WWDC 2026: See everything Apple announced at the keynote.
WWDC 2026 kicks off Monday, June 8 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, and let me just say it up front: this is not a normal year. Most developer conferences are about a fresh coat of paint, a couple of new APIs, and a feature or two that gets a polite golf clap. This one is different. This is the year Apple finally has to show its hand on AI, and the stakes could not be higher.
Here is the situation. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have spent the last couple of years sprinting, and Siri has spent that same time being the assistant you mostly use to set a timer and turn off the lights. Apple promised a smarter Siri back in 2024, then went quiet, then went quiet some more. Now it is 2026, the leaks are flooding out (Apple employees apparently cannot help themselves, and Bloomberg has gotten so much detail that it has been able to recreate screenshots), and we finally get to see whether Apple can actually compete or whether it is going to spend another year playing catch-up.
So let’s break down everything that is expected at WWDC 2026, what it actually means for you, and where I think Apple is being genuinely ambitious versus where it is quietly admitting it could not do this alone.
The Headline: Siri Is Becoming a Completely Different Thing
Here is the one sentence that matters. Siri in iOS 27 is going to look almost nothing like the Siri you are using right now.
Back in 2024, Apple teased three big upgrades for Siri. Two years and a lot of behind-the-scenes work later, the expectation is that we are getting all of that plus more. The three pillars are still the foundation, so let’s go through each one, because this is where the real story is.
Pillar one: Siri finally knows who you are
The biggest change is that Siri is supposed to be able to draw on your actual data. Your emails, your messages, your files, your photos, your calendar, your contacts, your notes. Instead of being a search box with a personality, it becomes an assistant that understands your personal context.
The examples Apple has floated are the kind of thing that, honestly, should have been possible years ago:
- “Show me the files Eric sent me last week.”
- “Find the email where Eric mentioned ice skating.”
- “Find the books that Eric recommended to me.”
- “Where’s the recipe that Eric sent me?”
- “What’s my passport number?”
None of these are flashy. That is exactly why they matter. This is the boring, useful stuff that makes an assistant feel like it lives in your life instead of orbiting it. If Apple nails this, it is the single most important upgrade in the whole release.
Pillar Two: Siri can see your screen
The second pillar is onscreen awareness, and this is the one that feels genuinely modern. Siri will be able to look at whatever is on your display and act on it.
Someone texts you an address? Tell Siri to drop it onto their contact card. Looking at a photo and want to fire it off to a friend? Just ask, no tapping through the share sheet. It is a small shift in how you interact with the phone, but it is the kind of thing that, once you get used to it, you stop thinking about. That is usually the sign a feature is actually good.
Pillar Three: Siri can do things across your apps
The third pillar is action. Siri is supposed to be able to perform real multi-step tasks in and between apps, the sort of thing it simply cannot touch today. A few of the examples on the table:
- Moving a file from one app to another.
- Editing a photo and then sharing it.
- Pulling up directions home and sending your ETA in Messages.
- Drafting an email and then sending it.
The important detail here is that this is not limited to Apple’s own apps. Developers will be able to expose their app’s capabilities to Siri, so third-party apps get to play too. That is the part that decides whether this is a real platform or just a demo. App integration is only as good as the apps that adopt it.
Siri Becomes a Chatbot (Yes, Really)
Here is the thing that ties all of this together: Apple needs a standalone Siri app now, because Siri is turning into a chatbot.
The plan is for Siri to behave like the assistants you already use, pulling answers from the web, holding a conversation, and generally acting like a proper AI assistant rather than a voice command parser. It is going to be wired deep into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS at the system level, and it will lean on everything it knows about you to actually be useful.
The rumored capability list is long, and it reads like Apple finally checking every box on the modern-assistant scorecard:
- Search the web for information
- Generate images
- Generate written content
- Summarize information
- Analyze files you upload
- Use your personal data to complete tasks
- Pull details out of emails, messages, files, and more
- Write emails, notes, and texts
- Read open windows and on-screen content, then take action
- Control device features and settings
- Search for content on your device, which means it effectively replaces Spotlight
And it is going to be threaded through the apps you use constantly, including Mail, Messages, Photos, and Apple TV. The ambition here is not subtle. Apple wants Siri to be the layer you talk to instead of the apps themselves.
