WWDC 2025 is set to focus on three main areas for Apple

Apple’s WWDC is just over a month away, and as we close in on the software-focused event, it’s becoming more clear what we’ll see this summer.

A new report from notable leaker Mark Gurman suggests Apple will focus on three distinct areas: redesigned operating systems, new Apple Intelligence features, and finally, iPadOS improvements.

A new coat of paint

iOS 18 introduced a lot of customization, will those elements come to the new macOS this year?

The redesigned operating systems have been in the rumour mill for a while and suggest that Apple will further align macOS, iOS, and iPadOS under a more unified design language. Things got close with macOS Big Sur a few years ago, but this year we’re expecting things to get even closer.

It’s unclear if this means an all-new design across all three operating systems, or if macOS will get further aligned with iOS and iPadOS. There are rumours that all three will get a new coat of paint that will involve more glassy elements and Gaussian blur like the Vision Pro, but that remains to be seen.

I love the look of visionOS and even use an icon pack that’s inspired by it on my iPhone, but I’m very interested to see how intensely Apple implements it in its software. A large part of what makes visionOS cool is that since the windows float over the real world, the glassy elements adapt to the colour of their environment. It will be a lot harder to achieve this effect on a phone, so it’s expected that the new operating systems will introduce some design elements we haven’t seen yet on any Apple software.

Apple’s AI redemption

Hopefully Apple has something flashier than writing tools at WWDC 2025.

Moving on, Apple Intelligence will be a harder hurdle for Apple to overcome. Last year, Apple Intelligence was the star of the show at WWDC, but over the last year, things haven’t panned out for Apple’s AI tools, and we’re still waiting for features that were shown off last year.

I think one of the best things Apple could do at this point would be to address the issues with developing safe AI tools, and then have the new AI-enhanced Siri ready to go shortly after WWDC or even drop it with an iOS update during the keynote. If the company can wrap up all of its promised AI features from last year, then I think the crowd will be more receptive to anything new.

In the rumour mill, we’ve seen talk of the Apple Watch getting some Apple Intelligence features. Beyond that, I’m not sure what we’ll see, but I expect more Apple Intelligence plug-ins like we say with ChatGPT last year and likely some more first-party Apple apps withs AI-features.

A WWDC for the (iPad) lovers

The iPad is primed to be the PC of the future, it just needs a little software polish.

The iPadOS improvements are stacking up to be extremely exciting as well. The leaks we’ve seen have suggested that Apple is going to bring some major productivity and multitasking improvements to the iPad’s operating system.

I used the iPad a lot last year as my main computer because the M4 iPad Pro reminds me of my favourite Apple computer ever, the 12-inch MacBook. However, throughout that experience, I found that iPadOS was spread a little thin, and throughout the last few years, the company has tried to revamp its multi-tasking features, leading to two separate multi-tasking schemes, which is pretty confusing.

It would be nice for Apple to re-think this and present iPadOS 19 with a new simpler and more straightforward multitasking scheme that will make sense for traditional Mac users. There are also a lot of gestures involved in the current version of iPadOS, but as the company continues to work to position it as a traditional computing device, I think it needs to scale these down and make them easier to use as well.

The main WWDC 2025 keynote takes place at Apple’s campus in Cupertino on June 9th and will be streamed online so we can finally see what rumours are true this year and what other features Apple is cooking.

Source: Bloomberg, Business Today