On Monday, Apple held its 2025 World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote. As has been tradition in recent years, most of the news was of the incremental update variety: new iOS and MacOS versions, some new Apple Watch feature, and more AI (“Apple Intelligence”) junk. Still, as I noted last year, at least Apple seems less pushy about AI versus Google or Microsoft. (Small comfort, I know.)
Here’s my usual look at what seemed particularly interesting. The Verge has a full summary of all of the announcements.
Apple to revamp operating systems naming scheme
Apple’s decided to change the naming scheme of its operating systems. Instead of just being sequential numbers, they’ll now be named after the year of release. Thus, the next operating systems will be “iOS 26,” “MacOS 26,” and so on. Despite the 2026 naming, they’ll actually be released later this year.
The idea is that it’ll be easier to identify and remember the operating systems by year instead of by generic version number. That said, MacOS 26 still has a California landmark related nickname: “Tahoe.”
“Liquid Glass” is the newest Apple GUI design revamp
Apple is giving the its operating systems a new look: “Liquid Glass,” which is… basically a transparent design to the menu bars, menus, and other elements.
Longtime Apple users will recall the early days of OS X in the early 2000s, which had a similar “transparent” look. They might also recall why Apple shifted away from said look—among other reasons, some transparent elements might be harder to tell apart at first glance?
The iPad will look more Mac-like
The iPadOS is gaining some new windowing features, as well as a menu bar. There’s also some other MacOS-style elements, such as resizable app windows.
This should make it easier to use the iPad as (basically) a glorified laptop. This might be useful for some people who do use their iPad for work, such as artists. In my case, the idea of using a tablet as a primary computer never appealed to me; I’d rather just buy a “real” computer for the price of what a higher-spec iPad and compatible wireless keyboard costs.
iPhone and iPad models dropped by iOS 26 / iPadOS 26
And now for what’s probably the main draw to these posts: what iPhone and iPad models are being dropped by the newest versions of iOS and iPadOS?
According to the list of supported models, the iPhones losing support are the XR and the XS, both first released back in 2018. Again, I still wish Disney had released an XR phone case featuring XR, the snarky robot (who was basically a G-rated version of Bender from “Futurama”) from the early 2000s “Buzz Lightyear” TV cartoon. (A show that Disney’s buried in the “Disney Vault” without any reruns or DVD/Disney+ availability for some reason.)
As for the iPad, the seventh generation iPad (released back in 2019) is losing support.
Mac models dropped by MacOS 26
On the Mac side, MacOS Tahoe is dropping support for almost all Intel powered Macs, with Tahoe the final release to support said hardware. The only Intel Macs supported by Tahoe: the 2019 Mac Pro, the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, and the 2020 Intel 13-inch MacBook Pro. Otherwise, it’s all Apple Silicon models from here on out, such as my first generation M1 Mac Mini.
Image: MacOS 26 (“Tahoe”). (Apple)
