Originally published at: Major Changes Coming in OS 26 - TidBITS
Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote once again felt like the lightning round of a “What’s New In?” game show, featuring categories for each of the platforms. Oddly, Apple presented them in the order of iOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS, visionOS, and iPadOS, perhaps to conclude with the highly positive changes coming to the iPad. (I’m once again condensing the entire collection to OS for space-limited headlines.)
With only a few pauses to switch presenters, the company raced through announcements and brief demos of numerous new features, or, as Tim Cook redundantly said, “new innovations.” Although the feature selection often felt disjointed, two themes emerged: the new Liquid Glass interface design and Apple Intelligence. More on those shortly.
Apple also swiftly confirmed the rumors regarding the version numbers, which will all increase to 26, much as car manufacturers designate their model years. And yes, as was leaked a few days ago, the name for macOS 26 will be Tahoe, named after Lake Tahoe.
As usual, developer betas of the new operating systems are now available, with a public beta scheduled for July and initial releases in the “fall,” which typically means September to coincide with new iPhone models. Although we’ll be sharing all the details soon for this year’s version of “The Real System Requirements for Apple’s 2024 Operating Systems” (12 July 2024), the quick summary is that some of the oldest supported hardware models from last year have been phased out, although several Intel-based Macs still survive. At Six Colors, Dan Moren writes that Tahoe will be the final version of macOS to support Intel chips, so Intel-based Macs will stop receiving even security updates at the end of 2028.
For a preview of what’s coming to each platform other than tvOS 26, which received only a press release, scroll through these pages:
Now, let’s explore the changes I believe will significantly enhance your daily experience with Apple devices.
Liquid Glass Becomes Apple’s Visual Paradigm
Liquid Glass is Apple’s first major interface redesign since iOS 7 in 2013, and although I’ll admit to a snarky comment about rearranging deck chairs while Apple’s Craig Federighi introduced it, it will radically affect everything we do.
In large part, that’s because Liquid Glass extends across all of Apple’s platforms. In the past, although there were certainly many interface commonalities, each platform had some unique aspects that may have made sense in isolation but didn’t support a unified experience for those switching among devices.
While Liquid Glass is the name for the new design language, Apple also seems to be thinking about it as a real-world material that blurs the lines between hardware and software. It’s translucent and behaves like glass in the real world, at least if glass were sufficiently malleable to squish and wiggle. (And no, real glass isn’t liquid.) Because Liquid Glass controls are inherently see-through, they absorb their color from the surrounding content. That’s not entirely new or good—I have long turned on Reduce Transparency on my devices to ensure that screenshots don’t have distractingly different colors based on the current background. I also worry that text in a Liquid Glass object—like a Lock Screen notification or Safari toolbar—will lack sufficient contrast to be readable. I assume Reduce Transparency will remain available in Accessibility settings; we’ll see how well it works.
There are functional changes as well. Liquid Glass controls sit on top of content, automatically giving way to allow the user to focus on the content and returning to the forefront when the user interacts with them. Additionally, context menus expand into scannable lists, eliminating the need for scrolling.
I’m sure there will be complaints about Liquid Glass being change for change’s sake, and some of those changes may be a step backward in usability. Nevertheless, we hope that Apple’s experience in interface design and the cross-platform consistency of Liquid Glass will make it overall easier to use Apple devices. Feedback from users and developers during the beta may help tone down some of the more extreme changes. Regardless, Liquid Glass will affect everything you do after you upgrade.
Apple Intelligence Opens to Developers
I’m going to give Apple executives, engineers, and designers credit and assume that they know Apple Intelligence is mediocre at best. Nevertheless, they can’t—and didn’t—admit that in any way. So it wasn’t surprising that the company plowed on, briefly describing the current features and introducing some new AI-powered options.
But not everything has to come from Apple, which is why the second most important announcement of the keynote was the new Foundation Models framework. With it, developers will be able to tap directly into the on-device large language model at the heart of Apple Intelligence. The Foundation Models framework should be fast, private, and free, and it will work even when offline, which is a compelling proposition.
