WWDC 2026: Everything announced on Siri AI, iOS 27, Apple Intelligence, and more

Apple’s WWDC 2026 event kicked off yesterday at Apple Park, kicking off a week full of reveals for Siri AI, iOS 27, Apple Intelligence and more, along with developer events and demos as Apple looks to reassert itself with users and developers who have been left unimpressed with their releases within the hyper-competitive AI space. This also marks CEO Tim Cook’s last WWCD with the company, after announcing he would hand over to senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternos on September 1.

Did they succeed? Follow this page and the rest of our ongoing coverage to find out!

TL;DR – Apple spent WWDC 2026 playing catch-up

This is a far cry from Consumer News Editor Sarah Perez’s first WWDC conference, and with all that context in mind, she provides the subtext for much of what was shown.

Over the past two years, Apple has been racing to catch up with artificial intelligence, while frustrations with its core software have quietly mounted: a design fix that users hate, a search function that barely works, a file-sharing feature that routinely fails, and a health app that doesn’t focus enough on half its user base. Apple didn’t say any of that on Monday. But Heckel’s keynote at WWDC told them so, presenting fixes before features, and framing Siri best as one item on a long list of improvements rather than the main event.

Apple unveils Siri AI

As expected, Apple called for an improved experience with its long-standing assistant Siri, which it acknowledged faces greater expectations from users in the age of artificial intelligence. With Google Gemini under the hood, Apple claims that new Siri updates will make it more conversational and visually intelligent compatible, and will be housed in a standalone app as well as working across existing apps. You can get a full summary of all the new Siri AI updates here.

Before rolling out improvements and features, Apple was adamant about its privacy-focused approach to AI. “We believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable,” Apple Vice President Craig Federighi said during the stream, going so far as to say that “the data is only used to fulfill your request, and outside experts can continue to verify this promise at any time.”

Tease of a potential foldable iPhone

No, Apple didn’t make such a big reveal during WWDC, but researcher @M1Astra dug into files inside the iOS 27 beta for developers and found references to things like “foldState,” “angleDegrees,” and other things that indicate which states a foldable device can be placed in. And it’s not as if there haven’t been a lot of rumors about a foldable iPhone over the past few years. Stay tuned to Apple’s annual iPhone event in September to see if we’ll get an official reveal, unless Ternus will really shake things up in the post-Cook era.

The next generation of Apple intelligence

To go along with the new Siri AI overhaul, the tech giant has announced a slew of new Apple Intelligence updates across its apps, including tab management for Safari, one-click password refresh, cross-app context awareness, and more. Additionally, the Messages app gets AI-powered reply suggestions, while the Phone app can now pull context from other apps like Mail and Messages mid-call.

Apple said it has collaborated with Google and the Gemini family of models to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation models that support integrated Apple Intelligence experiences.

Liquid Glass is getting some subscription pushback

If you’re among those who weren’t exactly keen on Liquid Glass’ design updates last year, you’re not alone. And while Apple isn’t switching to a new aesthetic, you’ll be able to reconnect with some of its elements, or really highlight them if you rock them. And for the app icon critics who recently emerged from Spotify’s disco ball update, Apple has demonstrated a new, layered approach to Liquid Glass within its apps.

Everything else is coming to iOS 27

As is the case every year, a number of small tweaks and updates that arrive with the next iOS update didn’t get their time in the sun during Apple’s broadcast, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t noteworthy. Evan Mehta has collected many of them here, including:

• Full screen home page widgets.
• Separate volume controls for alarms, timers, alerts, etc.
• Revisions to the Weather app design, highlighting notable upcoming events.

