WWDC 2026 Preview
Apple’s annual developers conference WWDC returns for 2026 next week, and the company has teased the event with a new “All systems glow” tagline.
“We’re keeping Liquid Glass, you weiners”
Apple has shared a wallpaper, playlist, and a “Get Ready” video ahead of the event.
I’ve been Sherlocked.
I’ve been attending Apple’s WWDC since sometime in the 90s, which is… a long time. But this year’s event promises to be one of the most interesting ones yet, mostly because Apple really stepped in it in 2024, promising a bunch of features it didn’t deliver. Last year was a bit of an apology tour, but it didn’t directly address what had been promised the previous year.
Which means that Apple has really piled two years of promises on the agenda of WWDC 2026. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Here’s what I’ll be watching for at this year’s event, especially when it comes to its AI do-over.
For me, 2 big questions for WWDC:
Will there be enough actual, proper working Siri/AI features to keep people from migrating to other platforms?
And will there be enough AI privacy gains to pull people from other platforms?
The annual live audience episode of The Talk Show during the week of WWDC.
The 12th annual Swiftjective-C pregame quiz is here!
Has Apple eliminated one-on-one labs with engineers this year at WWDC?
That was the best part. What a bummer.
Apple has announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards.
Apple’s page doesn’t have a permalink.
These days, I’m getting emails pitching me for an endless stream of new Mac apps. It’s quite remarkable because there was a period five or ten years ago when it seemed like all app development on Apple’s platforms was focused on iOS. Even more interesting, these are all indie Mac apps that seem to be built using native Mac frameworks, not the product of big corporations that are just rolling their cross-platform development system out everywhere. These apps seem to have a point of view and are focused on the Mac.
Of course, it’s happening because of AI.
[…]
And, yes, a couple of weeks ago, I made a Mac app of my own [Double Ender], using Claude Code. I can’t say that I wrote it, because I didn’t write a line of Swift code. It would be more accurate to say that I envisioned it, or produced it, or product-managed it. I knew what I wanted, described it in detail to an AI assistant, iterated a whole lot, and ultimately got something that basically does everything I imagined it would do.
[…]
The Xcode learning curve is just too high. Either there needs to be a novice mode for Xcode, or Swift Playground needs to be given a boost, or a new tool needs to be built for the task.
It is time for us on the Cult of Mac podcast to lay out our predictions for Apple’s WWDC26 Keynote.
In just a few days, Apple will kick off WWDC with their keynote and introduce Vaporized Glass, a design language centered around hiding UI. You can’t complain about illegible controls if users can’t find them in the first place.
Previously:
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> Apple has announced the winners of its annual Apple Design Awards.
2 visionOS apps winning this year but no Lisa OS applications among the winners ? I'm disappointed.
