WWDC 2025: Apple’s AI, Swift on Android & Liquid Glass

Introduction

At the 2025 instalment of its WWDC event, Apple set out its long-term vision for how we think about platform strategy, AI integration and multi-device architecture.

If you’re a CTO, staff engineer, or mobile lead, this wasn’t just a conference to watch, it was one to plan your entire roadmap around. What Apple revealed at this year’s WWDS will affect everything from your frontend stack to how your systems talk to hardware. And, unlike in past years, this wasn’t about polishing the edges, it was about reshaping the very foundations.

Why WWDC 2025 actually changes things

There were a few mic-drop moments this year, but it’s what’s under the surface that’ll keep architects and dev leads busy through the next year and beyond:

• Apple Intelligence: Apple’s take on AI is now on-device and context-aware, not cloud-fed or gimmicky. Privacy isn’t a buzzword here, it’s baked into the architecture.
• Swift officially lands on Android: We now have a serious, cross-platform and native contender, not a compromise or a wrapper.
• Liquid Glass: It’s a shared UI framework designed to unify visionOS, macOS, iOS, and iPadOS into a single, extendable canvas.
• iPadOS 26: Finally, the iPad gets real multitasking and background processing, signaling Apple’s push to make iPads legit productivity machines, not just oversized iPhones.

None of this is optional if you’re building serious apps. These are tectonic shifts, not mere cosmetic tweaks.

Apple’s New Platform strategy in plain terms

Apple is telling us three things, loud and clear:

1. AI stays local, fast, and user-first: Apple is not chasing chatbot hype. It’s optimizing for intent, context and privacy at the OS level.
2. Cross-platform isn’t a dirty word anymore: Swift is no longer just for iOS. Now it’s the language across Apple and Android, turning architecture debates into tooling strategies.
3. One design language to rule them all: Liquid Glass gives dev teams the consistency they’ve begged for. Shared components, shared behavior, shared mental models across every Apple screen.

The bottom line? Apple’s no longer just iterating. It’s unifying – and if you’re not planning for that, you’re already behind.

Apple Intelligence: Apple’s On-Device AI revolution

WWDC 2025 showed how Apple Intelligence has the potential to change the thought process of the technical lead or architects about AI integration, data flow, and system boundaries. Apple’s message was very clear: AI is now local, and it’s a part of the core infrastructure, not a bolt-on feature.

What Apple Intelligence really means

This isn’t about sprinkling machine learning into your app. It’s about building on top of an operating system that understands intent, reacts in real-time, and keeps user data on-device by default. No round-trips to a third-party cloud. No trust gaps.

Apple’s new AI layer gives developers access to:

• Instant contextual insights via system-level gestures
• Local language processing, summarization, image understanding and more, all running through Apple’s Neural Engine.
• A new hybrid compute model that defaults to on-device and only touches the cloud through a secure, zero-logging Private Compute Cloud.

Core features that matter

Highlight to search: Think of it as Command-F on steroids. Users can tap or select text, an image, or a UI element and receive contextual AI-powered insights. Whether that’s tracking flight info or scanning a product for price comparisons, this runs instantly and locally.

Visual Intelligence API: This turns any app into a vision-aware experience. It has the potential to allow for real-time receipt scanning, document parsing, or content tagging – and, again, this is all happening locally on the device. No need for manual OCR. No cloud dependencies. Just a clean API and fast results. At least that’s the promise.

Live translation: Thanks to LiveTranslationKit, developers can build apps that support real-time voice and text translation, fully offline. It’s already baked into Messages and FaceTime, and now you can bring it to your own flows with zero third-party dependencies.

Smart replies in iMessage on watchOS: watchOS 26 ships with AI-powered replies and summarization. No cloud callouts. No privacy concerns. And no lag. That same intelligence is now available to apps via new NLP APIs that are optimized for wearables.

Developer Access

Foundation models for developers: Apple is giving devs direct access to its large language models via the new FoundationModels framework. It’s not just a playground, it’s built for:

1. Summarizing long content
2. Generating captions
3. Detecting intent
4. Auto-suggesting responses
5. Enriching UX without needing your own fine-tuned model

And this is all optimized for local inference on Apple Silicon.

The Hybrid Execution Model: Cloud only when absolutely necessary

Apple Intelligence runs everything on-device using the Neural Engine. But for heavier tasks, Apple has introduced a fallback layer, called Private Compute Cloud. Features of this include:

1. Zero identifiable data ever leaves the device
2. No long-term storage, not even in encrypted form
3. Developers can opt into local-only or hybrid execution, with Apple handling the handoff securely

This gives teams flexibility without compromising privacy or performance.

