Apple prioritizes software fixes before unveiling AI-powered Siri at WWDC
Apple's WWDC keynote highlighted a series of performance and usability updates across its platforms before introducing an upgraded, AI-enabled Siri, signaling a broader focus on software stability.
Apple senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi opened the Worldwide Developers Conference by outlining a slate of software repairs and enhancements. The company addressed recent criticisms of its design language, search functionality, file-sharing reliability, and health features before presenting its new AI-enhanced Siri.
Federighi said, "Instead of just introducing a host of new features, we’re also taking the features you already rely on and making them even better, because we believe the best operating systems aren’t just built on big breakthroughs, they’re built on sweating the details."
The keynote introduced a slider that lets users revert the "Liquid Glass" visual style to a more tinted appearance, responding to user feedback about readability. Additional refinements included a more uniform toolbar in macOS, sharper app-icon rendering, and performance gains such as 30% faster app launches on iPhone and iPad, up to 70% quicker photo loading, and up to 80% faster AirDrop transfers. These improvements were extended to devices back to the iPhone 11.
Apple also announced smoother Wi-Fi-to-cellular transitions, a new message-delay indicator, and a rebuilt search experience that indexes new content promptly and prioritizes relevant results in Mail. The Health app added tracking for perimenopause and menopause, and iCloud shared photo albums now accept contributions from Android and Windows users. Parental screen-time controls were also enhanced.
After the series of updates, Apple unveiled its AI-enhanced Siri, which will enter beta later in the year for most markets, though rollout will be delayed in the EU and China due to regulatory considerations. The company also detailed other AI capabilities under the Apple Intelligence banner, including automatic organization of web tabs, AI-generated Safari extensions, stronger password suggestions, contextual reply suggestions in Messages, natural-language event creation in Calendar, and on-call information retrieval such as confirmation codes.
The Home app will use AI to summarize events, and the Image Playground app now produces more practical images, with an API planned for developers. These announcements position Siri and related AI features as part of a broader effort to improve overall software reliability and functionality.