Rui CarmoIf you discount the completely over the top book-ending (the F1 cameo featuring Craig’s hair and the weird app review medley at the end), there were a few actual surprises in the keynote.
The top three highlights for me were:
- Direct access to Apple’s AI models via both APIs and Shortcuts, which is a game-changer for app developers and something that should have been done in the first place (I have been doing almost exactly what they demoed for over a year now with custom Shortcut actions that invoke Azure services, so I am glad they are finally catching up). But having that (and all the privacy-preserving components of their confidential computing platform) available to app developers is a huge win, and I hope they will also make it easier to use custom models in the future.
- The (apparent) fixing of Spotlight and effective return of Quicksilver almost two decades later and in almost every respect including parameters and menu navigation. This is a huge win for power users and a long-overdue update to the macOS experience. That it took Apple this long to do it is a bit sad, but at least they appear to be doing it right.
- The iPad’s (creeping) convergence towards macOS, which is something regular people will value highly. Although we are not getting hypervisor support (or any sort of terminal), at least Stage Manager is now an option and not the default, and windows behave in a mostly sane way (including a proper tiling mode).
The iPad is finally becoming a more capable device for both regular and power users, which is great to see. I just hope my iPad Pro M1 will be able to run the new iPadOS 26… Because it really should be able to if they are targeting the A18.
So my Apple Intelligence and automation woes are still valid, especially everything related to Siri and broader automation support–the latter because even though they are retrofitting Quicksilver-like functionality into macOS, it is still a few steps behind what Sky can do today, and there were no hints of [Quicksiver]’s former extensibility or plugin support.
For instance, I would like to have seen a clean cut way to hand over context to a Shortcut (which would be a huge win for power users).
Update: It is apparently done via App Intents.
The rest… I honestly don’t care that much. The UX changes look pretty (even if I have a lot of concerns regarding readability and accessibility, especially given the emphasis on floating buttons and the like), and I fast-forwarded through all of the emoji and Messages stuff since it felt like pure fluff.
I do appreciate Apple cleaning up the UX in Photos and Music (and sort of expect the new Games app to be a way for Apple to hold on to their gaming revenue, although there are as yet no hints on pricing model changes), but in the end the biggest feature gaps around AI (Siri) only got one brief mention and no real details other than “we are working on it”.
I’m really sad about the Mail.app and Finder icons, though. They are just awful and look like they were designed by a 12-year-old. I really hope they are changed before the final release, but I doubt it (I also doubt we’ll get all the new Mac/iPhone integration features in the EU given we still don’t have iPhone Mirroring, but I guess we’ll see).
Even the Xcode updates were a bit underwhelming, to be honest.
What do I really wish they had announced (besides a better Siri)? A Scottish exercise coach to tell me to “get off my arse” and “stop being a lazy git” in excessively colorful language would have been a fun twist. But I guess that’s too much to ask for.