WWDC 2025: The first Apple event I'm actually dreading, and you should too
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
Just yesterday, Apple officially announced when its yearly WWDC developer summit will be taking place (it's June 9), but as an Apple fan, I'm actually dreading this upcoming event for the first time in… forever, I think.
That's odd, as Apple's WWDC is the peephole that shows us what's coming for Apple's iOS, macOS, and watchOS operating systems. Anything from major new features to tiny revamps and changes get previewed at WWDC, and that's usually exciting and interesting.
Well, that's hardly the case this year, and here's my reasons why I'm praying that June 9 comes later rather than sooner.
The Apple Intelligence disaster makes me dread Apple's AI advances
Let's be blunt about it––from a public perspective, Apple Intelligence is a failure for Cupertino. Although some rather gimmicky and not-very-useful AI features slowly made their way to iOS and macOS, this feature release is a net loss for the company.
The reason for that is the recent major backtrack on the most exciting potential aspect of Apple Intelligence––a revamped Siri that's capable of executing complex multi-app actions and be significantly more wary of your personal context.
Apple had to publicly declare that this feature is getting delayed and might actually not see the light of day until 2027. Embarrassing. To put things into perspective, that's when iOS 20 is coming our way. Not a good outlook for the company with the highest market cap in the world right now.
Now, you know it and I know that certainly a large portion of the keynote will be dedicated to expanding Apple Intelligence with new features or expanding the functionality of the existing ones. Maybe Writing Tools will score new capabilities, or Genmoji will let you generate an emoji of drunk penguins paragliding. I just don't care for Apple Intelligence anymore: in my eyes, it's a failed release that only takes up valuable storage space.
"Tease now, release in one or two years' time" mentality
iOS 18 and the digital e-waste that is Apple Intelligence set a dangerous precedent: Apple can now tease features that might not arrive with the next iOS version in September––they might not even arrive the following year, it seems!
That's not good. Previously, most new features teased at a WWDC dev summit usually made it to the iOS release candidate in the fall. I can only think of a few iOS features that were delayed over the years, like Group FaceTime which was supposed to come in iOS 12, but got delayed to iOS 12.1; also, Messages in iCloud was expected to launch along with iOS 11, but got delayed several months and released with iOS 11.4.
Credit where credit is due: most non-AI features revealed at last year's WWDC made it to the official iOS 18 release in September 2024. However, the precedent set by Apple Intelligence now freely lets Apple use WWDC as a venue to merely tease rather than commit to new feature releases.
Another pre-recorded event, another yawn
It seems that WWDC'25 will once again be a pre-recorded keynote rather than a live one in front of a live audience. This will potentially make it another yawnfest rather than the exciting live event from the pre-COVID times, and what a waste of the perfectly good Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park!
I harbored hope that we'd go back to normalcy once the COVID-19 craze went away, but Apple has now seen the underlying benefits of a pre-recorded show and is never likely coming back to a Steve Jobs-like live show ever again.
With a pre-recorded show, the company ensures that an on-stage demo will never fail and everything will be tightly controlled and polished. A pre-recorded show also allows Craig Federighi to take part in CGI shenanigans.
And I get it, pre-recorded shows just makes sense. However, they are soulless and can't match the energy and the anticipation that a live show delivers. Even though he still can't match the charisma of Steve Jobs, I'd still rather see Tim Cook say "Good morning!" in front of a live audience.
Redesign for the sake of change
Another reason why I dread the upcoming WWDC event is the widely suggested wave of visual redesigns that's apparently coming to Apple's iOS and macOS operating systems. Both are apparently inheriting the translucent glass looks of Apple's visionOS operating system for the Apple Vision Pro, which few people have experienced in real life because the Vision Pro is another market flop.
iOS hasn't scored a major redesign since 2012, when iOS 7 dropped the skeuomorphic looks of iOS 6 and adopted the broad strokes of Apple's current flat design language. It's been roughly 13 years now, and I don't know about you, but I'm dreading a change to another design language. If I wanted one, I'd rather pick a Galaxy phone and put Nova Launcher with a custom icon pack on top, that'd do the trick just as nicely.
The upcoming changes to macOS also make me shudder with anxiety that the interface of my MacBook is about to get ruined once again. People online, me included, still haven't recovered from macOS Ventura's dumbing down of the macOS Settings menu, so forgive me if a potential redesign doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence.
Instead of redesigning macOS, Apple should probably take a year to polish the OS and ensure it doesn't have nearly as many bugs as Sequoia had at launch.
Finally, WWDC'25 has an atrocious logo, a crime against design
I mean, just look at it.
Totally uninspired and lacking any creativity. Could we get an even bigger giveaway that a glass-like redesign is coming? I doubt that.
It doesn't even properly spell "WWDC25", but "VVVDC25"
What's the bigger offense here that I can't unsee are the mismatched rainbow colors. A real rainbow goes red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and then violet, and here we have teal, yellow, orange, salmon, purple, and blue.
Do better, Apple.
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