Home windows Vista-like glass redesign, Mac-style iPadOS adjustments, and extra

Apple’s massive WWDC (Worldwide Builders Convention) for 2025 has formally begun, and the primary software program keynote presentation is kicking issues off with a bang. , the Cupertino, California-based tech big has unveiled next-generation updates to all its operating system platforms, unifying its replace efforts below a single ‘version 26’ naming convention for consistency.

This 12 months, Apple is introducing a flurry of recent options that’ll make their means into its upcoming iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26 platform releases. Every of those working programs is obtainable now in developer preview kind, with the primary public betas slated to land in July. According to Apple, full steady releases will hit the bottom operating someday this fall.

Listed below are 5 of essentially the most noteworthy reveals from WWDC 2025, starting from a sweeping glass-like visual overhaul, elementary tweaks to the iPad experience, and rather more.

1

A ‘liquid glass’ OS redesign

Home windows Vista’s Aero Glass aesthetic is again in type

Pocket-lint / Apple

As anticipated, essentially the most hanging WWDC25 reveal of all of them is a brand new ‘liquid glass’ aesthetic designed by Apple, which shall be making its means into every of the corporate’s bespoke working programs of their model 26 releases later this 12 months. Impressed by the glass-like digital surfaces of the Vision Pro headset, Apple appears to be leaning into the Home windows Aero design language pioneered by Microsoft again within the days of Vista.

Actual-time gentle reflections and refractions dynamically alter in look based mostly on content material displayed on display, icons have been redesigned with a layered design and an non-obligatory translucent clear look, and sidebars, toolbars, and menus have all been reworked to raised match the brand new design language. Curiously, the much-rumored circular iPhone app icons are nowhere to be seen — a web optimistic growth, in my subjective opinion.

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2

A enjoyable new Recreation app

A centralized sport launcher hub for the Apple ecosystem

Pocket-lint / Apple

Throughout iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple is introducing an all-new preinstalled utility known as the Recreation app. This app serves as a one-stop-shop location for launching cell video games, with achievements, scoreboards, and different helpful additions in addition. In a way, Apple has created its personal devoted gaming launcher for App Retailer and Apple Arcade titles. I believe this is a superb thought at a time when the corporate is pushing for ever-more expansive AAA video games to hit its platforms.

This new Recreation app additionally integrates with the present Recreation Heart framework, which has included scoreboards and different sport knowledge metrics ever since its launch in iOS 4.1 in 2010. Recreation Heart was its personal devoted app again within the day, earlier than being demoted to the Settings app a number of years later. I am a fan of Apple’s newfound spotlighting of Video games inside a centralized app hub, and I look ahead to testing the brand new interface as soon as it hits my iDevices.

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3

Smarter telephone calling and messaging

Practically 20 years on, the iPhone is ready to change into a greater telephone

Pocket-lint / Apple

Today, our fashionable smartphones are primarily pocketable supercomputers. With how highly effective and multifaceted the iPhone has change into, it is simple to neglect that the phrase ‘telephone’ is, in truth, within the product title itself. Practically twenty years on from the unique iPhone’s launch, Apple is dramatically bettering the precise telecommunications expertise of the iPhone. Taking a web page out of Google’s Pixel playbook, iOS 26 is ready to incorporate new spam name detection and filtering instruments, in addition to a brand new choice to have the telephone maintain wait queues through elevator music identifier and call-back applied sciences.

Dwell telephone name translations are one other thrilling addition, which ought to make ringing up family members in a foreign country a much more accessible expertise. And, as an added bonus, the iPad and the Mac are gaining devoted Cellphone apps of their very own, which is able to make it simpler to position calls utilizing Apple’s Continuity function with out your iPhone being in reachable proximity. All of this makes me marvel: if I’ve a 5G cellular-enabled iPad, and if it has a Cellphone app inbuilt, would possibly I quickly be capable to exchange my iPhone altogether?

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4

The iOS Images app is (seemingly) mounted

Apple re-introduces a devoted tab for collections of photograph albums

Pocket-lint / Apple

With final 12 months’s launch of iOS 18, Apple redesigned the native Images app to supply a extra dynamic person expertise. Sadly, the app proved confusing to many iPhone customers — to this present day, the app refresh stays controversial, with many lamenting the lack of the devoted tab for itemizing albums. With iOS 26, Apple seems to be capitulating a bit, by reintroducing a Collections tab close to the underside of the app’s interface.

Personally, I am one of many few individuals who prefers the up to date iOS 18 Images app, as I like accessing all my photos, folders, and collections in a single, unified house. That being stated, the interface definitely felt much less cluttered in iOS 17 and under, and so I am completely happy to see Apple as soon as once more providing a tabbed expertise to enhance approachability.

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5

The iPad is lastly a reliable laptop

iPadOS is about to get much more macOS-like, and it has been a very long time coming

Pocket-lint / Apple

Placing apart the most important visible refresh of all of Apple’s working programs, I might argue that the only greatest reveal of WWDC25 is the vastly improved iPad expertise coming within the type of iPadOS 26. The corporate has lastly taken steps to enhance the iPad’s capacity to function as a standalone computer, by grafting on a number of Mac-inspired interface tweaks and options.

With iPadOS 26, Apple is bringing the Mac’s acquainted visitors light-style window administration buttons to the iPad, along with improved split-screen windowing controls, fast window snapping, and extra. Different PC-like additions embody a brand new, pointier mouse cursor, granular management over audio enter, a devoted Menu Bar interface for choosing fast actions, the introduction of the Mac’s Preview app, and a extra sturdy Information app. This final addition introduces assist for ongoing background duties in a type of Live Activities-style notification setup, which is one thing I’ve personally been clamoring for.

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