The New Siri Design: It Lives in the Dynamic Island Now
The interface is getting a real rethink, and most of it happens in the Dynamic Island.
Swipe down from the center of the Home Screen or from inside any app and you get a new “Search or Ask” experience right there in the Dynamic Island. When Siri is working on your request, a glowing pill-shaped animation fills the space so you know it is thinking. When it has an answer, the island expands into a transparent card that pulls together images, web results, notes, and whatever else is relevant to what you asked.
Swipe on that results card and it opens into a conversation view that looks a lot like an iMessage thread, with the option to jump into the full Siri app from there. “Search or Ask” is replacing the old Siri Suggestions, and it becomes a genuine command center: launch apps, start texts, check the weather, add calendar events, trigger app shortcuts, and run Apple’s new AI-powered web search, all from one place. You can also route those queries straight to a third-party chatbot like ChatGPT instead of Siri if you prefer.
A few practical notes on how this changes muscle memory. The classic “Hey Siri” wake word stays, and so does activation via the Side button, so the old habits still work. But because the center swipe is now reserved for Search or Ask, Notification Center moves: you pull it down from the left side of the display, and notifications now slide in from the left instead of from the top. Control Center stays on the right. Apple is also baking an “Ask Siri” button right into its app menus, so you can shoot content over to Siri with a request attached.
On the look itself, the new Siri interface goes dark, with no light mode. Expect a dark background with color accents that mirror the WWDC branding (Apple’s event site features a white Swift bird with subtle pink, dark blue, purple, and orange highlights), which is a pretty good preview of the palette.
The Standalone Siri app
Bloomberg has shared a mockup, and if you have used ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, you already know the shape of this. It supports both text and voice. It opens with an “Ask Siri” bar where you type your question, there is a paperclip for attaching images, PDFs, and documents, and Apple seeds the screen with suggested prompts so you are not staring at a blank box.
Your questions show up as iMessage-style chat bubbles, because of course they do, and responses come back with links, images, and supporting info. There is a dedicated section for past conversations that you can browse as summary cards or as a list, and you can tap back into any of them to pick up where you left off. It is familiar by design, and that is probably smart. Apple is not trying to reinvent the chatbot. It is trying to make the chatbot feel like it belongs on your iPhone.
Privacy Is the Pitch
This is the part Apple is going to lean on hard, and it is the most believable piece of differentiation it has.
The plan is to make privacy the headline argument for choosing Siri over a rival. Apple wants to keep as much processing on-device as possible to limit what actually leaves your phone, with the rest handled by Private Cloud Compute. Apple Intelligence features are supposed to keep running on Apple’s own hardware and that private cloud layer rather than getting shipped off somewhere you cannot see.
There are real controls coming too. Apple is building in limits on what Siri remembers and for how long. You will be able to auto-delete your Siri chats and requests on a schedule (think 30 days, or a year), keep them forever if you want, and sync them across every device signed into the same iCloud account. And if you are the type who does not want any of this, Siri and Apple Intelligence can still be switched off entirely, with no sign that is changing in iOS 27. Nobody is being forced into the AI era.
You Do Not Have to Use Siri at All: Bring Your Own Chatbot
This is one of the more interesting strategic moves, and it tells you a lot about how Apple sees its own position.
Apple is opening Siri up to rival chatbots in iOS 27. It already lets Siri hand requests off to ChatGPT, and that is expanding. The plan is to let other assistants like Claude and Gemini plug in too, so you can send your questions to whichever chatbot you actually prefer instead of Siri.
You will pick your services through a new “Extensions” system arriving in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, tucked into the Apple Intelligence and Siri section of Settings, with Apple even providing download links for the chatbot apps. There is going to be a dedicated Extensions area in the App Store built specifically for choosing a third-party AI app.
