The biggest updates Apple just announced for the iPhone, Apple Watch and other major products

iPhone 16 phones are seen on display at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City on launch day in September 2024. Apple is set to announce changes to how people use iPhones at WWDC on Monday. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

New York — Apple just showed how it plans to incorporate artificial intelligence across all its major products, from translating phone calls to giving the Mac a smarter search bar and more.

The updates aren’t as splashy as announcements from the past two years, which heralded big changes with the the introduction of Apple Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence AI. But they still gave consumers and Wall Street a clearer picture of how Apple’s AI ambitions will impact its products as the company’s biggest rivals barrel ahead in the AI race.

Apple’s weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference, teased with the tagline “on the horizon,” kicked off with a keynote at 1 pm ET on Monday from its headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Updates announced at the event include AI capabilities such as a smart “Workout Buddy” to provide personalized motivation through Apple Watch and improved “visual search” for browsing the web for objects found in images on your phone’s screen (think: shoes you saw in an Instagram post).

The more modest improvements introduced at this year’s WWDC suggest that Apple may been aiming for something it was certain it could deliver on this time around. It also shows that rather than trying to create one, killer AI app — the company says its delayed, AI-enhanced Siri is still in the works — the iPhone maker wants Apple Intelligence to make all the tools its users interact with a bit smarter and more useful.

But it’s unlikely that any of the announcements made at Monday’s event will change the perception that Apple is behind its competitors in AI. Many of the updates have already been available on Android phones from Google and Samsung for quite some time.

The event comes at a time when Apple badly needed a win. Steep AI competition aside, the company is still having a rough year, with ongoing slow iPhone sales growth and a trade war threatening to force the company to raise prices.

The iPhone maker has a large installed base — that is, people using its products, which currently totals more than 2 billion active devices. That means even if Apple isn’t first to roll out a software innovation, loads of people will still use wind up using their version. But analysts had worried that if Apple failed to make an impression with its AI advancements, consumers might start to think the iPhone and its other devices are “no longer cool,” Baird Managing Director Ted Mortonson told CNN.

At least for now, it appears Apple may have done enough — although the true test will come when the company launches the new software in the fall.

“The subtle addition of Apple Intelligence across key services will help grow awareness and provide users with confidence to drive further engagement,” tech analyst and PP Foresight founder Paolo Pescatore said in emailed commentary following the keynote.

Here are the highlights from Apple’s WWDC keynote on Monday:

Live translation across Apple devices

Apple is introducing AI-enabled live translation for messages, FaceTime and phone calls across its devices, to make it easier to converse with people who speak different languages.

The live translation feature will be available on iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch and iPad, and will work even when users are wearing AirPods.

The offering could make Apple devices more competitive with rival products, such as Google’s Pixel Buds, Samsung Galaxy phones and Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which already enable live translation.

Improvements to phone calls and messages

Updates coming to the Messages and Phone app aim to make it easier for users to ensure they’re speaking with the people they want to, when they want to.

Apple is improving call screening to help users gauge when a call from an unknown number may be a scammer or telemarketer. The tool will automatically answer calls from unknown numbers and obtain the caller’s name and reason for calling before showing their response in text when the phone rings.

In Messages, unknown senders will start appearing in a separate folder, so users can more easily screen out scam texts.

With hold assist, Apple’s phone app will sit on hold so users can keep their place in the queue without having to listen to that annoying hold music. That may sound familiar to Android fans; Google already offers this functionality.

Messages will also now support fun, colorful backgrounds and polls to spice up your group chats, making it more competitive with Meta’s WhatsApp.

Apple Intelligence updates

The pressure was on for Apple to prove that Apple Intelligence justifies buying a new iPhone or Mac.

Overall, Apple’s AI announcements were more evolutionary than revolutionary. As Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives put it: Apple “is playing it safe and close to the vest after the missteps last year.”

Perhaps the biggest AI update is that Apple is opening up its on-device AI model to third-party app developers. That will mean iOS users could see more AI-enabled features on apps like Kahoot or AllTrails.

The technology is also coming to services like Apple Maps, which will now remember users’ preferred routes — for example, if they often stop a certain coffee shop on the way to work — and tailor directions accordingly. A new “Workout Buddy” for the Apple Watch will analyze users’ health and fitness data to provide personalized information and motivation while they’re exercising. And “visual intelligence” will now let users search the web based on images on their screen.

One thing Apple didn’t elaborate on is its plans for a more capable, AI-enhanced Siri, which it first announced at last year’s WWDC but later indefinitely delayed.

“As we’ve shared, we’re continuing our work to deliver the features that make Siri even more personal,” Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said Monday. “This work needed more time to reach our high quality bar, and we look forward to sharing more about it in the coming year.”

Dipanjan Chatterjee, Forrester vice president and principal analyst, said in an email that “the silence surrounding Siri was deafening.”

“Apple continues to tweak its Apple Intelligence features, but no amount of text corrections or cute emojis can fill the yawning void of an intuitive, interactive AI experience that we know Siri will be capable of when ready,” Chatterjee said in an email. “We just don’t know when that will happen.”

A new look for… iOS 26

All Apple devices will get a new look dubbed “Liquid Glass” that was inspired by the Vision Pro’s translucent software display.

The new design will feature see-through visuals that appear to have a glossy surface. It’s the largest software design overhaul for the company since it launched iOS 7 in 2013, Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of human interface design, said during the event.

And while the name of Apple’s latest operating system release typically goes up by one each year (i.e. iOS 17 to iOS 18), the update announced Monday jumps to OS 26 for all of the company’s devices.

The change brings the OS naming convention in line with the year in which customers will use it. The version announced Monday will be live on Apple devices from the fall of 2025 through the fall of 2026. It also creates consistency across all of Apple’s devices, which previously had different operating system version numbers — for example, macOS 15 and watchOS 11 — because they were released in different years.

“There was a strong emphasis on building bridges across devices and applications that create a unified, integrated experience, acknowledging that Apple’s customers don’t just use individual devices but traverse the ecosystem,” Chatterjee said.

Better Mac and iPad productivity

Apple is introducing two big changes that could make it easier for people to get things done on Mac computers and iPads.

Thanks to Apple Intelligence, Mac’s Spotlight search feature will now be able to take actions on behalf of users across various apps, such as sending an email without ever leaving the home screen. That could be Apple’s answer to AI agents from companies like Google, OpenAI and Amazon that aim to go beyond just answering questions by helping consumers get things done.

Crucially, the iPad is getting better support for windows, potentially making Apple’s tablet a stronger alternative to traditional laptops. Users will be able to resize windows and they’ll maintain that size if a user closes and reopens them, and they’ll be able to more easily use multiple windows with a tile-like layout.