WWDC 2026 - Siri AI Impressions!

Introduction to Apple's WWDC

Apple has just wrapped up possibly the most important WWDC they've ever had. It's Tim Cook's last dance before stepping down as CEO. So, we got our final good morning. And even more importantly, after 2 years of Apple convincing us that their phones are about to become supercharged with AI and then a $250 million lawsuit for underdelivering, today was the event where they had to prove that actually Apple Intelligence and their next-gen Siri called Siri AI is the real deal. And they've definitely got the design right. It all looks beautiful, but there's also some question marks around functionality and a couple of bits that just felt straight up tone-deaf to me.

We'll get to that. So, given the absolutely enormous stakes of this event, I found it pretty hilarious that Apple kicked things off by talking about the corner radius on their windows within your Mac. Every window on Mac OS now has the same tighter corner radius. Finally, they answered my prayers. The big picture though, aside from all the AI stuff, is this year's software is all about optimization across all of their products.

Optimization Across Products

Seems like Apple realized after a year of squinting at their icons that the transparency of liquid glass was probably set a bit high by default. So, they've toned it down. And since no one seems to agree on what the correct amount of transparency actually is, they've gone fine, we'll do it yourselves and given us a slider. So, depending on how brave you're feeling, you can decide to either dial it up from there or down. This is very clearly the year of Apple fixing their back end. They do this every now and again. And these are often the less exciting updates, but the ones that actually end up mattering more.

Like for example, they're saying that now everything is just going to be faster. They threw out a whole load of numbers. Like for example, iPhone apps now load up to 30% faster. After shooting photos, those photos appear in your gallery up to 70% faster. Airdrops are up to 80% faster. And because your devices are also about to get much better at properly indexing files, you'll also be able to search through them quicker.

Performance Improvements

Bear in mind those up twos, though. Nothing they've announced is actually going to feel as transformative as they're making it sound. But I do like the idea of things getting faster. There are also a ton of other smaller changes. You could just pause here if you fancy a very long read. And then just before the big new Apple Intelligence and Siri, Apple took a surprise segue into child protection features, which I now have extra reason to care about.

Child Protection Features

Now, the idea is really to give parents complete control over what their kids can see and do. So, anytime your kid wants to download a new app, you get a ping. You can see it and you can decide to approve it. Anytime they visit a new website for the first time or even talk to a new contact, you can see it and approve it, which I guess is kind of a double-edged blade cuz it's got the safety benefits, making sure that they're not talking to people they shouldn't be, but also partly just the over stimulation stuff. It means that you can start your kids off with just a tiny number of apps when they're young and then let them unlock more as they get older.

Siri AI

Or you can just let them use school-related apps during the school day and then schedule the entertainment apps to only unlock in the evening. Now whether or not this is in response to governments demanding better child protection or just Apple seeing the massive potential upside in getting kids locked into their ecosystem before they're old enough to even make a choice. These are really good features that it's kind of sad to say, but they're needed now given how capable and open the tech has become. But now it's time to address the elephant. Siri AI. They opened this whole thing up by saying, "We know there are times when you expect more from Siri." Yeah, I think that's quite the understatement. The first time Apple announced a new Siri in 2024 with this brand new disco lights animation, which ended up as the main feature, Siri was so half-baked that if you bought an iPhone because of it, Apple literally owes you up to $95.

So, I'm relieved to say that the new Siri AI is a huge jump. So, it's got a fresh look. It's got this subtler, toned down, more liquid, glassy aesthetic. Potentially a little personality lossless, but premium for sure, and it now lives inside your dynamic island. So, in terms of capability, this is not breaking any new ground. It's not a secret that Apple's paying Google a billion dollars a year to use Gemini as its foundation. So, it's not a surprise that pretty much everything this new Siri can do is something we've already seen Gemini do. But that still makes it a massive leap over the old Siri. So, they gave a bunch of real-time examples in their keynote like how you can have continued conversations with it. You can ask when a band is performing and then ask how you can get tickets. They showed how Siri now has screen awareness so you can just be looking at a photo and then ask where is this exactly without needing to spell out what you're looking at. It has personal context. So Siri has access to all your past messages, your photos, and because your files are now indexed more thoroughly, they're saying that Siri is really good at pulling those things up at just the right times when you ask Siri about things related to them.

WWDC 2026 - Siri AI Impressions!

Introduction to Apple's WWDC

Optimization Across Products

Performance Improvements

Child Protection Features

Siri AI

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