Image Playground gets another chance

AI image creation app Image Playground hasn’t quite taken the world by storm, which might be a good thing depending on your view, but Apple has rolled out a revamped offer for users to actually get started creating images, focusing on potential uses across many of your devices’ features, while making an exception for any practice based on images created with the app. This, combined with the performance updates that come along with Apple Intelligence upgrades, might at least take it out of our senior writer Amanda Silberling’s “suck” category.

iOS 27 extends to iPhone 11

Claiming that the upcoming update will be “available to more users than any iOS release ever”, Apple revealed that all devices from iPhone 11 onwards will be eligible for the upcoming software update. This update comes with a series of performance improvements it has been touting across a number of its operating system releases this year, with Apple claiming that new photos will appear 70 percent faster, AirDrop transfers will be 80 percent faster and CPU scheduling will be improved to aid in multitasking.

New parental controls for iPhone

Apple spent much of its WWDC event showing off a range of tools for parents looking for greater control over what their kids’ devices can and can’t do. Parents will be able to limit who their children can contact via phone, and what apps and websites they can access, with Apple offering suggestions on how these restrictions can change over time. By default, Ask to Browse, which limits access, and Ask to Buy for the App Store and in-app purchases will be set as the default for devices set up for children under 13. You can get more parental control details here.

Search gets a complete overhaul

Frustrated with searching your iPhone for…well…almost anything? Search got a dedicated session during WWDC to promote a series of improvements, which you can learn more about here.

“We’ve all had that moment when you’re looking for something you know is there, but it won’t show up,” said Stacy Ford, vice president of operating system program management. “So, in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, we’ve rebuilt the search foundation that powers Spotlight, Photos, and Mail.

To compete with popular AI-powered photo editing apps, Apple is bringing new AI features to its Photos app. A new spatial “reframe” feature will allow users to use AI to adjust the perspective of an image as if they had repositioned the camera in the original scene. The new “Expand” tool expands images, adjusts the image’s aspect ratio, or adds more to the scene. The app’s popular ‘clean’ tool is also getting an upgrade so users can remove distractions with better quality and more realistic fill using generative AI.

Apple is leading the way with AI-based dictation apps

Apple is launching a new system-wide dictation experience built into the keyboard on iOS 27 that can correct spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. The update comes at a time when AI dictation apps like Wispr Flow and Willow are gaining popularity. These apps clean up filler words like “ums” and “Ahs” and format text after copying based on context.

Subscription packages are sent to the App Store

For the first time, developers will be able to partner with each other to provide access to different subscriptions at a lower package price. It’s not an uncommon practice for anyone viewed through various streaming services looking for subscriber growth, but it’s the first time this has been available for things like productivity or photography apps in the App Store.

The App Store will start offering personalized recommendations

And if the aggregated offer wasn’t compelling enough, your interests and behavior will provide a new avenue of discovery for developers: personalized recommendations that will appear across multiple App Store locations. These recommendations will include App Feedback, detailing why it stands out among other apps.

Shortcuts add natural language generation

Apple is using artificial intelligence to make it easier to use its visual scripting tool, Shortcuts, in iOS 27. The updated experience will allow users to simply type a prompt and describe what they want to do. The AI ​​update makes applying shortcuts easier and expands the scope of what non-technical people can do.

Health gets insights into menopause

Apple Health adds perimenopause and menopause support to the existing cycle tracking feature. The update embraces a theme that has gone mainstream, giving Apple a new product opportunity in a rapidly expanding market, where digital health tools targeting this demographic have attracted significant investment in recent years.

Tim Cook says goodbye

At the end of the keynote, Tim Cook has a farewell message reflecting on his time as CEO.

“Over the years, we’ve helped people connect, create, learn, and experience the world in extraordinary new ways, and with the amazing capabilities we offer today, and many more to come, I truly believe the best is yet to come at Apple,” Cook said. “Having the best products in the world to deliver experiences that enrich people’s lives has always been our north star. It has been a lifelong honor to help advance this mission with teams whose creativity, care and faith continue to make a lasting difference in people’s lives.

Catch the rest of WWDC 2026 reveals here

Are you missing WWDC? You can always catch an archive of the full event via the stream above or on Apple’s YouTube page here.