WWDC 25

When was the latest truly memorable WWDC? I’d say in 2020, a year that was already memorable in itself, when Apple unveiled the new Macs with Apple Silicon processors, capable of outperforming their equivalent Intel-based models.

I don’t know if what was presented at this year’s WWDC will be just as memorable, but there’s no doubt that Apple has came up with some interesting innovations.

First and foremost, there is an update to iPadOS that finally introduces (why did it take so long?) overlapping windows and a more decent file system management, virtually retiring Stage Manager.

I never liked Stage Manager. I’ve always found it annoying and too limited, with its four-and-no-more-than-four side mini-windows that come and go, with no way to pin one in place once and for all. I think few people will miss it.

The new overlapping windows in iPadOS 26 may have an “old-school” vibe, but they’ve been around for 40 years and are definitely more intuitive and easier to manage. If I have to adapt to something new, Apple should to offer me something better, not worse.

Getting Preview and Calculator on the iPad is no small bonus. As a more-than-satisfied Preview user, I’m really curious to try it on the iPad.

The other major new feature is the new “Liquid Glass” user interface, which will be rolled out across all Apple platforms, from Macs to iPhones and even Vision Pros. Beyond its look, glassy today, who knows tomorrow, what really matters is that from now on, all Apple platforms will speak the same visual language, with clear benefits in terms of ease of use and, I believe, also app development.

That Liquid Glass is the modern version of Aqua seems obvious at first glance. In the early 2000s, I switched back to the Mac from Linux not only because it had UNIX under the hood, but also because I absolutely loved Aqua.

The later shift to a metallic theme and to today’s muted gray tones, elegant as they may be, never really excited me, so I’m very curious to see Aqua 2.0 in action.

As for the rest of the keynote, I’ll admit that I don’t remember much. The fact that the Apple Watch now tries to convince me that I run better than Jacobs matters to me about as much as nothing. The same goes for the time that stretches or shrinks depending on the iPhone wallpaper. Or the ever-present Memojis. But if they get so much stage time, it must mean people like them, so maybe I’m the one who is out of sync with the times.

Apple improving the built-in apps in its operating systems should be standard practice. But this obsession with hiding features is getting a bit pathological (thinking of you, Camera).

Call Screening, on the other hand, could be a real game changer, assuming it actually works in my country.

And the fact that Federighi didn’t burst out laughing while claiming that over the past year Apple Intelligence has been relevant says a lot about how many times that scene was rehearsed.

Almost forgot: the new version numbering for the operating systems. Having a unified scheme for all platforms might be a good thing, but was it really necessary to use the year (and get it wrong, too)? Microsoft already tried that with Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000. Was it really impossible to come up with something more original?

Anyway, this unification will force Apple to release a new version of half a dozen different operating systems every year, even when they will not have a single noteworthy new feature. Personally, I think an annual release cycle is excessive and unsustainable in the long run. But apparently, Apple’s marketing always needs something new, whether it’s useful or even works is another story.

A last, fairly sad note. How could Tim Cook and his team not find a minute during their hour-and-a-half-long keynote to remember Bill Atkinson? And at a developer conference, no less!

Apple wouldn’t be what it is today without his contributions. RIP.