Siri stays the default for the Search or Ask interface, but you will reportedly be able to swap in another chatbot to talk to. You can also choose a third-party AI as the default for Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools and Image Playground, which pushes integration well beyond the original ChatGPT deal. There is even a plan to let you pick a third-party AI voice, so a Siri answer and a “your chatbot of choice” answer would actually sound different. One voice for Siri, another voice for everyone else.
Read between the lines and this is Apple hedging. If it cannot guarantee Siri is the best assistant on day one, it can at least guarantee the iPhone is the best place to use whichever assistant is.
The Plot Twist: Google’s Gemini Is Powering Siri
And here is the part that genuinely reframes the whole event.
To get the new Siri working, Apple partnered with Google to use Gemini models instead of its own. This is a multi-year deal covering Gemini models and Google’s cloud technology to back Apple’s Foundation Models, and it is reportedly costing Apple in the neighborhood of $1 billion a year.
Both companies have said the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be built on Gemini, with Google’s models powering future Apple Intelligence features and the more personal version of Siri. Apple’s framing is that Google’s technology offered the most capable foundation available.
Sit with that for a second. The company whose entire brand is “we build everything ourselves, and we do it better” is paying a competitor a billion dollars a year to run the brain of its flagship assistant. That is not a footnote. That is the story of where Apple actually is in the AI race right now. It is a pragmatic call, and probably the right one for shipping a good product, but it is also an admission. The privacy pitch and the “bring your own chatbot” flexibility start to look like a strategy built around the reality that Apple is not leading here, it is partnering its way to parity.
The App-by-App Upgrades
The Siri story is the headline, but iOS 27 is stuffed with app-level changes too. Let’s run through them.
Camera: Visual Intelligence grows up and gets a new name
Apple is moving Visual Intelligence out from behind the Camera Control button and into the Camera app itself. There will be a new “Siri mode” sitting alongside Photo, Video, Portrait, and Panorama, and when you are in it, the shutter button wears the Apple Intelligence logo so you know the smart features are live.
Siri mode is basically Visual Intelligence rebranded, and that is a good move, because right now the feature is buried. In iOS 26 you have to hold the Camera Control button or assign it to the Action button, and plenty of people have no idea it even exists. Visual Intelligence already identifies objects, plants, animals, art, books, and more by running what you point at through Google Image Search. In iOS 27, Siri can answer questions about whatever you are looking at and pull in info from the web.
Two new tricks are coming through Siri mode:
- Nutrition. Scan a nutrition label on food packaging and track calories and macros straight into the Health app.
- Contacts. Scan a phone number or address off a business card or printed material and drop it into Contacts.
The Camera app is also getting more customizable, and this one is for the people who actually shoot on their phone. You will be able to swap out the top row of shortcuts for whatever you want: flash, exposure, timer, depth of field, photo styles, resolution, and so on. Apple is calling these controls “widgets,” and you can arrange them in any order at the top of the interface, pulling them from a transparent tray that categorizes them as basic, manual, or settings.
The default layout stays exactly as it is now, with the quick taps for flash, Live Photos, and Night Mode, but the customizable version arrives as an advanced layout aimed at pros. The control panel that currently lives at the top right is moving to the right of the shutter button, and there are new grid and level options joining the existing tools.
Photos: Generative Editing Arrives
The Photos app is getting an Apple Intelligence Tools section in the editor, with two new options:
- Extend generates new image content beyond the original frame, filling in the scenery when you change a crop. It supports expanding the edges of a shot with zoom gestures.
- Reframe, used with spatial photos, lets you change the perspective of an image after you have already taken it.
Apple is also testing natural-language photo editing, where you just describe the edit you want (adjust color, lighting, cropping, and the rest) instead of fiddling with manual sliders. Worth tempering expectations though, because that natural-language editor might not make the cut for the first version of iOS 27.
Shortcuts: Just Describe What You Want
This is a genuinely great quality-of-life change. The Shortcuts app will let you build a shortcut using natural language. Tell Siri what you are trying to accomplish across multiple steps, and it generates the shortcut for you. The app opens with a prompt asking “What do you want your shortcut to do?” and a text field, and anything you create gets installed automatically and is ready to use immediately. For an app that has always been powerful but intimidating, lowering the barrier to entry this much is a big deal.
