On the finish of the WWDC 2025 keynote handle on Monday, the corporate actually sang its praises to app builders, as singer-songwriter Allen White humorously turned clients’ optimistic App Retailer evaluations into track lyrics for a tune titled “6 out of 5 stars.”
“Best app I’ve ever set my sorry eyes upon,” he crooned. “This is not an app. It’s a piece of art.”
What Apple didn’t point out, nevertheless, was something associated to the tumultuous previous few years for its developer neighborhood, or extra broadly, why its builders ought to proceed to place their belief in an organization that’s combating them for each nickel and dime whereas failing them in different methods.
Lately, the Cupertino-based tech large has put its app developer neighborhood by means of the wringer because it stringently fought in opposition to regulation, lawsuits, and every other efforts to rein in its alleged App Retailer monopoly by nations, lawmakers, and the courts.
In the meantime, it has but to ship on a number of the key expertise advances that might modernize builders’ apps for the AI period.
In March, it delayed its “more personalized,” AI-powered Siri, demonstrated finally yr’s WWDC. Apple solely briefly acknowledged this fumble throughout this yr’s keynote handle, when SVP of Software program Engineering Craig Federighi mentioned the work “needed more time” to fulfill Apple’s excessive bar.
At WWDC, Apple’s scattered mentions of AI associated to options that Google’s AI already has, resembling Apple’s AI-powered translation options, although it tried to distinguish from Google by providing lyrics translation in Apple Music. Apple’s AI-powered Visible Intelligence characteristic was even demonstrated by tapping into Google’s app for picture search outcomes, one thing that feels extra native on Android gadgets with improvements like Circle to Search, Lens’s multisearch, visible search in movies, and extra.
Elsewhere, Apple appeased builders’ demand for AI with additional integrations with OpenAI expertise, just like the addition of ChatGPT in Apple’s Picture Playground app and for coding help in Xcode. However no offers with different AI suppliers had been introduced, regardless of rumors that Google Gemini integration was on the best way and that Apple was teaming up with Anthropic on an AI-powered coding help software.
Apple additionally made its scripting and automations app Shortcuts simpler to make use of with the addition of AI options, however this ended up feeling extra like a stop-gap to tide over energy customers till an AI Siri may take actions of their apps for them.
Then there was the deafening silence over the more and more controversial App Retailer commissions.
Within the U.S., as an example, Apple is contemporary off a key loss in its battle with Fortnite maker Epic Video games that forces Apple to now enable U.S. builders to level to various fee mechanisms on the internet, the place it may possibly’t take a fee.
But Apple didn’t spend time throughout its hour-and-a-half-long keynote to speak about how its App Retailer is the perfect place to construct an app enterprise, enhancements it’s made to fee processing techniques, or the way it’s removing scams. (It touted a few of its developer advantages within the days main as much as WWDC, the place it centered on its anti-fraud options and developer revenues.)
Apple additionally launched a standalone Video games app, however the keynote handle centered on the buyer advantages — Challenges, social options, quick access to Apple’s personal gaming retailer Arcade — not on what it may do for cell builders.
Nor, as some had hoped, did Apple announce a discount in its App Retailer commissions throughout the board for all builders, lastly placing the query to relaxation as as to whether Apple’s in-app funds system is price its value.
Whereas arguably extra developer-focused enhancements will roll out this week at WWDC, by means of its developer keynote, Platforms State of the Union, and its numerous classes, Apple missed an opportunity to shock its developer neighborhood with some form of acknowledgement that it’s understood that these previous years have been robust, however in the end it’s on builders’ sides.
As a substitute, the one reference to date to the altering market dynamics of the App Retailer ecosystem was a small replace to its App Assessment Pointers, which has swapped out the wording “alternative app marketplace” for “alternative distribution” — a delicate reminder that Apple solely thinks the one app “marketplace” that may exist is its personal App Retailer.
As for reinforcing builders’ companies, Apple gave the impression to be considering of itself and its personal coffers first. Within the preliminary developer beta of iOS 26, the App Retailer opens as much as its Search web page by default, which means that Apple is pushing builders to spend extra on its App Retailer Search advertisements for discovery.
Different modifications level to Apple seeing builders as simply one other lever to be pulled to make the corporate extra money, whereas it focuses on delighting shoppers with new bells and whistles, like its interface design overhaul dubbed Liquid Glass.
Although impressed by its VR headset Imaginative and prescient Professional, Apple didn’t provide builders a proof as to why they need to make over their completely useful apps to fulfill these new design tips. The corporate may have not less than hinted at the truth that Liquid Glass appears an apparent precursor to constructing an working system that may ultimately prolong past smartphones and tablets, to succeed in new computing platforms, like AR glasses.
However Apple’s cultural choice for holding secrets and techniques, regardless of years of complete leaks, largely from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, saved it from suggesting that Liquid Glass was something however an up to date new look to wow shoppers.
In wrapping the occasion by singing cheery App Retailer evaluations (a system now beset by bots and pretend evaluations, as builders know), Apple tried to lighten the temper. It knew that this yr’s occasion would let down its developer neighborhood with its AI delays, amid an aggressive pursuit of developer income.
The top end result made the track really feel like a performative act of developer appreciation — yes, an precise efficiency! — somewhat than a real reflection of how priceless builders are to Apple’s potential to ship extra iPhones and make shoppers pleased.
