Apple unveils iOS 26 with Liquid Glass interface at its Worldwide Developers Conference
Apple kicked off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday with an array of announcements on new features coming this fall via iOS 26, its latest operating system upgrade. Leading the pack is a new user interface enhancement called Liquid Glass.
CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives used words like "beautiful," "gorgeous" and "delightful" to describe changes on the horizon for its devices. And while they emphasized a fresh user interface and elevated app features, they also reassured users that the tools would remain familiar and accessible.
Read on for details on the latest bells and whistles coming to Apple's user interface.
iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26
Apple is adopting a new nomenclature for identifying its operating systems, one that is more straightforward than its previous numbering system. Rather than iOS 19, Apple's next iPhone iOS will be called iOS 26 to align with the upcoming year. iOS 26, along with iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 261 are slated to be released as free updates in September 2025.
Design upgrades, including Liquid Glass
Alan Dye, Apple's vice president of human interface design, calls the new OS, the company's "broadest design update ever."
A hallmark feature of the new OS is Liquid Glass, described by the company as an "expressive material" meant to mimic the qualities of glass. The dynamic new interface make apps, widgets and docs appear translucent, allowing users to see multiple layers of their screen at once.
Liquid Glass also creates more movement on your interface by morphing into your display. For example, as messages pop up on your home screen, the time display starts to shrink to accommodate them. The color of Liquid Glass also shifts depending on the content on your screen and adapts between light and dark environments.
"From navigating apps to system experiences like the lock screen notifications and control center app icons have been crafted with multiple layers of Liquid Glass and come to life in light mode, dark mode, colorful, new tints, or an all new clear look," said Dye during the company's keynote Monday.
Apple Intelligence
Apple also delivered long-awaited updates to Apple Intelligence, the company's artificial intelligence system that's now integrated with ChatGPT. AI-powered features arriving this fall include Live Translation, which automatically translates messages as they're being received.
"So if you're making plans with some new friends while studying abroad, your message can be translated as you type and delivered in their preferred language, and when they respond, each text can be instantly translated for you," said Leslie Ikemoto, an engineering director at Apple said at the conference Monday.
Visual Intelligence, another AI tool, allows users to take a screenshot of an image they see online — say, a cute sweater they come across on one of their apps — and then look up where to find a similar design online. They can also ask ChatGPT specific questions about the image, such as, keeping with the example of the sweater, "What material is this made of?"
Another feature builds on Apple broad selection of emojis by giving users the power to combine and personalize existing emojis to create their own unique expressions. In their presentation, Apple showed how someone could merge the lightbulb emoji with the sloth emoji to indicate they were the last one to get a joke, for example.
Still lingering on Apple's to do list is new AI integrations for Siri. Apple introduced updates to the voice assistant at last year's conference, but the full suite of upgrades for the voice assistant have yet to take effect. "We're continuing our work to deliver the features that make Siri even more personal," said senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi on Monday. "This work needed more time to reach our high quality bar, and we look forward to sharing more about it in the coming year."
In a research note, Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives noted that the Apple Intelligence rollout has been slower than expected, but also estimates that over the next few years, 25% of the world population will access AI through an Apple-powered device.
"While many on [Wall] Street are heading into WWDC as underwhelming given the slower-than-expected rollout of Apple Intelligence, we disagree with this bearish narrative and strongly believe this will be the start of AI monetization period of the Apple ecosystem as the company will continue to lay the foundation through its new operating system updates across Mac, iOS, iPad and others with its '26" update,'" Ives said.
contributed to this report.
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