Apple needed to fix one thing at WWDC25 and it didn’t

At Monday’s WWDC keynote, Apple pretended 2025 was just another year.

There was a lot of speculation about how Apple would frame this event (some of it from this pointy pontificator). Turns out it framed it pretty much like any other event. While the Macalope would have bet that Apple would choose to open with something about its commitment to accessibility or how many lives the Apple Watch has saved or COO Jeff Williams work with orphaned kittens, it instead led with Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi racing a Formula 1 car around the roof of Apple Park.

(Which raises the question, why does Craig park on driveways and drive on Apple Park, anyways?)

Was it cute? It was a little cute. But was it a time to be cute? Not really.

You might complain that it’s just an ad for an Apple TV+ movie, but that’s to be expected. If the Macalope corners you at a party, he’s probably going to spend some time talking about his latest pet project, too (hand-blown glass poodles, it’s going great, thanks).

As was rumored, Siri was largely a no-show at the event, with no update on when the more personalized, conversational Siri might arrive, if ever. That didn’t mean Apple didn’t want to talk about AI. Honestly, it wouldn’t shut up about it. After the “humorous” intro video, Tim Cook appeared and mentioned AI no fewer than 14 billion times. Or maybe it just seemed like 14 billion.

The big news on the AI front was that Apple will be providing developer APIs for its AI offering, meaning developer apps can now drain your battery just as fast as Apple itself can. Cool–or, well, not cool, as the case may be.

Still, that’s a plus at a time when developer relations are not great. The Macalope would say “tenuous” but they’ve been so bad for so long and, he hates to say, they can get worse still. Apple clearly feels it has developers over a barrel and that it has enough customer good will, time, money and market clout that it can continue to treat them however it wants to. Sadly, this continues to be true, at least for the time being.

But, wait, we just went a whole paragraph without talking about AI. That won’t do.

Apple is so into AI, it’ll have you know, that it’s even prepared to have it drill you maggots until you can be all you can be. That sounds fun.

There were many other updates on AI but, joking aside, there were actually some other big announcements. Apple announced a whole new design ethic across its operating systems (and, as expected, renumbered the releases). Dubbed “Has Anyone Seen My Glasses?” this new interface design features…

What’s that?

Sorry, the Macalope is being told it’s called “Liquid Glass.” He regrets the error.

Anyway, Liquid Glass goes heavy on the transparency and, while it looks cool and mod and new and cool, transparency in operating systems isn’t new at all. Heck, it’s not even new on macOS. It is a tried, tested, and often failed style of user interface. Having seen this blurry movie before, the Macalope can’t really get worked up about complaining about it, though. If you hate it or can’t use your device effectively with it on, Apple’s commitment to accessibility means you’ll be able to turn it off, which the Macalope almost certainly will be doing on the Mac but maybe not on iOS. Besides, you only have to worry about Liquid Glass until it comes time to jazz Apple’s operating systems up again in 15 years with a fresh new look Apple will call “Totally Opaque.”

We think you’re going to love it.

The real star of the show to the Macalope was somewhat unexpected. If you had to pick one announcement that people were pretty unabashedly and pleasantly surprised by, it would be the iPadOS announcement. After years of trying to fudge the multitasking issue with various gimmicky user interfaces, Apple finally shipped what power users pretty much wanted all along: windowing on iPadOS. And it did it without just slapping macOS on the platform. Windows behave like classic iPadOS windows… until they don’t. Honestly, it’s the rather elegant solution the Macalope hoped Apple would come up with. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, but it’s coming.

IDG

There were some big updates for visionOS as well, but those just won’t impact that many users and won’t for years to come.

It is not surprising at all that Apple didn’t take the time to apologize to customers for not shipping the AI features it promised or to developers for doing things like appealing the court ruling striking down the company’s anti-steering policy.

As one developer put it:

To me, the main thing Apple needed to fix this WWDC was their relationship with developers, and this keynote suggests they think otherwise.

James Thomson, June 9, 2025

Clearly, Apple doesn’t seem to think it has a problem. And, as the Macalope has pointed out before, it kind of doesn’t, at least not yet. And that’s the problem.