Wallet: Make Your Own Passes and Split The Bill
Wallet is getting a “Create a Pass” option, so you can turn physical items like movie tickets, concert passes, and gym cards into digital passes. Tap the “+” button, scan a QR code if the pass has one, and if it does not, there is an option to build a custom pass from scratch. There are three pass types, each color-coded: purple for events, blue for memberships, and orange for everything else, and you can customize the images, colors, style, and text.
Apple is also adding AI-powered bill splitting that works with Apple Cash. Snap a photo of a receipt and it generates Apple Cash payment requests for each person. That is the kind of feature that sounds small until you are the one stuck doing the math at dinner.
Image Playground and Genmoji: better models, less battery drain
Image Playground is getting a cleaner interface with fewer controls and a “describe a change” option for editing the images it makes. Your past creations show up in a grid with more rounded edges, and the New Image button becomes a simple “+”. Apple has reportedly been testing models that produce more lifelike images, so the actual output quality could take a real step up.
Genmoji is getting an efficiency overhaul, which matters because the current version is a battery and heat hog. The new Genmoji model is supposed to use fewer resources, run cooler, and produce better quality. There is also a Suggested Genmoji feature that proposes custom emoji ideas based on your media and text history.
Writing Tools: A Real Grammar Checker, Finally
Apple is expanding Writing Tools to do more rewriting and text generation. There is a “Write with Siri” toggle at the top of the keyboard, plus a “Help Me Write” option that pops up when you activate Siri with a text field open.
The headline addition is a dedicated AI grammar checker that runs alongside the existing spell check. In Messages, Mail, and other apps, a translucent menu slides up from the bottom of the screen showing suggested revisions next to your original text. You can accept or reject them one at a time, approve everything at once, or just ignore the whole thing. Straightforward, and overdue.
The Smaller Stuff That Adds Up
A grab bag of additional changes worth knowing about:
- Wallpaper. Generate custom wallpapers with Image Playground, built right into the wallpaper picker.
- Safari. A refreshed start page with four tabs for favorites, bookmarks, Reading List, and history.
- Calendar. Rumored new AI features, with Siri able to draw on what is in your calendar.
- Health. With calorie scanning coming to the Camera, calorie tracking gets more prominent here. Apple had a Health+ subscription in the works that has been scaled back, but other AI health changes could still show up.
- Weather. A new Conditions panel for switching between temperature, rain, and wind from the main screen, without digging into a separate module.
- AirPods settings. A simpler, better-organized AirPods section in Settings, with major features like hearing health easier to find.
- AirPlay alternatives. A new option to beam content to AirPlay rivals like Google Cast. This one might be limited to EU iPhone users, since it is being added to satisfy a Digital Markets Act requirement.
System-Wide Design Changes
A few things are shifting across the whole OS. The separate search tab in apps like Apple Music, Podcasts, News, and Apple TV is going away, with search folding back into the main navigation. Apple split search out when it introduced Liquid Glass, and now it is reverting to the original approach.
The on-screen keyboard gets a new animation, with keys sliding up from the bottom, and Apple is adding redo and undo controls to make rearranging Home Screen icons and widgets less painful.
On Liquid Glass itself, do not expect a dramatic overhaul in iOS 27. Apple is considering a system-wide setting to fine-tune the look, though. In iOS 26.2 it added a slider to adjust the Liquid Glass opacity behind the Lock Screen clock, and that idea could expand to the entire operating system.
iOS 27 and the First Foldable iPhone
This is a big one. The first foldable iPhone is expected in September, reportedly with a 5.5-inch display when folded and a 7.8-inch display when opened like a book. A device like that demands serious software work, and iOS 27 is going to focus a lot of energy on building interfaces and experiences for that bigger screen.
The interesting wrinkle is that the iPhone Fold runs iOS, not iPadOS, and it will not support iPad apps. It lands somewhere between an iPhone and an iPad. Unfolded, it gets an iPad-like layout with side-by-side multitasking for two apps, and many of Apple’s apps will show sidebars on the left, with developer tools provided to adapt apps to the new shape. Apple is going wider than most foldable makers, with a rumored iPad-style 4:3 aspect ratio. Closed, it behaves like a normal iPhone running the version of iOS you already recognize.
