Editor's column: 7 thoughts on WWDC 2025

By: Technoslav Bergamot | 10.06.2025, 14:07

This year's WWDC 2025, Apple's annual developer conference, didn't bring any revolutions. Of course, it has always been more about the opportunities for software developers in the six (!) operating systems that Apple currently manages than about new devices or their capabilities. It is worth noting that this was the shortest presentation in the last ten years - usually they last 2 hours or more, this year's presentation lasted an hour and a half. Almost nothing was said about Apple Intelligence, which was loudly announced last year (and which no one has ever seen) - instead, a new concept of Visual Intelligence was presented. The fact that all operating systems will be coded by year of release (iOS 26 instead of iOS 19) was announced before WWDC. And the main news of the conference was probably the announcement of a unified Liqiud Glass design for all platforms. This column is not about what was actually presented. It's about the thoughts that the whole presentation aroused in me and how it differed from the previous ones.

1. The shortest presentation in the last 10 years

The longest presentation was in 2015 - it lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes. That was when iOS 9 and watchOS were introduced. In general, the median for presentations is two hours.

2. Almost half of the time was devoted to iOS (45.9%)

The least time is spent on tvOS (5.8%), and this includes the trailer for the new AppleTV premieres, which lasted one and a half minutes out of almost five. Indirectly, this indicates the focus and importance of the company: iOS is in the first place, macOS is in the second, and iPadOS is in the third.


The distribution of WWDC 2025 presentation time for each operating system. Illustration: gagadget

3. Probably a record 18 speakers

I counted 18 speakers during my speech. And this is probably a record as well - last year, for example, there were 15 speakers, including a representative of Ubisoft. I have the impression that the WWDC presentation is a kind of analogue of the red carpet in Cannes for Apple. And the company cultivates some kind of internal competition, the winners of which get their few minutes of global fame and the right to read out the text for a couple of minutes in front of a teleprompter. This year, the number of such winners was probably higher than usual. Or there is some internal inflation of the process. Perhaps Apple should tweak something in this gamification for employees.

4. Relatively few views per day

In general, 24 hours have not yet passed since the presentation, so it seems too early to draw conclusions. At the time of publication, there were 6.6 million views. But in previous years, the interest from viewers or users was potentially much higher. For example, in 2023, the number of views was a record 20 million. Theoretically, this may indicate that consumers were not interested in this year's presentation. But the number of views does not determine how useful it is for developers.

5. Gorgeous is the new "Amazing"

We all remember how tired we are of this vanilla in Apple's presentations and the abuse of the epithet Amazing, which was started by Steve Jobs. Now, it seems, it has been banned by some internal Apple document. Instead, we hear a new epithet - Gorgeous. Which has every chance of bothering us for the next few years.

6. Switching to a new, understandable numbering of operating systems

Although the new numbering has been known for some time, this is the first presentation where new versions of operating systems are listed in a unified way. Although it can be seen that the macOS section was mentioned earlier and is referred to as macOS Tahoe, i.e. by its codename. However, the rest of the operating systems are named in the presentation according to the new scheme. This is really user-friendly - no wonder we all still remember Windows 95 and Windows 98. Today, it is difficult for an ordinary consumer to understand, for example, when iOS version 15 was released and how many years have passed. And here we have an easy reference to an understandable scale with the year. We support this step.

7. Unified Liquid Glass design

Despite the fact that redrawing icons may remind some people of the last years of Symbian (when it went into touch screens, and I'm not talking about UIQ here), the transition to transparent interface elements called Liquid Glass looks like a strong move. Not only because this design language applies to all six Apple operating systems (which will generally have a great impact on the user experience, as all devices will have a single design element). It looks modern, technologically advanced, and progressive. I am sure that transparent monochrome icons will rather disturb (because we recognise icons by their colour scheme and perceive them as a whole). Monochrome versions, like the one below, will be inconvenient. But all this translucency is a cool move by Apple, like the use of Dynamic Island animation with a screen cutout for the camera in app design. This creates a competitive advantage. And this is exactly where Apple is traditionally strong - in design and usability.

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