WWDC 2025: Liquid Glass, iOS 26, and Major Updates Across Apple Ecosystem

Liquid Glass Design Language

• ✨ Liquid Glass is introduced as a new design language for iOS 26, featuring optical qualities of glass and dynamic responsiveness to content and user input.
• 💡 This material refracts light beautifully and reacts to movement, bringing vitality to UI elements and creating harmony between software and hardware.
• 🎨 App icons are redesigned with Liquid Glass, adapting to dark mode or new styles like an "all clear" look.

iOS 26 and CarPlay Enhancements

• 📱 iOS 26 introduces dynamic wallpapers that fluidly adapt to available space, with the time adjusting to the image.
• 🚗 CarPlay receives new features including a compact call design, widgets for glanceable information, and live activities for flight status or other updates.
• 🗺️ CarPlay Ultra allows users to customize layouts and integrate vehicle controls for radio and climate directly into the CarPlay experience.

Messages and Communication Updates

• 💬 Messages gains new personality features with dynamic backgrounds, which can be selected from built-in options or user photos, and AI-generated backgrounds via Image Playground.
• 📊 Polls are introduced to group chats, allowing users to visualize preferences and track votes in real-time, with AI suggesting polls when appropriate.
• 🌐 Live Translation in Messages and FaceTime offers real-time text and voice translation, enabling seamless cross-language communication.

watchOS and Apple TV+ Features

• ⌚️ The watchOS Smart Stack improves prediction algorithms by using on-device data and daily routine trends to offer timely, useful features, such as workout suggestions at the gym or Backtrack support in remote locations.
• 🎧 Apple Watch also enhances notifications by interpreting ambient noise to automatically adjust the volume of incoming alerts.
• 🎬 Apple TV+ playback controls are redesigned to refract content underneath, complementing the action without distraction, and the interface features a bold new look with cinematic poster art.

macOS and visionOS Innovations

• 💻 Live Activities are coming to Mac, appearing in the menu bar for apps like Uber Eats, with iPhone mirroring for direct action.
• 📞 The Phone app on Mac syncs recents, contacts, and voicemail from iPhone, offering a convenient calling experience with features like hold assist, call screening, and live translation.
• 🔍 Spotlight on Mac is significantly updated to be the fastest way to browse content, offering intelligent suggestions, app launching via iPhone mirroring, and system/app actions for tasks like creating events or sending emails.
• 👓 visionOS introduces spatial, persistent, and customizable widgets, including detailed clock faces, adaptive weather, music controls, and photo panoramas.
• 🖼️ Apps in visionOS can be resized into windows with a grab handle, remembering their last size and position, and offering precise pointer control with new minimize/close buttons.
• 🗂️ Tiling is introduced for iPadOS, allowing windows to be arranged by flicking them towards screen edges.