What this means for AI architecture & privacy engineering

The introduction of Apple Intelligence has profound implications for technology leaders and architects.

Edge-first AI is now a serious default: Dev teams need to start thinking in terms of lightweight, local-first models. Whether you’re using Apple’s or your own, this shift demands better optimization, memory tuning, and tighter inference boundaries.

Bye-bye data purgatory: The more you can push logic on-device, the less you’re bound to third-party clouds, and the fewer headaches you’ll face with GDPR, CCPA and region-based compliance policies.

AI moves from feature to platform layer: No more hacking GPT into a modal. Apple Intelligence makes AI a core system capability, and that could redefine how you compose UX, handle user state and structure flows.

Privacy-by-design is no longer optional: Apple’s system mandates explicit data flows, on-device compute and developer clarity around consent. If your AI use case can’t survive under that model, it may no longer belong in the Apple ecosystem.

Liquid Glass: Apple’s new universal design system

One of the most visually striking moments from WWDC 2025 wasn’t just a new feature, it was a new feel. Liquid Glass is Apple’s boldest design overhaul since the flat design revolution of iOS 7. This time though, it’s not just aesthetic polish, it’s a unified, adaptive design system that spans iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, and beyond.

If you’re building cross-platform Apple apps, this is the new visual baseline and it comes with new tools, materials and system behaviors that blur the line between UI and environment.

The core principles of Liquid Glass:

• Translucent layers: The screen will reflect what’s beneath it – and not just in a static form, but with live environmental awareness. You get depth without sacrificing clarity – or rather, you do now Apple has responded to early criticism and added some visual frosting to the glass-like elements, improve legibility in apps like Music.
• Fluid motion: Every interaction is enhanced by physics-based animation. No more janky transitions, since now even system gestures feel like they follow real-world motion rules.
• Ambient lighting: UI elements now respond to lighting context, allowing your components to subtly glow or shadow-shift depending on system brightness or user surroundings.

UIKit and SwiftUI: What are the changes?

The core UI frameworks didn’t just get visual tweaks, they’ve been upgraded with Liquid Glass in mind.

New UI materials: Developers can now use built-in materials like:

• GlassMaterial – default frosted translucency
• FrostedGlass – heavier blur for UI overlays
• DynamicMaterial – adapts based on background content and lighting

Component-Level integration: Apple made this easy, most standard controls (buttons, switches, sliders, toolbars) now automatically adopt Liquid Glass styles. You’ll see depth, blur and motion applied without rewriting your UI.

Animation enhancements: SwiftUI gets a new .fluidAnimation() modifier for physics-driven transitions. UIDynamicFluidBehavior makes it easier to create buttery-smooth motion with real-world feel.

New Human Interface guidelines (HIG): Designers and devs finally get proper documentation to match the ambition of the system.

• How much translucency is too much? There’s guidance.
• When should you stack layers or flatten them? Covered.
• How do you combine lighting, depth and interaction in a way that doesn’t kill performance or accessibility? Also there.

Apple’s updated HIG gives practical do’s and don’ts, along with examples for applying Liquid Glass without overwhelming users or overloading the GPU.

Adopted across the entire Apple ecosystem: Liquid Glass isn’t a one-platform experiment. It’s a system-wide reset:

• iOS 26: Lock screen widgets now float with subtle background parallax. Even Control Center feels lighter and layered.
• iPadOS 26: Windowing and multitasking get a serious visual upgrade with layered cards and translucency guiding interaction.
• macOS Tahoe: In this new OS, the Menus, Dock and Finder are more consistent with lighting effects and glassy depth, while also bridging visual parity with iOS and iPadOS.
• visionOS 2: Now spatial UI blends with Liquid Glass elements to feel like part of your world.

The bottom line here is, you can now design once and visually scale everywhere, with minimal conditional logic or hacks.

ThemeKit: Manage system-consistent theming across screens and components. One API. Unified treatment.

Instruments for performance: Apple’s profiler now includes dedicated templates to track:

• GPU load from real-time blur
• Frame drops from dynamic lighting
• Accessibility contrast scoring on translucent layers

Platform-Specific enhancements: Deep Dive for builders

At WWDC 2025, Apple dropped a truckload of real platform upgrades, many of which directly affecting how developers build, deploy and scale apps across the company’s ecosystem. Here’s a breakdown of what matters for each platform, and how these changes reshape user workflows and developer surface area.

