Apple’s WWDC 2026 event kicked off this morning at 10 a.m. PT at Apple Park, starting a week full of expected announcements around Siri, iOS 27, Apple Intelligence and more, along with developer events and demos. This year’s event is particularly notable for a couple things. It marks CEO Tim Cook’s last with the company, after announcing he’s handing things off to Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering John Ternus September 1. And it’s expected to play host to Apple’s attempt to give Siri and its AI efforts overall a big boost after handing some work off to Google and delaying some releases.
Are they succeeding? Keep tabs on this page, and the rest of our ongoing coverage, to find out!
Apple reveals Siri AI
As expected, Apple made the case for an improved experience with its longstanding Siri assistant, which it admitted faces greater expectations from users in the age of AI. With Google Gemini under the hood, Apple claims that the new Siri updates will more it more capable, conversational, compatible with visual intelligence, and it will be housed in a standalone app in addition to working across existing apps. You can get a full rundown of all the new Siri AI updates right here.
Before rolling out the enhancements and features, Apple was adamant about its privacy-centric approach to AI. “We believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable,” Apple Senior Vice President Craig Federighi said during the stream, going so far as to say that “data is only used to execute your request, and outside experts can continue o verify this promise at any time.”
The next generation of Apple Intelligence
To go along with its new Siri AI overhaul, the tech giant announced a slew of new Apple Intelligence updates across its apps, including including tab management for Safari, one-tap password updating, cross-app context awareness, and more. Additionally, Messages is getting AI-powered reply suggestions, while the Phone app can now pull context from other apps like Mail and Messages mid-call.
Apple said it collaborated with Google and the Gemini family of models to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation Models that power its integrated Apple Intelligence experiences.
Liquid Glass gets some opt-in rollbacks
If you were among those who weren’t exactly keen on last year’s Liquid Glass design updates, you weren’t alone. And while Apple isn’t switching to a new aesthetic, you are going to be able to dial back some of its elements, or really highlight them if you’re vibing with it. And for the app icon critics out there fresh from Spotify’s disco ball update, Apple showed off a new, layered approach to Liquid Glass within its apps.
Image Playground gets another chance
The AI generating app hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm, which depending on you view on slop may be a good thing, but Apple rolled out a renewed pitch for users to actually start generating images, with a focus on its possible uses across many features of your devices, with an exclusion set on any training based on photos generated using the app. That, plus performance updates coming alongside Apple Intelligence upgrades, might at least take it out of the “suck” category for our own Senior Writer Amanda Silberling.
iOS 27 is stretching back to the iPhone 11
Claiming that its upcoming update will be “available to more users than any iOS release ever,” Apple revealed that all devices from the iPhone 11 onward will be eligible for their upcoming software update. And that update comes with a flurry of performance improvements it’s touting across a number of its OS releases this year, with Apple claiming that new photos will appear 70 percent more swiftly, AirDrop transfers will be 80 percent faster and CPU schedulers will be improved to help multitasking.
New parental controls for iPhones
Apple spent a significant amount of the WWDC event showcases a suite of tools for parents looking for greater control over what their children’s devices can and can’t do. Parents will be able to determine who their kid can call on the phone, what apps and websites they can access, with Apple making suggestions about how those restrictions can change over time. By default though, its “Ask to Browse” feature limiting access, and “Ask to Buy” for app store and in-app purchases, will be set as a default for devices set up for children younger than 13. You can get more parental control details right here.
Search gets an overhaul
Frustrated with searching through your iPhone for…well…pretty much anything? Search got a dedicated session during WWDC to tout a series of improvements, which you can learn more about here.
“We’ve all had that moment where you search for something you know is there, but it just won’t show up,” Stacey Ford, vice president of OS Program Management said. “So on iOS, iPadOS and macOS, we’ve rebuilt the foundation of search that powers Spotlight, Photos, and Mail.
To take on popular AI photo editing apps, Apple is bringing new AI features to its Photos app. A new spatial “Reframe” feature will let users use AI to adjust the perspective of an image as if they had repositioned the camera in the original scene. The new “Extend” tool expands images adjust the aspect ratio of an image or add more to a scene. The app’s popular “Cleanup” tool is also getting an upgrade so users can remove distractions with better quality and more realistic infill with generative AI.
Apple takes on AI dictation apps
Apple is launching a new systemwide dictation experience that’s built into the keyboard on iOS 27 and can correct spellings, punctuation, and capitalization. The update comes as AI dictation apps like Wispr Flow and Willow have been gaining popularity. These apps clean up filler words like “ums” and “Ahs” and format the text after transcribing based on context.
Shortcuts adds natural language creation
Apple is using AI to make its visual-scripting tool, Shortcuts, easier to use in iOS 27. The updated experience will allow users to write a prompt and simply describe what they want to do. The AI update makes the Shortcuts app more approachable and expands what non-technical people can do.
Health gets perimenopause insights
Apple’s Health app is adding perimenopause and menopause support to its existing cycle tracking feature. The update embraces a topic that has gone mainstream, giving Apple a new product opportunity in a rapidly expanding market, as digital health tools targeting this demographic have attracted significant investment in recent years.
Tim Cook says farewell
At the end of the keynote, Tim Cook has a farewell message reflecting on his time as CEO.
“Over the years, you have helped people connect, create, learn, and experience the world in extraordinary new ways, and with the incredible capabilities we introduce today, and so many more still to come, I truly believe the best is still ahead at Apple, Cook said. “Getting the best products in the world to deliver experiences that enrich people’s lives has always been our North Star. It’s been the honor of a lifetime to help advance that mission with teams whose creativity, care, and conviction continue to make a lasting difference in people’s lives.”
Catch up on the rest of WWDC 2026’s reveals here
Miss out on WWDC? You can always catch up on the arhive of the full event via the stream above or on Apple’s YouTube page right here.
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