WWDC 2025 Likely 'Smaller-Scale' Than Past Two WWDCs, Here's Why

[tonywalker23]

I wish it would look like this. I’m 41, with six kids, in the ministry, so my midlife crisis will have to be tame and inexpensive. If Aqua came back, I would make it through my 40s just fine. Add an iMac G4 shaped desktop and and a 12” MacBook reminiscent of the 12” Powerbook g4, and I might even not have a midlife crisis.

 

[attohs]

The era of under promising and over delivering is back? Probably too soon to say that. I am hoping that's the case though!

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

IMO fundamentally rethinking the way that certain things in the operating systems work, some of which haven’t been touched since Mac OS X Chita in 2001 or iOS 7 in 2013, is going to make way more of an impact on users lives than a simple Chatbot introduction.
Don’t get me wrong, I want to see Apple improve all of their AI offerings, and they desperately need to, but at the end of the day even with iOS, as it is today, you can download ChatGPT or Gemini and chatbot away to your heart’s content.
Meanwhile, there are so many areas throughout the operating systems that clearly are stuck in 2013 or earlier that desperately need a facelift.
I’m quite excited, I think everyone agrees that Apple‘s hardware is top-notch (both figuratively and literally) and that it’s the software that needs the most amount of work.
An all software WWDC is music to my ears.

 

[Ghengis LeMond]

Regardless of what is delivered, “It will be revolutionary, groundbreaking and best in its class letting you do and experience things you do now in completely new and incredibly immersive ways. It will allow you to unleash creativity like never before. We are immensely proud of this accomplishment - we love it and know you will too.”

 

[AlexESP]

If this is all Apple has for WWDC 2025, it feels like a missed opportunity. A glassy UI facelift might look pretty, but it’s hardly exciting when the rest of the tech world is sprinting ahead in AI. The fact that even some Apple employees expect a letdown says a lot.

And if Apple keeps lagging in generative AI, no amount of translucent menus will hide that. Let’s hope 2026 isn’t too late for them to catch up.

The rest of the industry is sprinting ahead… but where? The current implementations of Gen AI don’t seem to be very exciting to customers (based on sales, surveys…).

To me (and I suspect, specially, to a lot of non-tech customers), a design change is much more exciting. I use my phone everyday, and improving the UX can make a big difference.

I think Apple’s error was actually the opposite: following the industry on the AI hype instead of focusing on specific use cases that will be valuable to customers.

 

[0049190]

Another Tim Cook humdinger with nothing exciting to show.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

I do not foresee the design revamp being well received. people are still made at iOS7 even thought iOS6 was an absolute eyesore and terrible to use

Design revamps are never well received, even Aqua wasn’t received very well.

Cabel Sasser (@cabel@panic.com)

One of my strongest early developer memories was being in the “UI Feedback Forum” at WWDC after they introduced Aqua. Think of a live Q&A, but developers giving notes to a team of Apple engineers. To these veteran Mac coders, the reaction to Aqua was universally negative. People were actively...

social.panic.com

“One of my strongest early developer memories was being in the “UI Feedback Forum” at WWDC after they introduced Aqua. Think of a live Q&A, but developers giving notes to a team of Apple engineers.

To these veteran Mac coders, the reaction to Aqua was universally negative. People were actively very angry. It’s a waste! It’s ugly! It’s confusing! How could you. It went on and on, and I was surprised because Aqua looked cool and fun to me.

After that WWDC, they never did another Feedback Forum.”

For the record, this was the same Aqua introduced by Steve Jobs, the same one he said that made people want to “lick it”.
The same Aqua people say was universally well received, and Jobs would’ve never changed.
When the design got way more smooth than leopard, that was also criticized.
When the calendar became leather and things became a lot more like iOS, it wasn’t well received.
When they flattened everything down for Yosemite, it wasn’t well received.
People just fundamentally hate change, of any kind. Which is why Apple is always so hesitant to make any changes.

 

[Naraxus]

Another Tim Cook humdinger with nothing exciting to show.

According to you

 

[dumastudetto]

They must have a lot of exciting stuff planned because they don't have time to go on Grubers podcast this year.

 

[klasma]

I don't care if there are no new fancy announcements as long as the software is taken properly care of under the hood.

I think this means that you will care.

 

[azentropy]

No hardware does make it a bit more boring for many. I still have some outside hope for a AppleTV refresh.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

I don’t want my Mac to look like Vista. I want it to be intuitive and clear, like Mountain Lion.

