Last week, probably because I was the least busy with actual work at the time, I happened to be the Macworld staffer who first spotted the WWDC 2025 announcement in my inbox. And for a moment I was quite excited: WWDC, after all, is the second biggest date in Apple’s calendar, an event whose raft of software reveals sets the tone for the year to come.
But then I thought about it a bit more and realized that I didn’t care. I’m done with WWDC. And if I wasn’t contractually obliged to cover it for work, I strongly doubt that I’d even watch.
Look, don’t get me wrong: I understand that WWDC 2025 is important for Apple. The company’s last 12 months have been pretty shockingly bad on the software side, punctuated by failures, delays, and broken promises, and it needs to show developers and customers that it can turn things around. As Jason Snell puts it, Apple must repent its mistakes, not repeat them.
I’m just struggling to feel anything other than apathy at the prospect of watching Apple’s top brass either admit their failings or, more likely, act like nothing went wrong. One outcome is depressing and boring; the other depressing and infuriating. Neither sounds like a fun way to spend an evening (as it will be here in the U.K.).
Let’s talk for a minute about what Apple should do on June 9. Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, and whoever else is on stage should be completely honest. A lot of reputational damage was done when last year’s claims about the next-gen contextually aware Siri, a feature that was used to sell iPhone 16 handsets, turned out to be nothing more than hot air. If that feature is still coming, Apple should say precisely when, and in precisely what form. If not, it should admit that and explain precisely what went wrong. The company needs to regain trust. Now is not the time for razzle-dazzle.
Talking of razzle-dazzle, I took part in the Macworld podcast this week, and my colleague Karen Haslam made what I thought was a brilliant suggestion. This year, Apple shouldn’t announce any new features at all. It should do what it did with the launch of Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009: a zero-frills stability update. (Or what Snell more sympathetically calls “a clean-up and consolidation phase.”) Fix what’s there instead of cramming in more things to go wrong in turn. Have the courage to be boring but good, instead of zeitgeisty but useless. That would be the right thing to do. But it would be less interesting than soil science.
Not that there’s much chance of WWDC 2025 playing out that way. Here’s a far more plausible itinerary:
- 10.01: Welcome to WWDC! The iPhone, the iPad, and the Mac are about to change in a big way. Bigger than ever before! Bigger than a house!
- 10:02: Look at this graph. Apple Intelligence is the most beloved AI platform in the world! [citation needed]
- 10:04: Let’s start with the iPhone. In iOS 19, Siri will be able to read minds, predict the future, and cook boiled eggs exactly the way you like them…
And while this is all going on, the assembled devs smile and nod and grind their teeth. They think about all the features announced last year that never arrived and scratch their heads trying to think of a single feature in iOS 18 that delivered any tangible benefit. And then Craig Federighi makes a joke about working for Lumon.
I get it, of course. Shareholders demand growth and hype, and Apple feels it has to play ball. So instead of focusing on and actually delivering the features promised last year, it rushes ahead with the next set of features. It’s juggling knives on a treadmill. But I’ve lost my taste for blood.
Either way, WWDC 2025 is going to be a distasteful spectacle. Either Apple admits it got everything wrong, and we have to watch John Giannandrea apologize for 90 minutes before being ceremoniously lowered into a volcano. Or we get plastered-on smiles, yet more promises, and endless boring Apple Intelligence hype. WWDC 2025 is going to be awful. There’s only one question: awful in what way?
Foundry
Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.
Trending: Top stories
Will Apple repent–or repeat–its mistakes at WWDC 2025?
Mahmoud Itani presents the top 6 products Apple never released.
Roman Loyola offers 6 ways to avoid Apple’s insane Mac storage upgrade prices.
These 4 visionOS 3 features will turn Vision Pro into an everyday device.
The Macalope is mad about iPhone sizes in a big way.
Apple’s ‘new’ Lumon Terminal Pro is the Mac of our dreams.
Apple News+ Food should be the best way to cook. Here’s why it’s not.
Podcast of the week
Apple Intelligence and Siri have been making a lot of noise lately, and all for the wrong reasons. In the latest episode of the Macworld Podcast, we talk about how Apple has made a mess of things, resulting in delays, management changes, and bad PR.
You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.
Reviews corner
- iPad (A16, 11th gen) review: Who needs Apple Intelligence?
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows review: Ninja and Samurai go to war in feudal Japan.
- Newdery Battery Case for iPhone 16 review: Bulky but smartly designed.
- Mophie Juice Pack iPhone 16 Battery Case review: Slim case with built-in power bank.
The rumor mill
Your dreams of a small iPhone just died (again).
Apple may be working on a radically new all-glass Apple Watch.
Exciting details emerge of Apple’s LiquidMetal folding iPhone hinge.
The Apple Watch may get a new life as a camera-equipped AI device…
…while the Apple Watch SE might not have a future in plastics after all.
2026 Porsche models seemingly abandon plans for next-gen CarPlay.
Software updates, bugs, and problems
Don’t be fooled by ‘unrepresentative’ iOS 19 screenshots, leaker warns.
New Apple Watch feature means you’ll never sleep through an alarm again.
iOS 18.4 AirPods Max update will add lossless and ultra‑low latency audio.
And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters, including our new email from The Macalope–an irreverent, humorous take on the latest news and rumors from a half-man, half-mythical Mac beast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or X for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.