Satellite Features
Apple is working on a batch of new satellite capabilities, some of which might not arrive until 2027:
- Apple Maps over satellite
- Sending Photos in Messages over satellite
- A satellite API framework for third-party apps
- Satellite over 5G
- Satellite connectivity that does not require a clear view of the sky
That last one is the most exciting, because needing an open sky is the single biggest limitation of satellite features today.
Accessibility: Apple Intelligence Goes to Work
Apple previewed its accessibility updates in May, as it does every year, and several are expected to ship with iOS 27. Apple Intelligence is showing up across VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control, and Accessibility Reader:
- VoiceOver Image Explorer uses Apple Intelligence to generate detailed descriptions of images across the system, including photos, scanned bills, and personal records. Press the Action button to ask questions about what the camera is pointed at, with natural-language follow-ups supported.
- Magnifier brings AI-powered visual descriptions into its high-contrast interface for low-vision users, with spoken commands like “zoom in” or “turn on flashlight.”
- Voice Control gets natural-language input, so you can describe things conversationally (“tap the guide about best restaurants” or “tap the purple folder”) instead of memorizing exact labels or numbers. It can also help reach on-screen elements that lack clear accessibility labels.
- Accessibility Reader now handles more complex layouts, including multi-column scientific articles with images and tables, plus on-demand summaries and built-in translation that keeps your custom font, color, and formatting.
- Generated Subtitles use on-device speech recognition to auto-transcribe spoken audio in uncaptioned video, whether it was recorded on iPhone, sent by a friend, or streamed online, across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Vision Pro. It launches in English in the U.S. and Canada.
These are the kind of features that do not make the keynote highlight reel but genuinely change how people use their devices, and the AI angle here actually makes a lot of sense.
The “Snow Leopard” Angle: Performance and Stability
Here is something I am quietly very happy about. Bloomberg has described iOS 27 as a “Snow Leopard” release, the reference being Apple’s famous 2009 macOS update that was all about refinement rather than new features. We went through the first beta and pulled out the iOS 27 hidden features Apple never put on stage.
The plan is to clean up the iOS codebase and strip out anything outdated, which could mean upgrading apps for better performance and rewriting older features to run more efficiently. The goal is a more responsive, faster version of iOS, with efficiency gains that could translate into real battery life improvements. After years of feature stuffing, a release that just makes everything work better is exactly what a lot of people have been asking for.
iOS 27 Compatibility
iOS 27 is expected to drop the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, and the second-generation iPhone SE. Every other iPhone that runs iOS 26 should still be supported. If you are on an iPhone 11, this is your stop.
iPadOS 27
A lot of what is coming to iOS 27 carries straight over to the iPad, including the full set of new Siri capabilities. We have not heard about any iPad-specific features yet, which either means Apple is keeping them quiet or this is more of a “everything the iPhone gets” year for the iPad.
macOS 27
The Mac is getting the new chatbot-style Siri too, complete with personal context, the ability to dig into data on your Mac, and improved cross-app integration. A standalone Siri app for macOS is likely. We have a clear picture of the iPhone Siri interface in the Dynamic Island, but how it looks on the Mac is still a mystery, so that part will be more of a surprise.
The Photos reframing and extending tools come to the Mac, as does natural-language Shortcut creation. Writing Tools gets the grammar checker, and Image Playground and Genmoji get the improved models, so the Mac might finally generate images that are not quite so cartoonish.
Safari on Mac is expected to get a feature that uses AI to automatically group similar tabs, building on the existing tab groups. As for Liquid Glass, the Mac version has taken more criticism than the iPhone’s, so Apple could have changes planned. Bloomberg says Apple is working on a “slight redesign” for macOS 27 that addresses “quirks” with shadows and transparency. There is also an OLED MacBook Pro with a touchscreen in the pipeline, so there could be hidden touch-interface groundwork in macOS 27, though that Mac probably will not launch until early 2027.
