Apple also took a few minutes of the WWDC keynote to announce a bunch of new content coming to Apple TV+, including a Formula 1 movie that Apple heavily marketed at the beginning of the presentation, the Murderbot series, a movie starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera about a school bus being caught in the 2018 Paradise Fire, and a new show starring Jason Momoa that will hopefully do better than Apple TV’s last go at that.
macOS
Apple’s new desktop operating system is called macOS Tahoe. It also incorporates the Liquid Glass aesthetic, with a completely free-floating menu bar at the top of the screen.
There are some fun enhancements. Live Activities is a new menu-bar shortcut that can sync with apps running on desktop or your phone, alerting you to upcoming meetings or keeping track of your incoming Uber Eats orders.
Spotlight, Apple’s search feature on device, incorporates more contextual awareness to better find what you’re looking for on your desktop. It can also interact with features directly in a program or pull up information from a website you’ve looked at recently.
Also, this appears to be the end of the road for Intel-based Macs. Some late-model Intel Macs will be able to run macOS Tahoe, but not the next version of the operating system, as Apple is ending support.
VisionOS
Apple still thinks people really do want to wear its bulky, heavy headset around their homes. VisionOS has spatial widgets now—virtual objects like digital photos, calendars, and “Now Playing” Apple Music cards that you can plonk onto your real-world surroundings. The widgets stay in place even if you move around the room.
One of the main problems with VR headsets is that they are fundamentally lonely devices; when you’re strapped into a headset, you’re the only one who can really see what you’re doing. But Apple wants to change that, adding features that let you sync your view with another person to share a movie or some other VR experience. You’ll both need to be wearing an Apple Vision Pro, so if you’re trying to cuddle on the couch be prepared to bonk your unwieldy bespectacled heads.
Maps
Apple is also introducing a number of features that have long been available in competitors like Google Maps. A “Visited Places” feature in maps keeps track of the places you’ve been, complete with photos taken there. This is entirely opt-in, so you have to turn it on, and your location history stays encrypted on your device. It’s basically Google Map’s Timeline feature but just for Apple people.
In iOS 26, users can choose to have iPhone detect when they’re at a place like a restaurant or shop, and view all of their Visited Places in Maps.Courtesy of Apple
iPhone can now use on-device intelligence to better understand a user’s daily route, presenting them with their preferred route when they’re headed home or to the office, along with notifying them of delays and offering alternate routes.Courtesy of Apple
CarPlay
Some additional updates to Apple’s CarPlay software were announced today. The next CarPlay adds customizable widgets and better screening for incoming calls. You can also tap a button to respond to texts with emoji while you’re driving. What could go wrong?
We first saw some CarPlay updates last month when Apple partnered with Aston Martin. These updates come at a time when carmakers are starting to embrace physical buttons again, given that lots of people seem to hate the touchscreens in their cars.
Siri
There was almost no mention of Apple’s voice assistant in the WWDC keynote. Curious.
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