The transparency effects of Big Sur haven’t improved any aspect of my experience. Yes you can turn it off (under Accessibility, which says a lot), but the fact that they make these changes under the pretence that they’re an improvement is baffling. The irony here is that turning it off makes the experience worse because the non-translucent UI is brighter than the old grey, which is hard on the eyes.

 

[winxmac]

People just fundamentally hate change, of any kind. Which is why Apple is always so hesitant to make any changes.

People hate change for the sake of change, fixing something that is not broken, like the difference between Photos app from iOS 17 and older vs the one on iOS 18.

I only started owning an iPhone in 2016 but I do prefer the iOS 6 or skeumorphic look.

 

[chfilm]

People already lost their damn mind over the Photo look looking differently. Imagine a whole new design language

Yup, with everything going wrong at Apple these days, the new design is something that really worries me! Why change something that is arguably good and refined at this point instead of focusing on the important stuff like iPad os functionality and Apple intelligence?

 

[Populus]

For those of us not in the development scene, I’d like to ask: what does a rich text editor add to SwiftUI? Will it make it easier for the developers? Will us, customers and users, notice something about it on the apps we use?

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Yep, I've turned off Translucency everyplace I can. Just because something can be done, does not mean it should be done.

Exactly, and they’ve been there. Maybe whoever created this terrible Photos app redesign has influence. The Photos app is so bad it was cited as one of the reasons my friend switched back to Android as their main device after trying iPhone for a few months. Another reason was they said how Android handles volume control much better, where sliding all of the different volume controls is just a tap away. Apple needs to get back to making their stuff not just easy to use, but everyday functional.

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

Tim Cook not adequately prioritizing AI investment is such a huge miss it boggles the mind. I know there's a large amount of AI skepticism here (and on other tech-focused sites for some reason) but it is very obviously the future and whichever tech company actually figures out a truly competent personal assistant (based on AI of course) wins essentially all consumer tech spending.

 

[ricketysquire]

Good, we need more stable software and less gimmicky hardware

And gimmicky software features. Just because every other tech company is screaming AI doesn't mean Apple need other jump on the bandwagon.

 

[Populus]

Yup, with everything going wrong at Apple these days, the new design is something that really worries me! Why change something that is arguably good and refined at this point instead of focusing on the important stuff like iPad os functionality and Apple intelligence?

Well, I’m not gonna like when I say I will enjoy a more modern redesign with a unified look across the operating systems BUT, I agree, seeing what’s happening at Apple right now, maybe we should prepare ourselves for disappointment or, at least, a few years of bugs and glitches until everything is polished up.

Hopefully we’re wrong and Apple does it’s magic, delivering a clean, functional, reliable, fast and light interface. But at this point that sounds like a fantasy.

Could anyone here that uses visionOS tell us how’s that new operating system? Does it work fast and reliable with little bugs?

 

[AppliedMicro]

Apple added translucency to macOS window chrome some years back, along with very thin fonts, and then spent each subsequent year rolling both back.

...so did Microsoft with Vista.

And also Apple. With... was it Mavericks?

Translucency is often an impediment to usability, and is best used sparingly and subtly, in places only where it makes sense. Docks and menu bars, there it makes sense.

Not even on the menu bar - cause that contains text menus to read.

 

[Populus]

Tim Cook not adequately prioritizing AI investment is such a huge miss it boggles the mind. I know there's a large amount of AI skepticism here (and on other tech-focused sites for some reason) but it is very obviously the future and whichever tech company actually figures out a truly competent personal assistant (based on AI of course) wins essentially all consumer tech spending.

Yes, for better or worse it is the future.

 

[AusMness]

I do not foresee the design revamp being well received. people are still made at iOS7 even thought iOS6 was an absolute eyesore and terrible to use

I can only imagine the complete uprising that would happen if Apple did end up redesigning everything…

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

...so did Microsoft with Vista.

And also Apple. With... was it Mavericks?

Not even on the menu bar - cause that contains text menus to read.

Called out Vista in my comment. With the menu bar it can be turned off, I believe. When they added it first it was far too transparent, but it’s more subtle now. It’s not bad now as it means window chrome pops a bit more, as that’s basically solid in appearance compared to Mavericks or whenever they added it.

 

[digimc]

So what you are saying is that I should scale back my watch party menu. Instead of prime rib and loaded baked potatoes I guess I will just go with miniature pizza bites and potato chips.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

I can only imagine the complete uprising that would happen if Apple did end up redesigning everything…

If it was carefully done by skilled designers with a great sense of software design, who knew what to changes and how much, then most people would be able to accept it after a period of adjustment. The problem is it could easily be many changes for the worse knowing Apple of recent.