A. iOS 26 interaction supercharged

1) Messages gets an upgrade

• Chat Backgrounds: Users can now personalize chats with custom visuals. For developers, this opens up new APIs for immersive brand touch points in messaging apps.
• With PollKit API you can now use group chat polls to make a decision – perfect for locking in your next social event.
• In-Chat payment: You can send payments using iMessage app. Hook into the transaction lifecycle and auth via simplified APIs with baked-in privacy and fraud prevention.

2) Phone App: Smarter call handling

• Hold assist: Automatically waits on hold for you and calls back when the agent is ready. Think Siri for phone queues.
• Spam detection framework: Third-party apps now get direct hooks into spam detection. Build call screening tools without hacky workarounds.

3) Camera & Photos

• UI enhancements: In recent updates all Pro-level capture tools are accessible. Developers can easily integrate quick filters and toggles with the updated AVCaptureUI.
• Spatial memories: Apple’s on-device AI curates galleries with narrative context. For photo/video apps, time to think about how your content integrates with that storytelling surface.

4) Safari & FaceTime

• Safari: Edge-to-edge UI, floating toolbars, better gestures. Feels fast.
• FaceTime: Public URLs and landing pages streamline scheduling and joining.

5) Live Activities + Continuity:

• Now supports true cross-device handoff of in-progress activities. Start tracking a delivery on your iPhone, pick it up on your iPad, or follow live sports on the Mac.

B. macOS Tahoe

1. Spotlight: No longer just for quick app launches, it’s now your keyboard-driven command center. You can fly through apps, files, and even automation workflows without ever touching the mouse. It remembers your search history and shows smart previews, so you’re not guessing what “Document_Final_v2_EDITED(1)” actually is.
2. Native phone integration: The Mac finally becomes a real phone; place, receive and manage calls natively with no app switching. Apple promises seamless sync between your Mac and iPhone with Continuity.
3. Metal 4 + Games app
   • Metal 4: New multithreaded GPU pipeline APIs for ultra-low latency rendering and pro game visuals.
   • Games app: All your games, all platforms, one launcher, complete with synced progress and achievements.

C. iPadOS 26 – Finally feels like a desktop

1. Windowing + Menu Bars
   • True floating and resizable windows with Exposé-style management.
   • App menus live in a system-wide menu bar at the top of the screen, just like macOS.
2. File Management
   • Open With: Set default apps per file type.
   • Preview app: Inline media playback, advanced markup and new annotation tools for PDFs and video.
3. Background tasks API: Think cron jobs for iPad, developers can now schedule complex, rule-based automation in the background with full OS support for battery and resource constraints.

D. watchOS 26 updates

1. Workout: You can now share real-time stats with friends, and receive AI-generated motivation based on your pace, goals and context.
2. Smart Stack & Gesture control
   • Better surfacing of widgets based on activity and time of day.
   • Wrist flick gestures now support custom action bindings, no tap required.
3. AI-Powered messaging: Dictate a note and get back a clean summary, structured bullet list, or even a full reply, directly on-device and fully private.

E. visionOS 2 – Spatial apps grow up

1. Immersive SceneKit: New APIs for 180°/360° content let you build spatial-first experiences. Great for simulation, training, media and collaboration.
2. Smarter personas: Avatars now better reflect emotion and movement, making them ideal for live events, customer support or social spaces.
3. Multi-User mode
   • Face ID for Vision Pro
   • Personalized sessions on a shared device
   • “For Your Eyes Only” content gating, fully private, per-user rendering
4. Pro-Grade inputs
   • Support for third-party controllers like Logitech Muse and PSVR
   • Use spatial inputs in games, creative tools or productivity workflows
5. Adobe Spatial integration: Full-blown Adobe collaboration on immersive video editing. Expect future new SDKs built for spatial media manipulation.

F. tvOS & CarPlay

tvOS

• Multi-user profiles: Seamless profile switching, personalized recommendations and shared viewing states.
• Karaoke mode in Apple Music: Not a gimmick; supports real-time pitch tracking and performance scoring. Fun, but also a platform for social music apps.

CarPlay Ultra

• Ultra-wide display support for panoramic-style dashboards.
• Widget framework for real-time navigation, vehicle stats, media controls and custom alerting. Devs can now deeply customize the driving interface.

Developer experience & tooling

WWDC 2025 brought tangible upgrades to the tools developers use every day. From serious improvements in Xcode 26 to Apple’s official embrace of Swift for Android, this year’s updates directly affect how teams build, test and ship code across the Apple ecosystem.

A. Xcode 26

Apple’s flagship IDE got a major lift in 2025. Xcode 26 doubles down on smart assistance, visual inspection and speed, turning everyday friction points into fluid workflows.

