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Podcast Rewind: Chatting with Apple Design Award Winners, Favorite WWDC Announcements, and Transatlantic Tea Talk

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

AppStories

For their first WWDC 2025 AppStories episode, Federico and John interview finalists and winners of the Apple Design Award.

This episode is sponsored by:

Comfort Zone

Comfort Zone does WWDC! Federico Viticci joins the show to talk about our favorite things revealed at Apple’s developer conference.

Ruminate

Snack news dropped just before recording, Robb’s been buying more notebooks, and John and Robb discuss videogame news.

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tvOS 26: The MacStories Overview

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

On Monday, Apple announced tvOS 26, the latest chapter in the platform’s nearly decade-long journey of bringing best-in-class experiences for TV shows, films, and apps to the living room – available this fall and currently in developer-only beta. In a first for the company, this year sees the debut of a new universal design language across all of Apple’s platforms simultaneously. Liquid Glass aims to make the transition from one device to another a seamless, almost indistinguishable user experience while placing greater emphasis on content in a way that’s both free of immersion-breaking distractions and perfectly suited to Apple TV.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Compatible with Apple TV 4K (2nd generation) and above, the new visionOS-inspired material design aims to achieve those lofty ambitions by cleverly simulating refractions and reflections to create the illusion of specular highlights within the different UI elements inside of tvOS 26, adding a subtle three-dimensionality to every control, button, and app icon border as each element adapts to its surroundings thanks to real-time, on-device rendering. Though the adoption of Liquid Glass has been executed with subtle and delicate delivery in most parts of the system, the glacial elements exhibited within Apple TV’s video player controls and Control Center elevate both otherwise unchanged OS elements to noteworthy showpieces while still keeping the focus first and foremost on what’s playing.

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WWDC 2025: Subsequent Discoveries

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

After the initial rush following a WWDC keynote, the next few days are typically spent mulling over new features and design changes. This is often a fruitful time for discovering modifications and additions that weren’t covered in the keynote. This year is no different, so I’ve collated a roundup of some of the most significant ones below.

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watchOS 26: The MacStories Overview

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Earlier today, Apple announced watchOS 26 and with it, a selection of updates and new features for the Apple Watch. Alongside all of Apple’s other platforms, watchOS will adopt the new Liquid Glass design language, albeit in a less significant way.

watchOS didn’t feature any Apple Intelligence features when it launched last year, and that continues to be the case, even though it is merely a technicality now. That’s because the new Workout Buddy feature, which you interact with from your Apple Watch, still requires an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone nearby. This is presumably a technical limitation that may be overcome in the future with a more advanced Apple Watch chipset.

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iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and Liquid Glass: The MacStories Overview

During today’s WWDC 2025 keynote, held in person at Apple Park and streamed online, Apple unveiled a considerable number of upgrades to iOS and iPadOS, including a brand-new design language called Liquid Glass. This new look, which spans all of Apple’s platforms, coupled with a massive upgrade for multitasking on the iPad and numerous other additions and updates, made for packed releases for iOS and iPadOS.

Let’s take a look at everything Apple showed today for Liquid Glass, iOS, and iPadOS.

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WWDC 2025: All the Small Things (Bento Box Version)

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Every keynote, Apple is well-known for summarizing sections of the presentation with immaculately laid-out bento boxes containing key features. They often serve as good, easily digestible overviews of all the new features for each OS.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at all the bento boxes from today’s WWDC 2025 keynote.

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macOS Tahoe: The MacStories Overview

At its WWDC 2025 keynote held earlier today, Apple officially announced the next version of macOS, macOS Tahoe. As per the company’s naming tradition over the past decade, this new release is once again named after a location in California. This year, however, to unify the version numbers across all its operating systems, Apple has decided to align the new release with the upcoming year. This is why the version number for macOS Tahoe will be macOS 26, directly up from last year’s macOS 15.

macOS 26 features the brand-new Liquid Glass design language, which Apple is also rolling out across iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, watchOS, and tvOS. But macOS Tahoe doesn’t stop there. In addition to the flashy new look, Apple has introduced many features, ranging from a supercharged new version of Spotlight and intelligent actions in Shortcuts to new Continuity and gaming-focused features for the Mac.

Here’s a recap of everything that Apple showed off today for macOS Tahoe.

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Camera Remote and Higher-Quality Audio Recording Coming to AirPods This Fall

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

While most of the new features announced at WWDC today are coming to Apple’s major OSes, the AirPods weren’t completely left out of the fun. Today, Apple revealed a couple of enhancements coming to the AirPods line this fall.

First up is a new camera remote feature. Users will soon be able to take a photo or start a video recording in the Camera app and compatible third-party apps on the iPhone and iPad by pressing and holding on the stem of their AirPods. If a video is already being recorded, a press-and-hold gesture will end the recording. This will be a nice replacement for the camera timer when you’re taking a group photo, and it will also come in handy for many online creators.

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Apple Intelligence Expands: Onscreen Visual Intelligence, Shortcuts, Third-Party Apps, and More

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

One of the big questions heading into today’s WWDC keynote was how Apple would address its AI efforts. After a splashy introduction last year followed by a staggered rollout and the eventual delay of the more personalized Siri, it was unclear how much focus the company would put on Apple Intelligence during its big announcement video.

Surprisingly, they came right out of the gate with a segment on Apple Intelligence, even going so far as to mention the fact that the more personalized Siri needed more time; it’s slated to be released “in the coming year.” But SVP of Software Craig Federighi also said that Apple Intelligence had progressed with more capable and efficient models and teased that more Apple Intelligence features would be revealed throughout the presentation. Rather than dedicating a significant portion of the keynote just to AI features, the company returned to a platform-centered structure for the rest of the video and mentioned Apple Intelligence as it related to each OS.

In its second year, Apple Intelligence is set to expand in more ways than one. Perhaps most excitingly, third-party developers will soon have access to Apple Intelligence’s on-device foundation model, enabling them to implement AI features in their apps that work offline in a privacy-respecting way. And because the framework is local, it will be available to developers at no additional cost with no API fees.

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