How to Prepare Your App for iOS 26 and WWDC 2025 Changes

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Now that you’ve seen Apple’s WWDC 2025 and heard all about the upcoming changes to the Apple ecosystem, it’s time to think about how they’ll affect your product roadmap. Apple’s WWDC 2025 announcements brought major updates to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS, introducing powerful new features like AI integrations, lock screen widgets, spatial computing capabilities, and updated design patterns.

What’s New in Apple OS

To help you quickly assess what’s new and how it might impact your product development, here’s a breakdown of the key updates across each Apple OS announced at WWDC 2025:

Apple OS

All platforms now follow year-based versioning (e.g. iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26/Tahoe, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26), aligning with model-year logic
The “Liquid Glass” design language introduces glass-like transparency, dynamic layering, rounded controls, and fluid UI elements across all OSs
AI features like live translations, smart reply and enhanced shortcuts integrated with OS through on-device foundation models accessible to developers via a new Foundation Models framework

iOS 26

Apple reimagines the iPhone experience in iOS 26 with a refreshed design, smarter AI features, and enhanced customization options for the Lock Screen and beyond.

Apple Intelligence expanded: live voice/text translations, Genmoji enhancements, visual AI, AI-powered actions in Shortcuts
Major accessibility features added: Accessibility Reader, Braille support, head-tracking pointer, audio equalizer modes
UI redesigned for Lock Screen, Home Screen, Camera, Safari, Phone, and Podcasts

macOS 26 “Tahoe”

macOS Tahoe modernizes the Mac with a striking new look, intelligent search upgrades, and powerful continuity features designed to bridge devices more seamlessly than ever.

Fully adopts Liquid Glass UI, including transparent menu bar, updated icons, custom folder visuals
Spotlight overhaul: smarter results, quick actions, third-party/cloud indexing, Apple Intelligence integration
New Phone app with call-making, voicemail, screening via Continuity
Adds Live Activities, system-wide translation (Messages, FaceTime, calls), Control Center redesign, accessibility tools, Magnifier, Terminal enhancements
Supports last Intel Macs; from macOS 27 onward, Apple Silicon will be supported only

watchOS 26

With watchOS 26, Apple introduces a sleeker UI with new gesture controls, and AI-powered health and communication tools to make the Apple Watch even more intuitive.

Embraces Liquid Glass aesthetics
New gesture control: “Wrist Flick” to mute/discard alerts on compatible watches
Adaptive notification volume, Live Translation in Messages, camera controls on AirPods, and a built‑in Notes app
Workout Buddy – AI coach provides real-time feedback

visionOS 26 & tvOS 26

Interface updates consistent with Liquid Glass
visionOS introduces spatial widgets, support for PSVR2 controllers, improved persona avatars

Appbot in Action: Monitoring impact of Apple OS updates

These changes can significantly impact your app’s performance, usability, and user expectations. Using Appbot, you can quickly identify how users are responding to these changes and turn that feedback into meaningful improvements.

Track Sentiment in Real Time

After each Apple OS release (like iOS 26), users may face bugs, crashes, or performance issues in your app. Appbot’s Sentiment analysis is powered by a proprietary AI built especially for app reviews. It lets you detect spikes in negative feedback as soon as they happen and before they affect your app’s ratings.

Appbot helps you:

Identify and fix emerging issues faster
Understand how users feel about all the changes (not just what’s broken)
Filter app reviews by sentiment – positive, neutral, mixed and negative frustration to get a deeper read on user experience

Spot Emerging Issues with Words & Phrases

Use the Words & Phrases tool alongside Sentiment filters to uncover trends in user language. This helps you spot problems and opportunities in real time.

Check out Words and Phrases:

Filter by negative sentiment and look for phrases like “crashing on iOS 26” or “won’t open after update” to pinpoint system-related bugs.
Filter by positive sentiment to see what’s delighting users, such as “love the new layout” or “now runs faster.”

Automatically Categorize Feedback with Topics & Custom Topics

Appbot’s built-in Topics automatically group reviews into key themes like Bugs, Performance, and Design. You can also create Custom Topics to track feedback related to WWDC-specific changes.

Examples of useful Custom Topics:

Compatibility Issues: Crashes or bugs after iOS 26 updates
Design Mismatches: UI clashing with new system styles
Missed Opportunities: Requests for new features like AI tools or widgets
Performance Concerns: Battery drain, loading time, sluggishness

Separate App Bugs from OS Bugs Using Versions

Versions helps you isolate feedback by app version. Combine this with OS-related Custom Topics to determine whether a problem came from your latest app release or from Apple’s OS changes. You can also add an App Marker to record major OS updates, making it easy to correlate user feedback with platform-level changes.

Use this to:

• Prioritize your team’s efforts based on the actual source of bugs

• Quickly identify what features are working by filtering for positive or mixed sentiment in your most recent app version

• Share clear, actionable data with engineering and product teams

Align Roadmaps with User Needs

Use Appbot’s data-driven app review insights to guide your roadmap through each phase of the OS lifecycle:

Short-term: Prioritize urgent fixes (e.g., crashes, visual glitches)
Medium-term: Update your UI to match iOS 26 design guidelines
Long-term: Plan features that embrace WWDC 2025’s highlights, like spatial computing support, lock screen widgets, or AI-powered functionality

Integrate Appbot with your existing tools like Slack, Jira, or Trello to make user feedback visible across your organization. Keep support, engineering, product, and design aligned on what users are saying and how you’re responding. You can filter which reviews are sent to which channels, so each team only sees the feedback most relevant to them.

Stay Ahead of the Curve

With WWDC 2025 shaking up the Apple ecosystem, aligning your app with user expectations is more important than ever. Appbot helps you go beyond raw review data and turn feedback into action, so your app stays compatible, competitive, and customer-loved.

Start your free trial of Appbot and transform user reviews into actionable insights – faster.

Try Appbot free for 14 days

If you need any further assistance using your app reviews to improve your app, feel free to contact us with any questions or visit our FAQ section.

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About The Author

Tracy Cordwell

Tracy is Head of Customer Experience at Appbot. She has worked in the software industry for over 20 years in many different roles, including as a Product Manager, UX Designer and Project Manager. She has worked on hundreds of digital products from mobile apps, websites, e-commerce and enterprise software. She holds an array of qualifications including a PgC in UX Design, an MBA and a MPM. When Tracy is not helping Appbot customers stay ahead of the curve you can usually find her on a basketball court or buried in a book.