1. AI Assistant (and it’s actually good): Apple’s new on-device AI developer assistant feels less like a novelty and more like a useful co-pilot:
   • Code completion: Full method stubs, error-handling logic; even complete SwiftUI views, all from natural-language prompts.
   • Test suggestions: From edge-case detection to test boilerplates, the assistant can scaffold test cases while you stay in flow.
   • Inline docs & comments: Autogenerates concise, human-readable explanations tied to your code, great for team handoff and onboarding.
2. Live preview + Layout debugging that actually works: SwiftUI Previews got the love they’ve needed:
   • Interactive resizing: Grab, drag and tweak UI elements directly in canvas.
   • Constraint inspector: See your layout hierarchy, spacing and alignment bugs as visual overlays – no guesswork required.
   • Animation preview: Watch your .fluidAnimation() transitions in motion, exactly as they’ll ship.
3. Inline testing & Instruments templates: You can now run unit tests in-line from any Swift file with contextual assertions, snapshots and error traces built right into the editor. On the performance side, new Instruments templates target SwiftUI-specific bottlenecks – including layout passes, render loops and animation latency.

B. Swift evolution

Swift finally jumped the fence. This isn’t a hobby project or a nice-to-have, it’s a full-on, Apple-backed push into Android.

1. Swift for Android is here not in theory, but with real tooling:
   • Official toolchain: Compiler, linker and standard library, all tuned for Android targets.
   • System-level access: Native support for Android system calls, threading, lifecycle hooks – the whole works.
   • UI experiments: Apple’s testing SwiftUI-like wrappers around Jetpack Compose, giving devs a taste of native-feeling Swift UI on Android.
2. Android Studio & Gradle integration: The Swift-for-Android rollout is designed to feel native:
   • Gradle plugin: Add Swift modules alongside Kotlin in a single build step.
   • Android Studio plugin: Syntax highlighting, autocomplete, live previews and emulator support, all directly in Studio.
   • Interop with Kotlin/Java: Swift now plays nicely with Android SDKs. You can call Kotlin/Java methods with minimal glue code, opening the door to hybrid projects.
3. Language updates: Under the hood improvements, Swift 6 is all about sharpening edges without adding weight:
   • Concurrency that actually flies: Async/await now compiles tighter, runs faster and handles deeply-nested calls without blowing up your threads or your patience.
   • Generics, finally civilized: Cleaner syntax, clearer errors and more composable constraints. Less boilerplate, fewer workarounds, and more actual reuse.
   • SwiftPM on rocket fuel: Dependency resolution is now lightning-fast. Smarter caching and real incremental builds mean your build times stop being the bottleneck.

Gaming enhancements

With massive upgrades to Metal, GameKit, and the launch of a unified cross-device Games App, Apple isn’t just flirting with gaming anymore, it’s going all-in. The goal is Console-level performance, native fluidity and seamless cross-platform sync, whether you’re playing on iPhone, Mac or strapping into a Vision Pro.

Apple’s next-gen graphics API, called Metal 4, delivers a serious punch for game developers who need low-level power without sacrificing performance or portability. Metal 4 introduces full-blown multithreaded rendering, finally letting devs fully parallelize their graphics pipeline.

GameKit Reimagined:

GameKit gets a massive quality-of-life update with a new API surface that scales across platforms.

Better Matchmaking: GameKit now uses AI-assisted matching, factoring in skill, connection quality and location. The net effect? Smoother matches and fewer rage-quits.

Seamless Cross-Device Sync: You can start a multiplayer session on Mac, switch to iPhone, then join a friend on Vision Pro, all in real-time and synced with minimal effort.

Shared Leaderboards + Achievements: Unified player state and progress means one code path handles global rankings, unlocked achievements and shared goals, synced across Apple’s entire device lineup.

CloudKit Save/Resume:

Cross-device progress sync is now powered by CloudKit.

Auto-Sync, no setup headaches: Games can auto-save state after each session, and users can resume exactly where they left off, even on a different Apple product.

Smart conflict resolution: Simultaneous sessions are not a problem now. Apple handles it with smart, timestamped merge logic that preserves progress and avoids data loss.

Low-Code integration: Developers get a slimmed-down API surface meaning you don’t have to reinvent syncing logic or storage logic just to support modern user expectations.

Wallet, Payments & Digital identity

Apple has reshaped how identity and payments are handled across the ecosystem. The company’s direction is clear: secure, device-native transactions and verifications, with developers getting more access and users gaining more control.

