WWDC 2026 Keynote

Really liking the tone of the Improvements segment. Without actually saying it, it feels like an acknowledgment of critique at least, maybe even an apology of sorts.

... but after that: 45 minutes of waffling about Siri AI which concluded "not available in the EU or China". Ok then.

"Some users would like to be Liquid Glass even more clear!"

Are those users in the room with us right now, Shubham?

The dumb sidebar boxes are gone! That's the main thing I still hated in Transmit 6, so now it's going to be perfect. Wait, and all windows have the same corner radius? And the icons aren't blurry anymore?

After undoing at least some of last year's garbage, can we continue that trend and go back another decade or so?

I do wish the keynote had followed the stoners in the VW bus, though. They seemed to be up to something way more interesting than what we actually got to see.

Plume, how many decades do you want to go back to? Buttons now look like early Aqua 😂

I'm fine with either going back one decade or three decades (minus one or two years). I think both land on a local peak in UI design.

This keynote was as good as a Gil Amelio’s keynote.

So a "screw you" to Intel users who get marooned on the worst macOS UI version ever, and that stupid concentricity sidebar lozenge, unless they stay with 15?

Is it possible to somehow already create macOS 27 bootable USB? All I see offered is .ipsw file. Does fetching an installer with "softwareupdate" in terminal actually updates the system (just like run from System Settings), or downloads .app bundle suitable to create a bootable USB?

@Someone Intel users are advised to remain at no later a version than macOS 15 and not downgrade to macOS 26.

I gotta say, early impressions are good. To me it sounds like this is the closest they've come in a very long time to saying "OK, we really hear you, and we really are going to fix the things you're talking about."

I also like how they made sure to show the Siri demos over the shoulder and give as strong an impression as possible that they really are using the real thing.

It seems like they set themselves realistic goals this year, and might actually achieve them.

@Plume I'm pretty sure that was Schiller on the bus. So he probably just got out and went back to his office to "retire" some more.

@bart - I was struck by how slow the Siri 'think' time was before responding. That alone made it feel like an demo of actual code and not a canned or highly optimized demo. So a small amount of hope....

"Attention to detail has always been core to Apple's DNA".

LOL except the past 15 years for the software group.

@Liam I thought the same, and it was refreshing. I would rather see real world latency and imperfections from a thing that's actually working, than clearly fake vaporware demos of something that's essentially impossible in the stated time frame.

Huge contrast from what we saw in 2024. The fact that Apple seems to have learned anything at all is encouraging.

Siri AI looks great, but honestly, isn't this what we all expected Siri to be able to do 6 years ago? Why has it been stagnant and stupid for a decade?

I’m cautiously optimistic. “We added a bunch of tiny random features” seems like Craig’s been using LLMs like we have at work — to ship a gazillion features and quality-of-life improvements that have been languishing in our backlogs for ages, without compromising on quality. It’s easy to have time to test changes if you don’t spend much time writing code. The automatable simulator tools for Xcode are going to help that big-league.

I wonder what the hold-up will be in the EU for Siri AI. China is an obvious case where Apple ships features that are too private for their government snoops, but is the EU demanding similar visibility into Siri AI conversations?

Some users would like to be Liquid Glass even more clear!

Are those users in the room with us right now, Shubham?

I thought Liquid Glass was a cool effect when you can see stuff sliding around behind things. It’s only a problem if you actually need to read the text on the button and have something particularly busy behind it, which is surprisingly infrequently. However, if those stars align, then Liquid Glass is as bad as everyone says it is.

I’m tempted to crank up the clarity just to see if I like it like that.

@Nathan I wonder what the hold-up will be in the EU for Siri AI.

The EU is probably demanding that consumers have the right to completely replace Siri AI with any other drop-in choice of AI system, with no functional losses on connectivity or restrictions on integration with the rest of the system, and enable the entire removal of the Siri AI system from devices.

Same as for browsers, same as for music players, same as for messaging clients.

Apple is eventually going to be forced onto an all-dogfood diet in the EU, where its own technologies will only be able to talk to each other via the same access points they make available to third parties.

"but is the EU demanding similar visibility into Siri AI conversations?"

No. This is due to Apple's interpretation of the interoperability obligation.

Apple is giving Siri powers that no other iPhone app has, thus making it impossible for other LLM providers to compete with Apple on Apple's platform. At the same time, Apple also doesn't think that your data on your phone belongs to you, so they don't want to give you the ability to decide for yourself which (if any) provider you want to provide access to your data.

I would really wish that in the final version of Tahoe update, they would release few liquid glass improvements from macOS27, that would be very gracious to all the intel mac users.

@Someone “ Apple is eventually going to be forced onto an all-dogfood diet in the EU, where its own technologies will only be able to talk to each other via the same access points they make available to third parties.”

Good! That’s exactly the way it should be. Apple shouldn’t be able to favor their own products over third parties

Once you get to their level, it’s the responsibility that comes with massive success

"Instead of trying to find a suitable compliance solution, Apple simply made a request to the European Commission to be exempted from their interoperability obligations under the DMA - and this for at least 18 months. That's not an option."

https://www.reuters.com/business/apple-failed-make-its-ai-tool-comply-eu-regulations-eu-commission-says-2026-06-09/

@Léo Natan "Plume, how many decades do you want to go back to? Buttons now look like early Aqua 😂"

They only sort of look like early Aqua, most toolbars in the best years of Aqua had button icons where the icon had no outer shape, allowing the coloured, detailed, richly textured icon, to fully convey its purpose with a distinct outline that improved glanceability.

Monochrome SFSymbols inside of glassy circles is not what Aqua really was.

It was as early on as Leopard that we started to get toolbar buttons inside of little squircles that detracted from shape distinctness while making the fact that these things were buttons slightly more obvious. However I still think the late 2000s era pages and other apps from that era, with their colourful, borderless, toolbar icons, with labels below, were some of the best designs we've ever gotten from Apple.

@Benjamin. "It was as early on as Leopard that we started to get toolbar buttons inside of little squircles…"
As far as I remember, it started with "brushed metal" in Finder in Panther (10.3), quickly followed by those super-ugly toolbar "buttons" in Mail in Tiger (10.4).

@Dragan, you're right! for some reason in my head the brushed metal finder was 10.5 but yeah those mail buttons in tiger were bad, maybe it was 10.5 where they migrated to Preview ...

Apple is giving Siri powers that no other iPhone app has, thus making it impossible for other LLM providers to compete with Apple on Apple's platform.

Oh, right. Thanks!