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It’s that time of the year again. In less than a week, Apple will open its annual developer conference with a keynote address which might be the most hotly anticipated in recent memory.
The problem for Tim Cook is that the anticipation centres largely around the fallout of the botched Apple Intelligence launch from last year’s WWDC.
What are they going to say? What are they going to do? Will they apologise? Or will they pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and attempt to divert attention towards a pretty iOS redesign?
And if you think this is all a bit unfair, I beg to differ.
A rotten year
We’re now exactly a year on from being promised a significant update to Siri’s capabilities under the banner of Apple Intelligence, and we’re no further forward. Well, ok, granted – we have the now-standard range of AI features for writing assistance and photo editing (although even the latter is both sub-par and feature-deficient compared to the Android competition). However, none of the advanced Apple Intelligence features are visible anywhere, neither publicly nor through hands-on experience by the press.
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Let me be abundantly clear: I remain a huge fan of Apple products. However, I’ve been as disappointed as anyone with Apple’s failure to deliver on a big promise. I’m even more dismayed that they turned down the opportunity to appear on Jon Gruber’s The Talk Show Live next week, as they have done without fail since 2015.
A perfect opportunity to set the record straight on what is, usually, one of the simplest interview tasks for any Apple exec? Clearly not.
Anyway, let’s put all of that negativity to one side for now and reveal what I want from each Apple operating system at WWDC 2025.
Let’s assume that everything is absolutely fine, without mentioning Apple Intelligence once.
iOS
There isn’t much wrong with iOS. No, really – as much as I’ve enjoyed spending considerable time in Android land over the last couple of years, iOS still feels as polished and powerful as ever.
After thinking about it for a good five minutes, there are two things I want from iOS in 2025 (and, yes, I’m fully aware that we’re possibly going to see the biggest overhaul to Apple’s smartphone operating system next week for quite some time).
The first is a better Siri. And I know I said I wouldn’t mention the ‘AI’ thing, but I’m already rather bored of that being an umbrella term for all this stuff, and I still very much view Siri as nothing more than a digital assistant
I don’t care what powers it.
What I do care about is the fact that Siri is still utterly useless. If it wasn’t, I’d use it. Now is definitely the time for that to come true.
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The second thing I want from iOS 19 (or ‘iOS 26’, as it is reportedly going to be called) is a redesigned Photos app. Scrap that – I just want the old one back, please, Tim. The redesign we received last year ranks as one of the most confusing things Apple has ever put in front of its users. I use Photos on my iPhone every day, and I still have no idea how to find stuff or how it is structured. It is utterly nuts.
macOS
If I had to pick my favourite Apple operating system, it would be macOS. It’s the only one on this list that I feel wedded to for life; I have absolutely no interest in switching back to Windows. Ever.
This is why my requests for macOS each year are either minor or non-existent. It’s damn near perfect.
Predictably, there are only two things I can think of for the next iteration of macOS, and one of them absolutely won’t happen. So, let’s start there, just for the LOLs.
I’ve lavished significant praise on several Android phones over the last couple of years, but have always cited the Mac as the reason I can’t fully switch to one of those devices from the iPhone. Whenever I do that, I receive a barrage of comments telling me that macOS can play nicely with Android if you install the right third-party apps. This is true, but it’s a faff and a workaround. At the ripe old age of 44, I have limited patience for faffing and workarounds.
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For me to switch full-time to, for instance, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, I need native Android integration in macOS. And by that, I mean functionality that is identical to the way in which the Mac and the iPhone can talk to each other, from shared clipboards to AirDrop. This would be game-changing for me, but Apple won’t do it, obviously.
The second thing I want – and which is far more likely to actually happen – is some more of those lovely drone screensavers, please, Tim. For those who aren’t aware, macOS includes a bunch of gorgeous 4K drone video screensavers shot around the world, which gracefully slow down to a stop and become your wallpaper once you log into the operating system. They are beautifully pointless and ultimately Apple. That’s high praise, by the way.
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iPadOS
I’m pretty sure that I join many others who want to use their iPads more consistently, but who can never quite find a use case that sticks.
It’s taken me a while to understand why this is the case, but I’ve come to realise that it’s because iPadOS is still too far removed from macOS to operate as a replacement for the latter.
I know that isn’t a popular suggestion. The idea that iPadOS should forge its own path is one that’s held by its biggest supporters, but the more I try and use my iPad instead of my Mac, the more clunky it becomes. Before long, I just want my MacBook back.
To solve this problem, I think iPadOS needs a thorough rethinking. It needs to become more macOS-like. And before you call me an idiot for suggesting this, I’d point out that Apple is unlikely to ever release a touch-screen Mac (they’d have done it by now); therefore, even if the iPad’s operating system practically mirrors that of the Mac’s, the touch interface will always differentiate the two. It would just need a light redesign to make touch input intuitive and accurate across the system.
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I don’t think Apple is heading this way with iPadOS, unfortunately. If they were, it would already be a far closer sibling to macOS than it is. Everything they’ve shoehorned in thus far, from file management to multitasking, has felt like an afterthought rather than something that sits at the heart of the iPadOS user experience.
watchOS
When it comes to watchOS, I can’t think of a single thing Apple needs to change, update, or add.
It’s still the best wearable operating system on the market – even if the competition is practically on a par with Apple these days.
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So, while I’m sure they haven’t, I wouldn’t be upset if the watchOS team has had a year off this time around.
tvOS
I’m not sure what tvOS needs, but it definitely requires an update. A lick of paint. A fettling under the bonnet. I weekend at Bernie’s. I have no idea – it’s just time Apple did something more substantial with it.
I have nothing to back this up other than a completely uneducated hunch, but I have a feeling that tvOS is still based on some relatively old iOS code. It just feels a generation or three behind the rest of Apple’s platforms.
The best thing about tvOS is the Up Next screen, which acts as a brilliant way to remind yourself about what you should be watching next. Obviously. It’s about as simple a concept as you’ll ever find, but it’s one that we use as a family all the time.
Beyond that, tvOS still feels clunky to use. The iOS-inspired Springboard, which proudly displays all of your installed apps (most of which you probably don’t use), is an utter waste of space. Worse still, in the UK, we have no major TV network tie-in, and that means if you fancy cutting the cord and going all-in on Apple TV – as I did three years ago – you have to trawl through individual streaming apps to find something to watch. It’s a faff.
Some of this relates to regional TV network agreements, and some of it simply points to the need for a complete tvOS overhaul.
visionOS
Ah, visionOS. Bless it.
It’s been well over a year since I imported a Vision Pro headset from the US into the UK at great expense. And it’s still sitting somewhere in a drawer. Somewhere. You can read my full Vision Pro review here for my full thoughts.
On the lead-up to every WWDC, we’re treated to rumours about what hardware Apple might show off at its developer conference. This is never a given; WWDC is focused on software updates, after all, but Apple has occasionally used the event to either preview or full-on release new hardware.
The only piece of hardware I’d love to see at WWDC next week is the rumoured ‘cheaper’ and lighter visionOS headset. I think the OS itself is absolutely fine for what is currently a comically small user base, but the hardware needs serious work if that user base is to expand.
Go on – show us what’s next for the future of computing, please, Tim.
Final thought
I’m genuinely excited about WWDC – perhaps more so than I have been in recent memory. I want to see how Apple handles the current PR storm surrounding Apple Intelligence. I want to see how they divert attention from that to something else. I want to see if the rumoured big sweeping changes to its entire operating system line-up hold any truth.
It’s time. For something. I don’t know what, but something.
