Apple prepares iOS 19, macOS 16 'Solarium' UI overhaul for WWDC
Apple is preparing to modernize the appearance of iOS 19, macOS 16, and its other operating systems, with a new "Solarium" interface set to be introduced at WWDC.
iOS 19 could receive a massive UI overhaul at WWDC 2025
Apple's keynote address at WWDC is a few short weeks away, and speculation about what it will launch is gathering pace. When it comes to how the operating systems appear, users could be greeted by an overhauled UI.
According to Sunday's "Power On" newsletter from Bloomberg, Apple will be introducing a UI interface known internally as "Solarium." The name, which refers to rooms that let in lots of sunlight through glass windows, is reportedly going to be a slicker and modern reinvention of the interfaces in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
Previous rumors claimed that iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and macOS 16 would get some of the design cues from visionOS. This seems to fit in with the "Solarium" UI name.
Visual Consistency
An apparent theme for WWDC 2025 will be consistency and unification. This should mean that users will experience similar interfaces, UI elements, and maybe even features, when they use the same functions across different devices and operating systems.
This theme apparently means that it won't just be a change limited to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Allegedly, tvOS and watchOS will have their own redesigns to match the other updates, while visionOS will get its own adjustments to fit.
In April, a leaker offered what the updates to iOS 19 could look like, based on it incorporating visionOS elements. In a video, frosted glass elements, rounder squircle icons in the Home Screen, and more floating UI elements were considered the main features of the new UI.
There has been some intense discussion between leakers over the UI updates and what to actually expect. Regardless of who is closer to the truth, an update to the appearance of Apple's operating systems is expected, and long overdue.
Rumor Score: Possible
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Comments
WWDC 2024 was a disaster after Apple has failed to deliver what Apple promised.
Google I/O was an "All or nothing" event with survival instinct to overcome risk of their existence. Google made a great job with I/O.
Open AI steps up with Jony Ive to open a new chapter.
After those revolutionary steps from others, people clearly expect from Apple to responde with similar steps.
What do you want Apple to "respond" with? Buying a one-year-old startup for billions of dollars and leaking vague rumors of a product?
As for what Apple can "afford", "afford" is an English word with a clear meaning. Have you looked it up? Apple can manifestly "afford" to do whatever the fuck it wants, and its financials remain quite solid. As does the product line.
Explain to me why Apple can't afford to do with Siri whatever the fuck Apple wants.... LMAO!!!
So here we are again, queuing up for another WWDC but now dragging a non-empty bag of backlog of stuff that never got finished last year along with us. I'm realistic and worked in product development long enough to understand that Apple's current position is not at all unusual. Backlogs are never empty and work that was targeted for previous cycles very often gets bow-waved into the next cycle. This is not unusual and Apple is under tremendous scrutiny. Even though I feel that iOS 18 and macOS 15 didn't check all of the boxes, Apple must keep the pedal down and keep setting goals that will advance it to higher ground and bigger and better things.
Apple is not perfect and they have to deal with moving targets as much as anyone else. In the past Apple has had much more control over setting their own targets because they were so far out in front of the herd. This past year the herd started catching up, but the "virtual herd" of expectations from investors, analysts, and prognosticators were able to get out ahead of Apple and pummel them for things that other companies were only delivering in a half-baked way, for the most part, but with a few exceptions. This is new ground for Apple and they'll learn how to navigate through it. Hopefully WWDC 2025 will show us the path that they intend to take.
As you said, AI is a new ground for Apple. Steve Jobs did not show a road map for AI before his death.. Poor Tim. I hope he has some strategists with vision how to navigate the future of Apple.
Let´s see.
Google IO was just Google AI. meh.
sad. But here we are. Cook needs an Ive or a Jobs to cast vidion while he makes it a successful reality.
an ecosystem of products that can standalone, but are smart enough to work together in a modular msn er would be great. Imagine glasses thst do sn impressive visual job with just enough audio to get by but that part turns off when you wear AirPods, which take over. The glasses cameras capture hand gestures, but not having every angle covered due to cost, so an Apple Watch takes over from there when worn. The glasses become an iPad/iphone/MacBook screen upon being selected when said devices are nearby, becomes a heads up display for vehicles with CarPlay ultra, etc.
instead we got a big ol’ piece of scuba gear that doesn’t do much with the rest of the products we already have.
Plus the glass UI makes no sense. On Vision Pro it does, because these floating windows obscure the real world, and transparency minimizes that as much as possible. But full-screen devices like the iPhone and watch don't have any "background" to bleed through. I suppose the folding phone's supposed Stage Manager like UI would "benefit" from this transparency when opened; maybe that's part of it, but if so that again just sounds like a Windows Vista gimmick from 20 years ago.
There are bugs in Finder that have existed as long as I can remember. The fundamentals such as font management go unresolved whilst they focus on fluff such as animojis. Their core apps progress at a glacial pace whilst they fiddle with distractions like Stage Manager.
I no longer look forward to WWDC announcements as I have no faith in them fixing the basics.
for all new ones.
This part of the article is spookily reminiscent of HarmonyOS (which debuted in 2019).
"An apparent theme for WWDC 2025 will be consistency and unification. This should mean that users will experience similar interfaces, UI elements, and maybe even features, when they use the same functions across different devices and operating systems."
A surprise? Not really, as basically every year for the last few years, Apple has introduced features that are core conceptual ideas of HarmonyOS.
The missing part was a HarmonyOS native desktop OS but that shipped last week on the Matebook Fold and MateBook X and the initial results are spectacular from a cross device perspective.
Prior to that HarmonyOS cross-Pc device services were an addition to Windows. Windows is now gone and HarmonyOS is running from the (formally verified) kernel up.
Everything melds into one look and feel running across multiple devices, including cars. And all under just one name: HarmonyOS.
It will need polish for sure because the desktop version only launched this week but under the hood, the system was designed to run seamlessly on multiple devices and share hardware from all those devices.
Back in 2019, Huawei pulled up a screen of Apple's device systems and made a statement about them being 'siloed' and about that being a problem whereas HarmonyOS, through its core design had no siloes. Everything would interconnect to everything else. Security, filesystems, authentication...
A simplistic overview from 2019:
https://www.huaweicentral.com/harmonyos-here-are-the-four-technical-features-that-defines-this-operating-system/
Last week they pulled up the same slide but this time there was another column for the desktop version. Again it was compared to Apple's 'siloed' arrangement.
The question now therefore must be is the similarity to HarmonyOS design goals only 'skin deep'?: an OS-spread with a more 'harmonised' UI or is it a complete re-working of the underlying frameworks that bleed up into the user interface?
One would think that WWDC might answer that question.
Both the look of the GUI (how it looks) and the design of the GUI (how it works) needs to be continuously refined, in big and small steps, every year or every few years to keep the platform fresh and "new" to users and buyers. Not doing it typically means customers will drift away to competitors.
No idea what Apple is planning to do, but it's exciting to hear that GUI changes could be coming. More exciting to me than AI or chatbots.