On the other hand, on-device models are inherently less capable than those, such as ChatGPT and Claude, that run on powerful data center hardware. Plus, the ability of those services to incorporate real-time information from the Web has been a game-changer. Although I don’t want to bet against the combined creativity of the Apple developer community, it’s hard to imagine the kind of magic that comes out of the top large language models being accessible on an offline iPad.
The Mac-ification of the iPad
Hallelujah! Apple has finally acknowledged that getting real work done on an iPad requires the kind of interface that we have on the Mac. Previous efforts to provide multitasking, multiple simultaneous windows, and access to the file system have been tepid. iPadOS 26 brings numerous changes that will make using an iPad feel much more like using a Mac and, I’m willing to bet, far more effective for real-world work. The changes include:
- Window management: Whereas iPadOS was previously limited to various split views, every app can now be turned into a standalone window that you can move and resize freely. Windows remember their size and position, and you can also tile them flexibly, with options to split the screen into two, three, or four pieces. The familiar traffic light window controls from the Mac make an appearance along with the macOS Move & Resize and Fill & Arrange options. Swiping up invokes Exposé, allowing you to see all windows and switch to the desired one easily.
- Menu bar and Dock: Although the iPadOS menu bar will look and act like the Mac’s menu bar, it will appear only when you swipe down from the top of the screen. That’s sensible: as with full screen mode on the Mac, the menu bar could be distracting in apps that assume they can take over the entire screen. You will also be able to put folders in the Dock and access their contents in much the same way docked folders appear as a stack on the Mac.
- Filesystem access: The Files app retains its name, but it looks as though it’s going to feel a lot more like a Finder window. It has collapsible folders, and you’ll be able to resize the column widths. Folders can be given custom colors and icons. You can even choose which apps will open documents and change the defaults.
- Mac and iPhone apps: One of my favorite Mac apps, Preview, is coming to the iPad! Apple intends it for viewing and editing PDFs, of course, and it will also support image viewing and editing, even with the Apple Pencil. There are plenty of other apps that do this sort of thing, of course, but Preview has been a staple on the Mac for decades, and it will be welcome to have on the iPad. iPadOS 26 will also gain the iPhone’s redesigned Phone app and the new Games app, both of which are also coming to the Mac.
- Background processing: Computationally intensive processes and other activities that take a long time, like exporting edited videos and downloading large files, can now run in the background while you do other things.
Despite the company’s protestations to the contrary, many people have worried that Apple wanted to dumb down the Mac experience to make it more like the iPhone and iPad. These changes to iPadOS make it clear that the Mac experience has won. Those who previously preferred a MacBook may look more seriously at the combination of an iPad and keyboard.
Spotlight Shines More Brightly
While the Apple Intelligence-powered version of Siri that is supposed to understand our personal context is still in the future, Apple unveiled a new version of Spotlight that has many of the same capabilities. Thanks to the new App Intents framework that developers can use to expose the capabilities of their apps, Spotlight will enable users to take hundreds of actions in many different apps without lifting their hands from the keyboard. Spotlight will also be able to understand what you’re working on and suggest relevant files, apps, or actions. For instance, you’ll be able to start a timer, create calendar events, generate a new email message with fields pre-filled, play a podcast episode, and more.
Spotlight also introduces the concept of “quick keys,” which are short, custom mnemonics for particular actions. For instance, you might type sm to trigger Spotlight to send a message or ar to add a reminder.
In addition, Spotlight becomes a clipboard manager, providing access to recently copied items, including text, images, and links. You can browse, search, and insert past clipboard entries directly via Spotlight.
It’s also worth noting that this new Spotlight will be available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Given the new Mac-like focus of iPadOS, Spotlight may become an ecosystem-wide way of accessing a vast number of cross-platform capabilities.
