Post WWDC 2025 Thoughts
As a product manager, we are confined to our tools and ecosystems we work in. While the latest updates from WWDC 2025 (or WWDC25) were targeted at the developers worldwide, as a product manager there are a couple of takeaways that ought to be considered and actioned on if you are managing apps that live in the Apple ecosystem.
Liquid Glass
This is Apple’s “broadest design update” since iOS 7. It is a refined and renewed UI and UX that touches their entire line-up.
As a product manager, the immediate action is to assess and highlight required changes that impact elements like app icons, controls, and navigation patterns.
If you manage apps that are cross-platform, then ensuring a consistent, yet platform-appropriate, experience across iOS, watchOS, iPadOS, VisionOS, macOS, and tvOS is paramount.
Don’t tackle all the changes at once; focus on areas that can bring the most impactful experience to your users.
Treat this as an opportunity to review the current user experience and identify weak areas that can elevate to the next level (review your tech debt in the backlog; is there any that can be resolved with the latest design update?).
While unifying the UI with the updated designs from Apple, don’t forget that the basic needs like high contrast and readability are still essential, i.e. function over form. While the “All new clear look” mode may be fascinating, consider users with low vision; is this something that could hinder readability/usability?
Apple Intelligence
While Siri still lacks Apple Intelligence that is significantly delayed from their promise in 2024, there are new features that should be considered. And what does this delay mean for you as a product manager?
Apple Intelligence ethos isn’t meant to be a single application experience like ChatGPT or Perplexity; it is feature enhancement in apps that users are already using. Review your app today to see if your functions can utilize APIs to these existing features (Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, Clean Up (for photos), Visual Intelligence (exploring surroundings), natural language search for photos/videos, memory movie creation, email/notification/note summaries, and Smart Reply).
Apple is also making their on-device LLM available to app developers (Foundation Models Framework). This means the app can access the on-device LLM directly, saving cloud API costs and increasing security footprint.
iPadOS update
iPad finally had a breakthrough this year that brings multitasking experience to tablet users. A few worthy mentions here that product managers should consider:
The ability to run tasks in the background that are computationally intensive and allowing users to pause/cancel the task
The ability to run apps in window mode, which follows the same 3-dot controls in macOS
The ability to interact with a menu, which follows the same feature (though it looks different) in macOS
Final thoughts: With the new OS releases coming this fall, there are many changes that can be applied to your applications. Remember to be financially responsible with the prioritized changes, consider usability testing, and most importantly, gather beta feedback from your user group before publishing.