Apple is preparing for its developers conference, WWDC, which will kick off on June 9. We have been hearing about a significant redesign coming as part of iOS 19 for iPhone and iPadOS 19 for iPad. There will also be updates for macOS. Bloomberg reports that both watchOS and tvOS will also see significant redesigns, and visionOS will get some touch-ups as well.
In 2023, Apple spent considerable time talking about Vision Pro and only in the following year, the company talked about artificial intelligence. It appears this year will focus on design changes to the operating system.
Dubbed ‘Solarium’ — after glass rooms that allow in sunlight — the new look is expected to be slicker, and it will take into account a lot of design elements from visionOS. It will bring about consistency and unification across the operating systems.
If you look at the WWDC artwork, there are hints about the change. The artwork features a glassy, reflective 3D icon of the Apple Park rainbow stage. While iOS 7 in 2013 was the biggest-ever visual change to the iPhone’s software, the latest overhaul will be much more widely felt.
Coming to Apple Watch, the software has been updated several times over the years, but the OS for Apple TV has remained almost unchanged since 2015. The Bloomberg report says this is about to change.
As far as Apple Intelligence goes, it could be opened up to developers. If Apple makes its in-house large language models available for developers to integrate into their apps, it will be a big move in the long run. It means developers can write their apps and features that are powered by Apple’s models. It can give the App Store an AI boost.
Google recently announced several major updates that will change the way people search, but Apple may remain conservative with some of the changes in the short term. There could be a tie-up between Google Gemini and the Siri voice assistant, like there is something between ChatGPT and Siri.