All the new features coming to your Apple device

By Tim Biggs

June 10, 2025 — 7.30pm

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is ostensibly an event where app-makers can hear from the company’s engineers and learn about new system features. But it’s also become the place where the public hears about all the cool stuff coming soon to their devices.

At the keynote address in Cupertino, we saw dozens of new features across Apple’s six coming operating systems (all named version 26, as the company has moved to a year-based convention), which will be available for your devices in beta next month, and in full release later this year.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook greets developers at WWDC on Tuesday.Credit: Bloomberg

Liquid Glass

The biggest feature was Liquid Glass, a new visual design coming to all Apple’s devices. Elements of the operating systems are meant to appear as though they’re made of magical, floating, transforming glass, either coloured or transparent, with glossy highlights and refractions of the elements beneath them.

In some apps, elements will only appear if you need them, or will expand when tapped. Others, such as the time on the iPhone’s lock screen, will dynamically change size and shape. In addition to light and dark modes, a new transparent mode will make your app icons look like stacks of clear glass.

Games

Another feature coming to multiple devices is the new Games app, which takes elements of the App Store and Game Centre and puts them together as a sort of Apple-specific launcher.

You’ll be able to see every game you’ve ever installed, view your friends and their achievements, and get personalised recommendations on your next game. On Mac, there’s also an in-game overlay to access options.

iPhone

Aside from the Liquid Glass and Games, iOS 26 will bring many new features, including updates designed to strip back on visual clutter and focus on your most-accessed functions:

In Camera, the default view now only shows “photo” and “video” for a more streamlined appearance. Other shot types and options are hidden until you touch or swipe the top or bottom.
In Photos, the main tab just shows your library of shots, with everything else moved to a secondary Collections tab.
In Safari, web content spans the entire height of the screen, with actions and tools in expandable glass menus. Music, News and Podcasts have a similar redesign.
In Maps, you’ll have the option for the phone to remember the places you’ve been, and understand your daily route so it can alert you to delays and changes.
In Phone, there’s an optional new view that condenses all current tabs into a single screen, using AI to show the most relevant content.

And speaking of the Phone app, it’s getting a pair of features that will be familiar to anyone who’s used a Google phone:

Call Screening answers unfamiliar numbers for you, with an AI agent asking the caller for their name and the purpose of their call. Text appears on the screen letting you know what the agent found out, so you can choose to answer the phone or not.
Hold Assist can be activated when the phone detects you’ve been put on hold. The phone call stays connected, but you can continue to use the phone or go and do something else. The phone will ring when it detects a human is back on the line.

Messages is also set to receive an overhaul, bringing it closer in line with other popular texting apps:

Custom backgrounds can be set per chat, either from presets, a photo, or an AI-generated image.
In group chats, users can send polls to help make decisions with friends, and the phone will suggest one if it detects it might be useful.
Also in group chats, typing indicators will now appear for each member.
If you get a lot of spam messages, you can set the phone to screen them. Messages from unknown numbers will go to a dedicated folder where they won’t clog up your chats, though the phone will still show them to you if it thinks they might be urgent or time-sensitive.

And, of course, there are the new features coming to the Apple Intelligence suite:

Live Translation is embedded across Phone, Messages and FaceTime, allowing conversations between people speaking different languages. It works locally on your device, so none of your conversation goes to the cloud, and the person you’re talking to doesn’t need to have an iPhone. Translations will also appear in Music when you’re looking at song lyrics in a language that’s not your own, complete with pronunciation guides.
Visual Intelligence is being extended beyond what your camera can see, and now works with any screenshots you take. So if you see something you want to know more about (or do something with) on your phone, you can just take a screenshot and ask. The system can connect directly to Google and other apps to make purchases.
Genmoji now lets you create new emoji by mashing multiple emojis together, optionally with a text prompt.
New Shortcuts are available that can give instructions to the AI, so you can create automations that involve summarising text or generating images, for example.
Apple is opening up its foundation models to developers, meaning more on-device AI will start showing up in non-Apple apps.

iPad

Most of the features listed above are also coming to iPadOS 26, but the bigger screen has a few new tricks all of its own. Apple said this is the biggest ever iPadOS release, and it’s especially huge if you’re someone who likes to get work done on the tablet:

An entirely new windowing system can make apps behave a bit more like windows on a desktop computer. They open in full-screen by default, so nothing is changing if that’s how you like it. But pull on a little tab in the corner and you can resize the app as you like. Mac-style window control icons appear, you can flick apps to the sides of your device to tile them, and apps will remember their size and position for next time you use them.
There’s now a menu bar accessible by swiping down from the top of the screen. Like on Mac, this gives you access to commands specific to each app.
Files is getting more useful, and more desktop-like. There’s a list view, the ability to customise folder colours or even put a folder in the dock, and you can set default apps to open each file type.
The Preview app is coming from Mac to iPad. You can use it to mark up images and PDFs.

There are also new updates specifically suited to creative users:

Computationally intensive and long-running tasks such as exporting media can now happen in the background. A Live Activity will appear at the top of the screen to show progress while you’re free to do other things on the iPad.
A new input picker lets you choose which microphone you want to use per app, including the system mic and any external ones you have connected. Voice Isolation can remove background noise from recordings.
A local capture option works with any video conferencing app, and will save a high-quality recording of your side of the conversation. Other participants can be invited to record at their end, and can send the recordings over afterwards.
The Journal app is coming across from iPhone.

MacOS is getting a new visual design, calls synced from iPhone, and an expanded Spotlight search.

Everything else

The iPhone and iPad may have received the lion’s share of the announcements at WWDC, but the other Apple devices got some love as well.

MacOS Tahoe 26 will let users make and receive calls via their connected iPhone, and will be able to see Live Activities from their phone as persistent notifications too. A massive update to Spotlight lets the search bar take actions, trigger shortcuts, browse files and access your clipboard history.
WatchOS 26 is getting a feature called Fitness Buddy, which is designed to be a personal coach talking into your AirPods, who knows your fitness history and has access to real-time workout and biometric data. Obviously, it’s an AI-generated voice, and I think the exhausting optimism and celebration of the voice in the demo might be a bit much for many Australian users.
Nothing much new for tvOS 26 besides the new visual design, though improvements are coming to the way profiles, FaceTime and the karaoke Sing mode work. Plus, there are new screen savers.
For visionOS 26, the biggest update is the addition of widgets. These work like they might on a phone or tablet, except they’re fully 3D, and you can place them anywhere in your space. Widgets will remember where they’re supposed to go, so you can decorate your real wall with digital calendars, clocks, photos and playlists. Apple also showed off a mode that lets two Vision Pro users see and interact with the same experience, and introduced some partner hardware that will work with the headset, including Sony’s PlayStation VR2 Sense game controllers.

The author travelled to California as a guest of Apple.

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The Sydney Morning Herald