 persona.

For several months, my Slack avatar was a screenshot of my incredibly cursed Vision Pro persona. My virtual avatar's head was cocked back, cackling into the pixelated void, her hair one solid unmoving block. It wasn't good - but it also wasn't the end of the world. Everyone else's Persona looked just as horrible, and honestly, it was funny. So I was skeptical when, at the WWDC keynote, Apple announced that visionOS 26 had improved the system's floating avatars.

And then I got to make one.

The process to make Personas hasn't changed, but the end result is vastly improved. (Full disclosure: The video you see above was recorded by Apple and p …

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Craig Federighi confirms Apple’s first attempt at an AI Siri wasn’t good enough

2025-06-10T19:47:26-04:00

In March, Apple delayed its upgraded Siri, saying that "it's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver" the promised features. At WWDC this week, Apple's SVP of software Craig Federighi and SVP of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak shared more details about the decision to delay in an interview with The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern.

As part of its initial Apple Intelligence announcements at WWDC 2024, Apple said that the improved Siri would have awareness of your personal context and the ability to take actions for you in apps. While Apple was showing real software at that show, Siri "didn't converge in the way, quality-wise, t …

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Hands on with macOS Tahoe 26: Liquid Glass, new theme options, and Spotlight

2025-06-11T10:18:35-04:00

Spotlight and themes are in the limelight. | Screenshot: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

At WWDC, Apple announced its new Liquid Glass design language, which is coming to all of its devices, including Macs. I've been tinkering with the macOS Tahoe 26 developer beta on the M4 MacBook Air for about a day. So far, the aesthetic changes range from slick to slightly overwrought, but the new Spotlight search features are nifty and useful.

There are new touches of glassy transparency all over macOS 26, including the Dock, Finder, widgets, and built-in apps. It's more subtle than on the iPhone, mostly because the Mac's much larger screen real estate makes the Liquid Glass elements more like accents than whatever this mess is supposed …

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Apple punts on Siri updates as it struggles to keep up in the AI race

2025-06-10T19:23:30-04:00

Apple's WWDC 2025 had new software, Formula 1 references, and a piano man crooning the text of different app reviews. But one key feature got the short end of the stick: Siri.

Although the company continuously referenced Apple Intelligence and pushed new features like live translation for Messages, FaceTime, and phone calls, Apple's AI assistant was barely mentioned. In fact, the most attention Siri got was when Apple explained that some of its previously promised features were running behind schedule.

To address what many saw as the elephant in the room, Apple's keynote briefly mentioned that it had updated Siri to be "more natural and mo …

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Apple turns up the speed on Podcasts and adds a new emoji game to News

2025-06-10T13:42:17-04:00

Apple's next major software updates are getting a huge new feature for playback speed sickos like me: you'll be able to listen to shows on the Podcasts app at as much as 3x speed, Apple notes in a press release about new services features. Previously, the maximum was 2x.

You can move to super speed from the podcast play screen in the Podcast app, but you'll have to do a little bit of work to get there, based on my testing in the first iOS 26 developer beta. When you tap the playback speed button, a small popup appears that shows buttons for a few different speeds: 0.8, 1, 1.3, 1.5, 1.8, and 2. To more finely adjust playback speeds or access …

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Hang on, did the iPad just become a computer?

2025-06-10T09:34:01-04:00

I genuinely never expected to say this: it appears Apple finally figured out multitasking on the iPad. With iPadOS 26, the company hasn't completely taken off the guardrails for how you can use and place apps on your tablet, but it came awfully close. With a couple of clever iPad-specific tricks, and better support for a mouse or trackpad, the whole system just makes sense in a way it never has before. I've been running the very first developer beta for less than a day on an 11-inch iPad Air, and I can already sense a change in how I use my tablet.

The new multitasking system is mostly pretty easy to understand. You unlock the iPad and you' …

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Liquid Glass, Spotlight, and the rest of WWDC 2025

2025-06-10T13:44:20-04:00

The tech world is full of cycles. Things are always bundling and unbundling, going from minimalist to maximalist, embracing nostalgia before diving head-first into the future. And right now, it appears, we're doing glassy again.

On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David are joined by The Verge's Allison Johnson and Victoria Song to talk about all the news from Apple's annual WWDC software extravaganza. There's no place to start, of course, other than with Liquid Glass, the new design system that Apple is rolling out across all of its platforms. We talk about why Apple made the change, what it looks like so far, and whether this is …

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