we come from and era where visual changes were just a matter of adding more colors to the screen so more possibilitys playing with details, shadows and effects. The "WOW" effect got lost after Aqua, Brushed metal... just realistic representations of real objects, then Flat recovered some exciting clearing up the interface.I think I’m just getting old cause these announcements are just not as exciting as they used to be
But visual effects as realistic shadows and defocus backgrounds were already covered since long time ago, there is nothing new to come with until new hardware tech makes this possible.
We would need full OLED devices to start playing with light intensity in the UI, but Apple needs to release a full ecosystem of devices with OLED screens to reach a consistent "WOW" effect.