17 things we learned at WWDC 2026 — Siri's getting a big AI makeover, Golden Gate is the next mac OS, Liquid Glass is changing, and more | Tech Radar

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17 things we learned at WWDC 2026 — Siri's getting a big AI makeover, Golden Gate is the next mac OS, Liquid Glass is changing, and more

All the big stories from Apple's annual developer conference

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We've been waiting a long, long time for Siri to get the AI glow-up it sorely needed, but at WWDC 2026, it finally happened: Siri AI is real.

That wasn't the only thing Apple announced at its annual developer conference, but it's fair to say that it was the main event, with more than half of the relatively short (only 75 minutes!) show dedicated to it.

Still, there were several other notable reveals both on stage and afterward. Here are the big things we learned.

1. Siri AI is the smarter, AI-powered Apple assistant we've been waiting for

It’s been a long two years, but we're nearly at the end of the winding road leading to Apple’s AI-powered, next-generation Siri — or at least we will be soon.

At WWDC 26, Craig Federighi ushered in Siri AI, an entirely next-generation personal assistant that delivers on what Apple originally set out to do at WWDC 2024, while adding some new tricks and a slightly updated look.

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There’s a lot here to unpack — check out our first thoughts on the new Siri AI for more — but whatever you think of it, Siri AI is a big upgrade.

The assistant will now extend out from the Dynamic Island on the i Phone, creating a more integrated experience. Apple has also greatly expanded Siri’s world knowledge and contextual understanding, plus it's also multimodal: it can see what’s on your screen to gain broader context for a given request, and it can use your camera view as a set of eyes to help answer questions or respond to queries in real time.

That’s just scratching the surface. For instance, Siri’s voice has been updated to sound more expressive (see more on that below), and the assistant can now be customized to better suit your preferences.

Safe to say it took a while, but if you’ve already taken the leap and downloaded the Developer Beta, you can join the Siri AI waitlist now.

READ MORE: Apple just gave 'Siri AI' its biggest upgrade ever — whether i Phone users asked for it or not

2. But Siri AI isn’t coming to the EU… because Apple says it needs to protect your privacy

The 27 EU countries won’t get Siri AI in i OS 27 and i Pad OS 27 because of the EU’s “extreme interpretation of the DMA [digital markets act]” that means that if it offers Siri AI’s features there that access your personal data (but process it on the device), it must also allow other AI tools on your i Phone to access your data too, but with no restriction on where that data goes (other than the EU’s data laws, of course).

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Apple says it tried to create workarounds that balanced the EU’s aim for less lock-in with Apple’s aim of privacy, to no avail: “Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU… The European Commission said no.”

READ MORE: i OS 27 and Siri AI compatibility explained — confirmed device requirements for Apple's new software updates

3. You’d better buy a new device if you want the best version of Siri AI

The new Siri AI is going to quietly have two different flavors. The regular version is available on i Phone 15 Pro or later, i Pad mini (A17 Pro) or later, i Pad models with M1 or later, Mac with M1 or later, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch Series 10 or later, Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, and Apple Watch SE 3.

However, Apple says that its “most powerful on-device model and the features it enables, like expressive voices and more advanced dictation”, are only available on super-new devices. That means i Phone Air, i Phone 17 Pro, i Phone 17 Pro Max, i Pad (M4) or later with at least 12GB of memory, a Mac with an M3 or later with at least 12GB of memory, and Apple Vision Pro (M5).

All of this means that a lot of pretty recent and expensive devices are being left behind by Siri AI altogether, including the i Phone 17, i Phone 14 Pro, and the original Apple Watch Ultra. The brand-new Mac Book Neo isn’t powerful enough for the best Siri model, either.

4. You can make Siri AI’s voice way less annoying…

…or more annoying, if you want! The point is that it’s now really customizable, in a way that rivals Alexa+ by letting you make your voice assistant your kind of vibe.

You can choose from five basic (and much more natural) voices, and then you can change the pace and expressivity within each of those voices.

Fast and simple expression for efficiency’s sake? No problem. Slower and more expressive because the kids like interacting with it? Go for it. It should help make you want to interact with Siri’s voice more — at least it would, if it were actually coming to Apple’s Home Pod smart speakers…

5. Apple's also expanded its AI-powered photo editing chops

If you’re a fan of Clean Up in Apple Photos, you’re going to be pleased to know that Apple’s expanding its AI-powered photo tools… though it’s not a throw-anything-at-the-wall approach, as the design is that these tools respect the original photo.