In an interesting historical echo, Apple’s previous searching technology, Sherlock, was the impetus for the verb “to Sherlock,” meaning to kill third-party apps that provided the same features. (Sherlock killed Karelia’s Watson by delivering essentially the same feature set as a built-in feature of Mac OS 8.5 in 1998.) The new Spotlight may Sherlock numerous keyboard-focused launchers and clipboard management utilities—it’s going to be a tougher sell for the likes of Alfred, LaunchBar, and Raycast. However, I suspect that they all have enough more capabilities to retain both loyal users and attract new users looking for more than Spotlight can provide.
Apple Intelligence Opens to Users via Shortcuts
As much as I like automation, I’m not a fan of Shortcuts. I find it clumsy, lacking connections to the apps I want to control, and ultimately frustrating. My only use for Shortcuts is Federico Viticci’s astonishing Apple Frames shortcut that frames and combines iPhone and Apple Watch screenshots quickly and easily. Even editing it to work the way I want (always saving combined screenshots as JPEGs, for instance, and putting my preferred export option at the top of the list) is an exercise in frustration.
That said, it is exciting that Apple will be providing Shortcuts with direct integration with Apple Intelligence. A new category of intelligent actions powered by Apple’s on-device foundation models will enable text summarization, image generation, and text manipulation (including proofreading, tone adjustment, and more) through Writing Tools. Even more interesting, Shortcuts can call Private Cloud Compute, Apple’s online system for more powerful models, or even access ChatGPT.
You’ll also be able to run shortcuts automatically on a schedule or when you take specific actions, such as saving a file to a particular folder or connecting to a display. I plan to see if I can create shortcuts to automatically rename all JPEG files saved to my desktop from .JPEG to .JPG, a task I have previously accomplished with Hazel (my only real need for that brilliant little utility). Shortcuts also gains integration with Spotlight, so you can trigger shortcuts via Spotlight’s new quick keys and even collect and pass information from Spotlight to the shortcut.
Hold the Phone
Although actual phone calls aren’t central to the iPhone anymore, particularly for younger users, Apple has significantly enhanced the Phone app and brought it to both the iPad and the Mac thanks to Continuity.
A new Call Screening feature automatically answers unknown callers without even alerting you to the fact of a call. Once the caller shares their name and the reason for their call, the Phone app rings and gives you information to help you decide if you want to pick up. Live Voicemail, which is triggered with the Voicemail button that appears on the phone screen in iOS 18, has never worked for me, so I’m a little dubious that Call Screening will work as advertised, but I’m happy to give it a try.
The other big feature of the Phone app is Hold Assist, which waits on hold for you and notifies you when someone on the other end picks up and is ready to talk to you. Hold Assist kicks in automatically when it detects hold music and asks if you want it to wait for you. You can continue to use your iPhone or put it away and do other things while you wait. Again, I’ll believe this will work once I experience it.
Finally, the Phone app supports Live Translation, Apple’s new system-wide feature for real-time translation. It uses on-device models to translate text in both directions, enabling you to talk with someone with whom you don’t share a language. Live Translation also provides translated captions in FaceTime and texts in Messages. Developers will be able to access a Live Translation API, so expect to see apps that make it easy to translate back and forth in person.
A Flick of the Wrist
Although the marquee feature of watchOS 26 is the new AI-driven Workout Buddy, which coaches and cajoles you through workouts, I’m reserving judgment on that until it ships. Speaking as someone who coaches runners in real life, parts of the demo made me cringe.
However, the watchOS 26 feature that I’m sure I will use is the new wrist flick to dismiss notifications. There are times when I’m riding my ElliptiGO and would like to check my mileage or time, only to have the Workout app’s screen covered by a notification. Being able to dismiss those with a flick of the wrist rather than having to use my other hand would be welcome. The wrist flick gesture is compatible with Apple Watch Series 9 and later, as well as Apple Watch Ultra 2; it is not available on the Apple Watch SE.
Which of these features seems the most compelling to you? Are there others that you’re waiting for with bated breath?
