Apple seems to have learned from the lessons of overcommitment in the field of artificial intelligence. At last year's Global Developers Conference (WWDC), the company made several bold commitments to AI programs, trying to prove that it can handle the ChatGPT era, too. But these promises ultimately proved to be under-careful considerations—the multiple AI features under its "Apple Intelligence" framework are underperforming, and the Siri voice assistant that promises an upgrade has not yet been released.
In the opening keynote speech of this WWDC conference on Monday, Apple's software commitments were much more pragmatic, mainly discussing incremental upgrades: including full-line design innovation of operating system, new software naming rules, and easier-to-implement AI functions. Craig Federici, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, said in a pre-recorded video that the absent Siri upgrade is still under development: "This work takes more time to meet our high standards, and we look forward to sharing progress with you next year."
Some improvements are indeed typical of "gradual". Apple will change the operating system design of all devices through translucent icons and menus, a visual style called "liquid glass". At the same time, the operating system naming rules are simplified. The new system will directly use the release year suffix instead of the serial version number. For example, the iPhone system launched this year will be named iOS 26. Apple's stock price fell 1% after the news was announced.
An interesting update to iPad is the support for multi-app window running, which brings the iPad operating system closer to the features of Mac computers. In the past, Apple has always refused to develop tablet notebook hybrid devices like Windows manufacturers, such as adding touch screens to MacBooks.
The AI improvements launched this time are small but easier to implement, including in-app real-time language translation, incoming call screening, and the use of AI to analyze in-app information. Apple announced that it will open the device-side AI model interface to developers, so that developers do not need to continuously upload user data to the cloud, and can also use AI functions offline.
Apple basically avoided the issue of growing tensions with developers at the conference. Currently, many app developers are trying to evade 30% commission by guiding users to pay outside the app store. Before the meeting, developers had expected Apple to make a statement - for example, to adjust the commission to 15% - to maintain their willingness to cooperate. Even though she felt the pressure from developers, Apple did not make any statement during the conference.