Firstly, Clean Up will be faster and able to tackle larger removal jobs, and will sit alongside two new features. Extend will let you stretch the borders, and only the borders, of an exciting image. This can help you achieve a rule-of-thirds shot with a portrait or rebalance an image.

More intriguing is Spatial Reframe, which, with a pinch-to-zoom or a twist of your finger on the screen, lets you adjust a shot's perspective. It’s really neat, and the demo looks impressive, as it lets you adjust the camera's position after you’ve taken the shot.

6. All of which means that Apple’s changed its approach to AI and images

Before today’s upgrade to Siri AI and Apple Intelligence, Apple was pushing the line that its approach to AI images was unique. It told us it wanted to preserve the original moment when it came to photos, so it didn’t try to make any AI image generations or image edits look too realistic, and the images you could make with Image Playground looked like AI images, not real ones.

Now, with the new Apple Intelligence features, Apple seems to have abandoned that approach entirely, and with new features such as the Extend, Clean Up, and Spatial Reframing described above, it's letting you make AI enhancements to images that look very real indeed. Image Playground now also features the ability to create realistic images.

So why the switch? Well, maybe that now that Apple has had longer to get user feedback, it has realized that this is what people actually want from AI images, or maybe it’s that until it switched to its new Gemini-powered foundation models for its AI, it really didn’t have the ability to deliver this level of realism. Either way, it's a big change in approach.

7. Siri AI in Vision Pro gives us a glimpse of what Apple AI Glasses could be

One of the most interesting examples of using Siri AI was in Vision Pro, where the user could look at a floating virtual browser window with a shopping site and ask a question about how a product would fit into their life, and the system knew what they were looking at and could give a totally context-aware answer.

It’s thanks to the eye-tracking camera in the Vision Pro, and it’s easy to see this as being the long-term goal for the much-fabled Apple Glasses. Cameras on smart glasses right now see so many things at once; it’s not an elegant system to just ask a question about what you’re facing — you could actually be looking at 20 different things.

Combining cameras on the outside of the glasses with eye detection would mean that your eyes become a way of directing the AI to one specific thing — literally, your focus becomes the software’s focus.

We’re a long way from moving it out of goggles and into glasses, but it’s easy to see that this is the future… maybe.

Seeing what Apple’s crack marketing team comes up with as a name for the next version of mac OS is now something we look forward to annually, and after a bit of a runaround between the team and Craig Federighi — including some excellent visuals— we finally learned that mac OS 27 is called mac OS 27 Golden Gate.

It will arrive with some changes to Liquid Glass, mainly a slider to adjust the overall transparency level (more on this below). This is good news, especially since on the Mac it could be a bit hit-or-miss in mac OS 26.

As with the other platforms, Apple is also taking the opportunity to fine-tune a bunch of mac OS features under the hood to make it feel a bit smoother. And as the name hints, there’s a really nice new wallpaper on the horizon. Lastly, Siri AI will be supported here on Macs — or at least those that can support it, of course.

READ MORE: mac OS 27 Golden Gate announced at WWDC 2026 — here's everything you need to know

9. Search on Apple devices is about to get much better

Apple's on-device search is getting a major overhaul for i OS 27, i Pad OS 27, and mac OS 27, with a fully revamped experience in Spotlight, Photos, and Mail that should make it far easier to find what you're looking for.

The key, Apple says, is the 'device index' — essentially Apple's catalog of everything on your device, whether in Photos, Mail, or saved somewhere. This index has been made "more stable, more efficient and more comprehensive of content both old and new," Apple says, and that in turn should mean you get better results when you search — and that you get them more quickly.

It's a quality-of-life improvement rather than a big update, sure, but it's the kind of thing that Apple has traditionally excelled at getting right, so it's no bad thing in our eyes.

As you might expect, Macs with Intel chips won't support Siri AI — but there's worse news still for owners of those devices: Apple confirmed that mac OS Golden Gate is the first version of the software to work only on Apple Silicon.

Yes, it’s the end of an era for sure, with the announcement meaning that the clock is officially ticking down for the many, much-loved Intel Macs out there.

Apple will keep updating previous versions of mac OS for a while with core security updates and basic maintenance, and mac OS 26 in particular will get quite a few releases along these lines — but this will be it for new features, and we can expect Intel versions of software to stop being supported in many cases, too.

READ MORE: Apple quietly kills off support for Intel Macs and Mac Books

It seems incredible that we’ve never been able to tinker with Air Pods’ sound profile, given that they’re approaching 10 years old as a product. But a custom Air Pods EQ is finally coming as an option in i OS 27.

