After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple will try to regain its footing Monday at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
The presummer rite, which attracts thousands of developers to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters, is expected to be more subdued than the feverish anticipation that surrounded the event during the previous two years.
In 2023, Apple unveiled a mixed-reality headset that has been little more than a niche product, and last year WWDC trumpeted its first major foray into the AI craze with an array of new features highlighted by the promise of a smarter and more versatile version of its virtual assistant, Siri.
But heading into this year’s showcase, Apple faces nagging questions about whether the nearly 50-year-old company has lost some of the mystique and innovative drive that turned it into a tech trendsetter. Instead of making a big splash as it did with the Vision Pro headset, Apple this year is expected to focus on an overhaul of its software that may include a new, more tactile look for the iPhone’s native apps and a new nomenclature for identifying its operating system updates.
Even though it might look like Apple is becoming a technological laggard, Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson contends the company still has ample time to catch up in an AI race that’s “more of a marathon, than a sprint. It will force Apple to evolve its operating systems.”
If reports about its iOS naming scheme pan out, Apple will switch to a method that automakers have used to telegraph their latest car models by linking them to the year after they first arrive at dealerships. That would mean the next version of the iPhone operating system due out this autumn will be known as iOS 26 instead of iOS 19 — as it would be under the current sequential naming approach.
Whatever it’s named, the next iOS will likely be released as a free update in September, around the same time as the next iPhone models if Apple follows its usual road map.
Meanwhile, Apple’s references to AI may be less frequent than last year when the technology was the main attraction.
While some of the new AI tricks compatible with the latest iPhones began rolling out late last year as part of free software updates, Apple still hasn’t been able to soup up Siri in the ways that it touted at last year’s conference. The delays became so glaring that a chastened Apple retreated from promoting Siri in its AI marketing campaigns earlier this year.
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