WWDC to focus on redesigns as Apple remains sidelined on AI, Bloomberg says

Apple’s (AAPL) upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference will do little to assuage fears that the iPhone maker is a laggard in AI, Blomberg’s Mark Gurman reports. Instead, the event will focus on design and productivity enhancements for its long-established operating system franchises. The company’s keynote address will introduce redesigned software interfaces for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch, in addition to more minor tweaks to the Vision Pro headset. As part of the end-to-end overhaul, the company is also making a sweeping change to its software branding, which will shift from version numbers to a year-based system. That means Apple will introduce iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26, macOS 26 and watchOS 26 – named for 2026. Internally, the operating systems are known as Luck, Charisma, Discovery, Cheer and Nepali, respectively, the author notes. The AI changes will be surprisingly minor are unlikely to impress industry watchers, especially considering the rapid pace of innovation by Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google, Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT) and OpenAI, the publication adds.