The iPhone should take a backseat at WWDC

Macworld

One of Apple’s great competitive advantages is the way its products work so smoothly together as an integrated ecosystem. Your iPhone pings your AirPods. Your Apple Watch pings your iPhone, and unlocks your Mac. Apple Music is optimized for the HomePod, and Apple Arcade for nearly everything else. Fall in love with just one of the company’s devices or services and, like a dinosaur dipping its toe in a peat bog, you’ll be sucked in and never escape. In a good way.

Watch the average WWDC keynote, however, and you’d think Apple had, not a deep and mutually beneficial network of interoperable products, but a single flagship plus some accessories. Sure, you’ll hear about new software features coming to the Mac and the Apple Watch (which got 12 and seven minutes of stage time respectively at WWDC 24). You might even catch some interesting news related to the iPad (nine minutes) and Apple TV (two minutes). But it will be clear that the star of the show (clocking in at a full 16 minutes last year) is that most golden of geese: the iPhone.

I’m hopeful that WWDC 25, which starts on June 9, might be different. In fact, I think that, within reason, Apple should ignore the iPhone and focus on other more interesting product lines. Perhaps this year the iPhone should have to manage with two minutes.

WWDC 25 comes at a difficult time for Apple, which has been hit by delays and controversies over the past 12 months: Apple Intelligence has been a conspicuous failure and the iPhone 16, which was sold off the back of that feature, proved so disappointing that some customers filed lawsuits. Next month’s event represents an important opportunity for Apple to draw a line under such issues and reset. And you don’t do that by repeating the process with boasts about the upcoming iPhone 17.

Instead, Apple could start by giving some proper attention to the Apple Watch, which analysts tell us has been in significant global decline for two years. The time is ripe for Apple Intelligence to arrive on the wrist (albeit likely piggybacking off the processing power of a nearby iPhone) ahead of new hardware in the fall. A younger and less commercial product than the iPhone, the Apple Watch has far more room to grow. It needs the attention far more than the iPhone does.

Pundits also predict that macOS 16 is going to see a thorough redesign this summer, with a new redesign inspired by Vision Pro, and the Mac itself could get new hardware in the form of the M4 Ultra Mac Pro. All of which feels a lot more interesting and relevant than generative AI and Siri learning to understand natural language at… some… point. Let’s give the pro Mac users some love. We iPhone owners will survive a bit of neglect.

The iPhone has had most of the attention for the best part of two decades, and it feels like Apple is running out of interesting things to say. So let’s hear instead about the smaller and less commercial projects going on in the background at Apple Park. I want to know more about Apple’s vision for the post-smartphone future, which of course means visionOS 3 (and hopefully progress on third-party apps and content) but also encompasses the role of other wearables such as the Apple Watch and AirPods.

Tell me about the smart home. Tell me about fitness and entertainment. Just don’t tell me anything more about the iPhone.




Foundry

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Trending: Top stories

Your iPhone notifications are ruining your life. Here are 3 easy steps to fix them.

Maybe Apple was right about Siri all along, ponders the Macalope.

Let’s take a depressing look at the best Apple tech that’s gone forever. Sic transit gloria mundi and all that.

WWDC 2025 is only weeks away. Here are 7 announcements I can’t wait to see.

After Google IO’s big AI reveals, my iPhone has never felt dumber, says Mahmoud Itani.

Here are 26 free macOS apps every Mac user should have. How many have you got?

Podcast of the week

WWDC is coming soon, and on episode 935 of the Macworld Podcast, we talk about the current state of Mac hardware and macOS, and what that tells us about what Apple could be doing at WWDC.

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

McAfee Total Protection for Mac review: Not as good as it should be.

OnlyOffice for Mac review: The free Microsoft 365 alternative you’re looking for.

Soundcore AeroClip review: Clip-on open-ear earphones.

Satechi SM3 review: A smooth, responsive mechanical keyboard.

The rumor mill

The iPhone 17 Air’s battery looks to be exactly as bad as we feared.

Apple AI glasses ‘better made’ than Meta’s now on tap for 2026.

Apple job posting confirms that a Calendar revamp is in the works.

Apple plans to offer AI alternatives as it works to overhaul Siri.

Software updates, bugs, and problems

Massive data breach exposes swath of unencrypted Apple ID logins.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters, including our new email from The Macalope–an irreverent, humorous take on the latest news and rumors from a half-man, half-mythical Mac beast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or X for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.