Digital ID grows up: Apple’s Wallet app is becoming your all-in-one digital identity vault and it’s no longer just a novelty. In 2025, it’s built for real-world use at scale.

Unified Identity: Users can now store and manage government-issued IDs, corporate badges, university credentials and travel documents, all interoperable with public and private verification systems.

Tap to Present API: This new API lets apps and websites securely request identity verification using NFC. No manual typing or QR scanning – just a tap of the phone and the system handles the handshake. It could be deal for hotel check-ins, event access, or KYC workflows.

Safari Autofill for digital IDs: Wallet-stored ID info can now securely auto-fill in Safari, making form-filling for sensitive workflows near-instant and far less painful for users.

Apple Pay is now smarter and safer

Already one of the most secure payment systems out there, Apple Pay now adds more layers to protect both the user and the developer.

Developer APIs: Full stack identity & payments

Apple’s not just building this for itself; it’s opening it up for the developer community.

IdentityKit Framework: A brand-new toolkit for digital identity management. Apps in banking, healthcare, travel or government can now:

• Request ID verification securely
• Handle explicit user consent
• Stay in line with industry compliance (KYC, HIPAA, etc.)

Enhanced Payments APIs: Developers get access to more granular payment controls, such as:

• Smart subscription handling
• Custom approval logic for different payment types
• Built-in support for analytics and merchant insights

Consent & Compliance: Apple now bundles consent and compliance flows directly into the API surface, so if you’re dealing with financial data, health data or age-restricted services, most of the legal heavy lifting is pre-solved.

Deprecations & Compatibility

If you’re leading a product team or managing infrastructure at scale, these are the changes you can’t afford to ignore:

The End of the road for Intel Macs:

macOS Tahoe is officially the last major version that supports Intel-based Macs. After this, Intel machines will be on life support, receiving only critical security patches for three more years.

• Any team still running builds or tests on Intel Macs – you’re on borrowed time.
• Many newer Xcode and SDK features will quietly skip Intel entirely.
• Dev tools will optimize for Apple Silicon going forward, meaning faster CI, better performance and fewer bugs.

Start a hardware migration plan now. Realistically, you’ve got 12–24 months to phase out Intel across your organization before compatibility starts to bite you. Prioritize Apple Silicon in all new purchases, and don’t wait for tools to stop working first.

iOS 26 leaves iPhone XR/XS behind

If your users are rocking an iPhone XR, XS, or XS Max, iOS 26 won’t be coming to them. Those A12 Bionic-powered devices just got left off the update train. This means, for those older devices:

• No major OS upgrades, no new APIs, no security updates.
• App compatibility issues and growing fragmentation if you continue supporting them.
• Devs who lean on newer frameworks or SwiftUI features will face extra work if backward compatibility matters.

UIKit Background Tasks deprecated on iPad

In iPadOS 26, Apple is retiring the old UIKit-based background task APIs. If your app is still using those for file uploads, location tracking or periodic syncing, it’s time to move on.

• The new Background Task Manager API is faster, more efficient and required going forward.
• Legacy APIs won’t get improvements or bug fixes, and they may break down the road.
• Apps that are still using the outdated task schedulers will suffer from battery drain.

To Sum up

WWDC 2025 marked a tectonic shift in how apps are built, experienced and scaled across Apple’s ecosystem. We’re talking about a deep structural realignment across the four major vectors of AI, cross-platform development, design language, and spatial computing. Apple’s key messaging is that the updates are context-aware, on-device and privacy-first.

Apple’s new AI layer is embedded directly into the OS, meaning no roundtrips to the cloud and no third-party surveillance. It promises to be fast, private and incredibly capable. And it’s not just for Siri, since it’s baked into every user interaction.

Official Swift support for Android is here, with Apple’s full blessing. This instantly positions Swift as a serious contender for cross-platform native development with all the performance and consistency that hybrid stacks often sacrifice.

No more juggling visual inconsistencies between iOS, macOS, iPadOS, or Vision Pro. Liquid Glass brings layered depth, dynamic motion and adaptive UI across every Apple platform, and it’s all tightly coupled with updated SwiftUI & UIKit tooling.

visionOS 2 pushes Apple’s immersive ambitions forward, with multi-user support, better input controls and tighter Adobe/Pro tool integration for the Vision Pro headset.

If your team’s still working around annual release cycles and surface-level UX tweaks, you might find you’re already behind the curve.

The next wave of Apple-native apps are likely to be faster, smarter, deeply personal, spatially aware – and running on a unified codebase that spans iOS, macOS, Vision Pro and, yes, even Android.

Now’s the moment to start building like it’s 2026. Let’s ship.