The Name
We do not know what macOS 27 will be called yet, but it will almost certainly keep the California landmark theme. The filename of Apple’s WWDC 2026 hashmoji on X is “Project Big Bear,” which has people guessing macOS Big Bear. That could be a red herring, though, and Apple has trademarked plenty of other California names including Diablo, Grizzly, Mammoth, Miramar, Pacific, Redtail, Redwood, Shasta, Skyline, and Tiburon.
The End of the Road for Intel
This is a significant one. macOS 27 drops support for Intel Macs entirely. If you are on an Intel machine, macOS Tahoe is your final stop. Apple is also phasing out Rosetta 2, with macOS 27 being the last version to include it, which means apps still built only for Intel architecture will stop working in macOS 28. Current Intel Macs that run macOS Tahoe but will not run macOS 27 include the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, the 2020 27-inch iMac, and the 2019 Mac Pro.
watchOS 27
The Apple Watch update looks like a quieter affair, as it usually does. Apple plans to add new watch faces, including a variant of the Modular Ultra face with a large time readout and three complications, available across all Apple Watch models. Beyond that, the rumor well is dry. Some of the new Siri features could work on the watch, and AI touches like grammar correction when writing or dictating might come along for the ride. With AI wallpaper generation coming to the iPhone, there could be a watch equivalent too, but nothing is confirmed.
tvOS 27
We have heard basically nothing about tvOS 27, which tracks, because Apple TV updates rarely set the world on fire. With the Apple TV expected to get an Apple Intelligence-capable chip later this year, AI features become more plausible: better TV and movie recommendations, a more capable Siri that actually handles requests well, and possibly new smart home integrations tied to a centralized smart home hub Apple is rumored to be launching. The one confirmed change is larger text, an accessibility option Apple is adding.
visionOS 27
visionOS 27 is reportedly “light on new features,” but it should get the same AI app updates and Siri changes rolling out across Apple’s other platforms. Vision Pro is clearly not the priority this cycle.
What About New Hardware?
Do not expect much, if anything, at the keynote. With a stack of software updates and an entirely new Siri to unveil, Apple probably does not want hardware stealing the spotlight.
For the rest of 2026, several products are still expected, just not on Monday. M5 Mac Studio and Mac mini refreshes are coming at some point, and there could be a new iMac, though high RAM costs and chip shortages have pushed Mac refreshes later into the year. The low-cost iPad still has not been updated. HomePod mini and Apple TV refreshes are reportedly ready to go, and there is a new smart home hub tied to the new Siri, but that one likely waits until Siri officially launches in the fall.
How to Watch WWDC 2026
The keynote starts at 10:00 a.m. Pacific on Monday, June 8. Apple plans to stream it on YouTube, in the Apple TV app wherever it is available, and on the Apple Events website. If you cannot catch the livestream, the usual liveblogs and the MacRumorsLive account on X will be running play-by-play.
The Launch Timeline
Here is how it rolls out. Developer betas of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, tvOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27 land right after the keynote. Public betas follow in July. After a few months of testing, everything ships to the public in the fall.
Closing
WWDC 2026 is the most consequential developer conference Apple has held in years, and it comes down to one question: can Apple deliver a Siri that is actually good?
The ambition is clearly there. A Siri that knows your context, sees your screen, takes real actions across apps, and behaves like a proper chatbot would be a massive leap. The privacy framing is genuinely compelling, the “bring your own chatbot” flexibility is a smart hedge, and the “Snow Leopard” focus on performance is the kind of unglamorous work that makes the whole platform better.
But the asterisk is enormous, and it is spelled G-E-M-I-N-I. Apple is paying Google around a billion dollars a year to power the brain of its flagship assistant. That is the clearest signal yet of where Apple sits in the AI race, and it reframes everything else on the list. The features could be brilliant. The strategy is, at heart, an admission that Apple could not get here on its own.
So on Monday, ignore the polish and watch for one thing: does the new Siri actually work the way the demos promise? Because the leaks have told us what Apple wants to build. June 8 is when we find out whether it built it.
Before the keynote: here are the 5 things actually worth watching for at WWDC 2026 today.
