Apple’s WWDC 2026 event kicked off this morning at 10am PT at Apple Park, kicking off a week packed with developer events and demos, as well as anticipated announcements about Siri, iOS 27, Apple Intelligence, and more. This year’s event is particularly noteworthy in several ways. This will be CEO Tim Cook’s last stint at the company, after he announced on September 1 that he would be handing over the reins to John Tarnas, senior vice president of hardware engineering. It’s also expected to play host to Apple’s attempt to give Siri and its overall AI efforts a major boost after handing over some work to Google and delaying some releases.
Are they successful? Stay tuned to this page and for continued coverage.
Apple announces Siri AI
As expected, Apple insisted on improving the experience of its long-standing Siri assistant, acknowledging that users have higher expectations in the AI era. With Google Gemini under the hood, Apple claims the new Siri update will improve Siri’s capabilities, improve its conversational capabilities, make it more compatible with visual intelligence, and allow it to be built into standalone apps in addition to existing apps. Get a complete overview of all new Siri AI updates here.
Before rolling out extensions and features, Apple stuck to a privacy-centric approach to AI. “We believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable,” Apple’s senior vice president Craig Federighi said during the broadcast, going so far as to say that “data will only be used to fulfill requests, and outside experts can continue to verify this promise at any time.”
Next generation Apple intelligence
In line with the new Siri AI overhaul, the tech giant announced a number of new Apple Intelligence updates across its apps, including Safari tab management, one-tap password updates, cross-app context awareness, and more. Additionally, Messages gets AI-powered reply suggestions, and the Phone app can now get context from other apps like Email and Messages during calls.
Apple said it collaborated with Google and the Gemini family of models to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation Models that power the unified Apple Intelligence experience.
Liquid glass gets opt-in rollback
If you weren’t too keen on last year’s design updates to Liquid Glass, you’re not alone. And while Apple isn’t going to switch to a new aesthetic, it could bring back some of its elements or even emphasize them if it’s interested in that. And for app icon critics, fresh off Spotify’s disco ball update, Apple has unveiled a new layered approach to liquid glass within apps.
Image Playground has another chance
AI-generated apps haven’t necessarily taken the world by storm, and depending on how you look at it, that might be a good thing, but Apple has rolled out a new proposal to help users actually start generating images, excluding training based on photos generated using the app and focusing on its potential use in the device’s many features. Add to that the performance updates that come with the Apple Intelligence upgrade, and it might move it out of the “worst” category, at least for our senior writer Amanda Silberling.
iOS 27 dates back to iPhone 11
Apple claims that the upcoming update will be “available to more users than any previous iOS release,” and revealed that all devices starting with iPhone 11 will be eligible for the upcoming software update. And that update includes a flurry of performance improvements it’s touted in many OS releases this year, with Apple claiming new photos display 70% faster, AirDrop transfers 80% faster, and an improved CPU scheduler to aid multitasking.
New parental controls for iPhone
Apple spent a good deal of its WWDC event introducing a suite of tools for parents who want more control over what their kids can and can’t do with their devices. Parents will now be able to decide who their children can call on their phones and what apps and websites they can access, and Apple will make suggestions about how these limits may change over time. However, by default, the “Require View” feature to restrict access and the “Require Purchase” feature for app stores and in-app purchases are set as the default on devices configured for children under 13. You can learn more about parental controls here.
Search gets a complete overhaul
Tired of searching for… well… almost anything on your iPhone? Search held a dedicated session during WWDC touting a series of improvements. Click here for more information.
“We’ve all had the experience of searching for something we know exists, but it never shows up,” said Stacey Ford, vice president of OS program management. “So we’ve rebuilt the foundation of search on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to power Spotlight, Photos, and Email.
To compete with popular AI photo editing apps, Apple is introducing new AI features to its Photos app. A new spatial “reframe” feature allows users to use AI to adjust the perspective of an image as if they had changed the camera position in the original scene. The new “Expand” tool enlarges images, adjusts the image aspect ratio, or adds more to the scene. The app’s popular “cleanup” tool has also been upgraded, allowing users to use generative AI to remove distractions with higher quality, more realistic embeds.
See the rest of the WWDC 2026 reveals here
Don’t miss WWDC? You can always check out the entire event archive on the stream above or on Apple’s YouTube page here.
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