You’ll be able to use a super-simple interface to adjust the frequencies, with a waveform on the screen, and you can play a song right from that interface as you’re changing things to hear instant results.

READ MORE: Air Pods are finally getting a custom EQ in i OS 27, this is not a drill!

12. Apple admitted it got it wrong on Liquid Glass (sort of)

That's because i OS 27 and Apple’s other software updates will introduce a new slider that lets you adjust how transparent the Liquid Glass elements are, from completely clear to fully opaque.

Now, Apple didn’t actually say it had got it wrong the first time round with Liquid Glass; obviously not. Instead, it said that all users are different, and so it was offering the slider so that people could choose what worked best for them. But come on — a fully opaque Liquid Glass is not Liquid Glass. It's, I don't know… solid perspex or something. Still, if it makes i OS easier to use, then we won't complain.

READ MORE: 7 new i Phone features coming to your phone in i OS 27 — from the new Siri AI to big Liquid Glass upgrades

13. Apple is taking online safety very seriously

Apple took a surprisingly large chunk of time out of its presentation to focus on parental controls, highlighting new tools that allow parents to manage which apps children can access, how long they can spend on different apps, and encouraging app developers to adopt tools it has developed to help keep kids safe online.

It also showcased new tools to protect children from messages from strangers and from explicit content, and Apple placed such importance on the topic that Tim Cook even used his closing remarks to discuss it yet again.

These announcements come in the wake of governments all over the world focusing on legislation designed to protect minors online, with this segment feeling like Apple proving it’s ready to proactively respond to parents' concerns rather than waiting to get pushed by laws.

14. Apple's Password app is about to get better still

Apple might be using its next-generation of Apple Intelligence to power one of the most useful features ever, and it will likely make you switch to the Passwords app if it works as promised.

It’s already a safe haven for all your usernames and passwords, and when the time comes to change the latter, the app easily creates a new one. It will even warn you when it might be time to update, for instance, if your password appears in a data breach.

Now, though, with i OS 27, i Pad OS 27, and mac OS 27, the Passwords app will actually handle the step of changing the password for you on whatever service it’s for. We’ll need to see exactly how this works, but I've been dreaming of this for years.

Apple didn’t really mention tv OS in its keynote, but there are some changes coming to the Apple TV 4K. These include a bunch of speed improvements — including when launching apps, using Control Center, and connecting over Air Play — plus a few smart home upgrades, including Thread 1.4 and on-device processing of Home Kit security camera footage.

There will also be a redesigned Podcasts app, support for Hi-Res Lossless in Apple Music (previously limited to the Lossless tier), and the ability to use AI to auto-generate subtitles for shows that don’t have them, which is one feature we’ve been hoping for for a few years.

Notably lacking from the list? Siri AI. It seems like it would be really useful, enabling you to ask all kinds of questions about movies you’ve seen, where you know an actor from, what kind of show you watch next… but there are rumors that a new Apple TV 4K is coming later this year. Perhaps that will have a beefier processor capable of running the new and smarter assistant.

16. But Home is missing out almost entirely (again)

Apple made a few soft-touch improvements to Apple Home, with grouped event notifications, searchable AI-generated summaries for security camera footage, and improvements to Shortcuts — but that was about it.

Did we get Siri AI for Home? We did not. Were we surprised? We were not. And unless we get new hardware in September, it seems unlikely we'll see any genuinely worthwhile updates to the platform now.

READ MORE: Siri AI’s new voice customization could have trumped Alexa+, but scant Home OS updates stall the win for Apple

17. Tim Cook signed off as CEO, but without much screen time

This was Tim Cook's final WWDC as CEO — and presumably his final Apple event, given that John Ternus will have taken over by September. It was therefore a little strange that he spent so little time on screen, with Craig Federighi and a cast of a thousand (just about) Apple employees instead taking us through the updates to Siri and i OS.

Nor did Ternus appear; this is perhaps not surprising, given that he's a hardware guy, but all the same, it felt like Apple missed an opportunity to mark the end of one era and the beginning of the next.

Again, there was plenty of that kind of thing around Apple's 50th birthday earlier this year, and maybe Cook (and Ternus) didn't want to take the focus away from Siri AI. And let's face it, he's always been more content to let Apple's devices and software do the talking, rather than hogging the limelight himself. Either way, it is the end of an era — and one that Ternus will have a tough job to surpass when it comes to success.

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Marc is Tech Radar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He's also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).

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