Apple's WWDC 2025: Shining in UI, but falling short in AI

As the digital world held its breath, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2025 kicked off on June 9th Pacific Time, or 1 am on June 10th Beijing Time, heralding a four-day odyssey of innovation. A cornerstone event for the global tech community, WWDC serves as Apple's annual showcase, where the tech giant unfurls its latest software marvels, technological breakthroughs, and strategic masterstrokes. This year, Apple CEO Tim Cook took center stage, his keynote speech acting as the ignition switch for a conference brimming with anticipation.

The alluring "Liquid Glass" design​

Apple introduced significant updates to its operating systems, including iOS 26, macOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. The most eye-catching highlight of these releases is undoubtedly the integration of a cross-platform visual style. 

Apple has brought about the most significant visual design overhaul since the launch of iOS 7 in 2013, introducing the new "Liquid Glass" design language. This design will be applied to all of Apple's operating systems. Through semi-transparent elements and real-time rendering technology, it enhances the coherence and dynamism of the user interface across devices, reducing the visual disconnection when users switch between different Apple products. During his keynote, Tim Cook passionately described this as the bridge that unites our digital ecosystem, ensuring users glide through their devices with effortless grace. 

The lackluster AI performance

A stark contrast can be drawn when comparing Apple's AI announcements at this year's WWDC with those of last year. In 2024, Apple unveiled an ambitious AI strategy at WWDC, declaring the integration of Apple Intelligence into a range of programs, including Siri, and announcing a collaboration with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to iPhone and other devices. Fast forward to 2025 – instead of bold, revolutionary AI updates, Apple presented a series of relatively practical features.

In iOS 26, Apple introduced real-time translation powered by Apple Intelligence, seamlessly integrated into Messages, Phone calls, and FaceTime. This feature enables instant multi-language translation of both text and voice. Additionally, iOS 26 launched Visual Intelligence, which allows for cross-app content recognition. For instance, users can press and hold the camera control, point their phone at an object, and with a tap, search for similar images in the browser. Or, by pointing the camera at a restaurant, they can instantly access its online ratings. Beyond iOS, watchOS 26 on Apple Watch also supports real-time translation. In macOS, there are upgrades to Smart Actions in Shortcuts and Spotlight. These upgrades empower users to create automated workflows using natural language and quickly activate various functions through the desktop search engine Spotlight.

One of the more significant AI updates this year was the deepening of Apple's partnership with OpenAI. Apple announced the addition of ChatGPT's image-generation capabilities to the Image Playground application. Moreover, Apple opened up its Apple Intelligence core large language model to third-party developers. The newly-released Foundation Models framework allows developers to access Apple's on-device foundational models and integrate them into their apps. 

However, despite these updates, the much-anticipated upgrade to Siri's AI capabilities was conspicuously absent from this year's WWDC. Even before the conference, rumors circulated about Apple's difficulties in upgrading the AI-powered voice assistant. Earlier this year, Apple announced that some of Siri's AI enhancements would be postponed until 2026. During the WWDC keynote, Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, admitted that the company was still working on adding more personalized features to Siri. "This work needed more time to reach our high-quality bar," he said.

Stock market reactions reflecting investor concerns

The underwhelming AI progress at WWDC 2025 seemed to mirror investors' sentiments, as Apple's stock price took a hit instead of rising after the conference. On June 9th (local time), Apple's stock price dropped 1.21 percent, with its market capitalization standing at $3.01 trillion. This decline is a clear indication that investors were not impressed by Apple's AI offerings at the event, especially when considering the high-stakes competition in the AI market where rivals are making rapid strides.