My Random Notes on WWDC 2025 Keynote

Nothing but a bulleted list of thoughts as I watched Apple's keynote video from WWDC 2025 today:

• Liquid glass seems like it will be annoying for anyone trying to understand depth of text. Notifications look almost washed out
• Rounded corners are in again!
• Simplified camera is a good plan, but hiding advanced features means most users don’t ever find them or forget about them.
• Tabs are back in Photos app, sort of.
• Edge to edge (get it, Microsoft Edge?) web pages in Safari.
• FaceTime landing page update is good rather than a wall of text, though I rarely use FaceTime.
• CarPlay has been out for how many years and I’ve still never gotten to use it beyond occasionally being in my parent’s vehicle that has it.
• Phone app reorg is a welcome change for an app that hasn’t seen much in the way of UI updates in years. Again, I rarely use the Phone app but I’m happy it’s gotten a refresh. Maybe this is the year I FaceTime more?
• Call Screening is a great anti-spam feature.
• Hold Assist is a brilliant feature. I hope it works as well as it says it does.
• Backgrounds for messages is awesome to help differentiate chats which should make it slightly more difficult to reply in the wrong thread.
• Polls will be abused by my kids when it comes time to figure out supper plans.
• Which reminds me: how will iPhones that don’t get updated with the latest iOS be able to participate or not with new features?
• Live Translation being on device is great for travel and when you’re not on cell coverage somewhere.
• Apple Music getting translation and pronunciation is something I didn’t see coming, and I'll probably rarely use, but is pretty slick.
• AutoMix will be good for background music.
• Pinning a playlist, album, or artist is great in Apple Music. Let me lock in on what I want to hear rather than guessing for me. Despite being my most listened to artist, U2 is constantly buried when I want to actually listen to them.
• Apple Maps having visited places is smart, but I feel like people mistake it for Apple tracking you.
• Games app being built like Apple Music, etc. makes sense. I have to imagine games get buried in the App Store right now.
• No green felt in the games app is a big miss. Boo!
• AI workout buddy sounds like it’ll be annoying and cheesy but maybe fitness nerds will love it.
• Apple Watch wrist flick gesture is handy. Probably only on new Watches though
• This dude doing a walk in the background is locked in

• tvOS having Fountain of Youth is a big ick.
• Big miss on not having Gary Oldman fart in the preview of AppleTV+ content.
• Profiles being a “log in” element is a nice touch for tvOS. I hope it works with my kids who constantly watch on my account.
• Karaoke with iPhones as mic is brilliant, but locked to new devices I’m sure.
• macOS liquid glass looks like it just creates a mess visually tbh with barely any distinction between apps, menubar, etc.
• Apple’s copying some of the features from Raycast. I really wish they’d just buy Raycast and integrate it already.
• I’m guessing those are integrations with Pixelmator for doing the background removal.
• How much “Enterprise” sales is Apple Vision hardware doing? This seems like a new market they haven’t talked about before, but I generally tune out the VisionOS segments of Apple’s keynotes.
• Adding support for Playstation VR controllers to VisionOS is smart.
• The Spatial Web? That's a new thing or maybe they've mentioned that before.
• Every year iPad takes another shot at multitasking and everyone gets excited about it until they use it for a few months. Maybe this year will be different?
• iPadOS feels like it’s being maOS-ified, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And despite what Apple pundits said about touch not mixing with macOS, it’s clearly where Apple has decided to go with this year’s iPadOS update.
• I’m here for Files.app getting an update. Maybe this is the year I get an iPad again?
• Audio input settings I’m here for as well! It’s been too difficult to know that your proper mic is being used when recording audio or video. Hopefully this is on iOS as well.
• “Record studio-quality audio” with AirPods is a great feature that works awesome in 90% of the situations. As a podcast editor, I just hope that in those 10% of situations where it's not going to work, my clients don't try it anyway. 😆
• Local capture of conversations is brilliant for video calls. Love it.
• Background Tasks didn’t exist on iPad before? I thought they did?
• I’m excited about iPad for the first time in a long time. Tempted to pick one up to play with when iPadOS 26 drops.
• Nothing about Markdown support for Notes that I saw, but that might be a small line item update they announce elsewhere. Update: Looks like it's as Gruber speculated and Notes is getting Markdown export support.

I’m coming away from the keynote more excited about Apple software than I have in recent years. The liquid glass UI feels like it won’t age well though and we’ll all be pining for something with depth and texture—just in time for green felt to make a comeback in version 27 or 28.