WWDC 2025: The Subtle, the Silly, and the Sublime (Premium)

We were told to lower our expectations heading into WWDC 2025. But the pundits were wrong. Apple delivered a confident and upbeat keynote address. And as importantly, the improvements it announced to its many platforms will benefit its humongous user base greatly.

No, not all of them: Apple's long history of hyperbole was also on full display Monday. But I came away more impressed with the announcements than anticipated. Enough so that I figured it was worth sorting through the noise and seeing what really matters.
F1
Only Apple would open a developer conference with a video preview of a movie that it is distributing through its video streaming service. That was silly. And self-serving. Yes, Tim Cook's attempts at self-deprecating humor are less than successful, but I can't dislike Craig Federighi and the recurring hairstyle humor.

For the Microsoft faithful, these videos are also the modern equivalent of the goofy videos Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates used to make together and show at the software giant's events over two decades ago. Kudos for that.

And kudos, too, for the use of Ratt's Round and Round. Yes. Always, yes.

Verdict: Silly but also sublime
Addressing the Apple Intelligence elephant in the room
Conventional wisdom–as voiced by shrill critics who believe that today's Apple can't get anything right and is somehow on the verge of an extinction moment–has it that the company overpromised and under-delivered on Apple Intelligence last year. And that the embarrassment from that would trigger a head fake moment this year in which Apple would pretend it all never happened and try to distract us with hand-waving.

Nope.

After the goofy F1 sequence and a brief intro from Tim Cook, Craig Federighi appeared and dove right into the fray by discussing "two things that are foundational to [Apple's] platforms," the first of which is Apple Intelligence. And I hope you all had that one on your WWDC 2025 Bingo card, because it came up again and again during the keynote.

Federighi explained how Apple took its first steps with Apple Intelligence last year when it introduced the brand and, more importantly, all the functionality it delivered. It's a long list: Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, Clean Up in Photos, Visual intelligence (yes, that one has a small "i" for some reason, though the names were all consistently capitalized), Natural language search in Photos, Create a memory movie, Mail summaries, Notification summaries, Notes transcription summaries, Smart Reply, Image Wand, Priority Messages in Mail, Call recording summaries, Previews in Mail and Messages, and ChatGPT integration. This was all done while preserving user privacy, he highlighted, thanks to Private Cloud Compute. "No one else can access your data," he said. "Not even Apple."

He also addressed the Siri drama.

"We also introduced enhancements that make Siri more natural and more helpful," he started. "And, as we've shared, we're continuing...