That’s odd, as Apple’s WWDC is the peephole that shows us what’s coming for Apple’s iOS, macOS, and watchOS operating systems. Anything from major new features to tiny revamps and changes get previewed at WWDC, and that’s usually exciting and interesting.
Well, that’s hardly the case this year, and here’s my reasons why I’m praying that June 9 comes later rather than sooner.
The Apple Intelligence disaster makes me dread Apple’s AI advances
Let’s be blunt about it––from a public perspective, Apple Intelligence is a failure for Cupertino. Although some rather gimmicky and not-very-useful AI features slowly made their way to iOS and macOS, this feature release is a net loss for the company.
The reason for that is the recent major backtrack on the most exciting potential aspect of Apple Intelligence––a revamped Siri that’s capable of executing complex multi-app actions and be significantly more wary of your personal context.
Now, you know it and I know that certainly a large portion of the keynote will be dedicated to expanding Apple Intelligence with new features or expanding the functionality of the existing ones. Maybe Writing Tools will score new capabilities, or Genmoji will let you generate an emoji of drunk penguins paragliding. I just don’t care for Apple Intelligence anymore: in my eyes, it’s a failed release that only takes up valuable storage space.
“Tease now, release in one or two years’ time” mentality
That’s not good. Previously, most new features teased at a WWDC dev summit usually made it to the iOS release candidate in the fall. I can only think of a few iOS features that were delayed over the years, like Group FaceTime which was supposed to come in iOS 12, but got delayed to iOS 12.1; also, Messages in iCloud was expected to launch along with iOS 11, but got delayed several months and released with iOS 11.4.
Credit where credit is due: most non-AI features revealed at last year’s WWDC made it to the official iOS 18 release in September 2024. However, the precedent set by Apple Intelligence now freely lets Apple use WWDC as a venue to merely tease rather than commit to new feature releases.
Another pre-recorded event, another yawn
I harbored hope that we’d go back to normalcy once the COVID-19 craze went away, but Apple has now seen the underlying benefits of a pre-recorded show and is never likely coming back to a Steve Jobs-like live show ever again.
Redesign for the sake of change
The upcoming changes to macOS also make me shudder with anxiety that the interface of my MacBook is about to get ruined once again. People online, me included, still haven’t recovered from macOS Ventura’s dumbing down of the macOS Settings menu, so forgive me if a potential redesign doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence.
Instead of redesigning macOS, Apple should probably take a year to polish the OS and ensure it doesn’t have nearly as many bugs as Sequoia had at launch.
Finally, WWDC’25 has an atrocious logo, a crime against design
I mean, just look at it.
Totally uninspired and lacking any creativity. Could we get an even bigger giveaway that a glass-like redesign is coming? I doubt that.
It doesn’t even properly spell “WWDC25”, but “VVVDC25”
What’s the bigger offense here that I can’t unsee are the mismatched rainbow colors. A real rainbow goes red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and then violet, and here we have teal, yellow, orange, salmon, purple, and blue.
Do better, Apple.
