We’re less than two days away from Apple’s big WWDC 2025 keynote, where the company will reveal new versions of each of its software platforms. One of the biggest changes this year is the expected shift from iOS 19 to iOS 26, with new versions of macOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS also set to follow suit. We’re also expecting to see the evolution of Apple Health, including a new AI doctor and Health subscription.
iOS 26, if it is to be named that, is expected to introduce one of the biggest evolutions in design for Apple software since the first iPhone was launched. Inspired by visionOS and the Apple Vision Pro, it’s expected to be a monumental redesign, but I hope that Apple also takes the time to make a few improvements.
I’ve used the iPhone for over a decade, which I carry every day along with one of the best Android phones. While iOS is an excellent platform, there are a few key areas where it could improve. Here are the five improvements I’m hoping to see on Monday.
1. True support for third parties
It’s somewhat antithetical for Apple to embrace third parties, evidenced by its ongoing lawsuit with Fortnite developer Epic Games, but this might be the best time for the company to do exactly this. It may also prevent regulatory challenges, like the Epic Games lawsuit, which resulted in support for third-party app stores on the iPhone, but only in Europe.
The success of the iPhone can be largely attributed to its early adoption by third-party developers. These developers built the apps and experiences that enabled the iPhone to have the impact it has had. While this has been great for apps, Apple only enabled third-party solutions to replace certain system functions, and these features don’t work anywhere near as well.
Third-party keyboards have been supported for over a decade, yet it’s still a bit-part installation, which results in the OS often freezing and resorting to the default keyboard. Apple’s new Passwords app in iOS 18 also made third-party password managers less stable.
This could also help address a significant issue for Apple. The company’s troubles with Apple Intelligence and the new Siri could be somewhat solved by enabling third-party assistants to be set as the default, at least in the interim. This would also benefit its partnership with OpenAI and ChatGPT, or allow an assistant like Google Gemini to be set as the default.
2. A rebuilt OS that just works again
For Apple to truly allow third-party support, it needs to rebuild iOS. Over the past 19 years, Apple’s iPhone software has largely stayed the same under the hood. The result is that while many features have been added over the years, they have directly contributed to the OS’s load and instability.
Consider iOS 18 and the launch of the theming engine, as well as the more flexible approach to the homescreen layout, and the transformation of widgets. All are great additions to the customizability of iOS 18, but none launched with the same stability and aplomb that made Apple as successful as it has been.
Apple products are infamously meant to “just work”, and it’s time to return to that era, starting with a rebuild of iOS. The visionOS platform demonstrates that Apple can still design beautiful, first-generation software experiences, and the iPhone needs a next-generation experience.
3. Advanced features from Android
There are many features available on Android that aren’t available on the iPhone. While iOS 18 brought the iPhone closer to the customizability of an Android phone, there are still a few things that are needed for the iPhone to continue competing with the best phones.
Consider the Galaxy S25 Ultra: it features multiple telephoto lenses, the S-Pen stylus, and true multitasking capabilities. Or the Oppo Find N5 and Galaxy Z Fold 7, which feature two screens and advanced stylus input. Then there are phones like the Oppo Find X8 Ultra, Galaxy S25 Ultra, and Vivo X200 Ultra, which all feature multiple telephoto lenses and advanced camera systems that are more capable than the iPhone, at least for still photography.
Then there’s Apple’s approach to the homescreen. Last year, Apple introduced significant improvements to the homescreen, but there are still many ways for Apple to take this further. I’d love to see resizable icons, a choice of grid layouts, and more advanced management of icon positioning and grid. And yes, I hope they fix the current homescreen introduced in iOS 18, so we can put apps wherever we want, and they’ll stay in place.
The next-generation iPhone experience needs to do more than fix the bugs; it should set the iPhone up to compete with the very best phones. Apple is rumored to launch an iPhone Fold eventually, and iOS 19 should lay the groundwork for this to compete with the best folding phones.
I can’t wait to see what Apple launches on Monday during the WWDC 2025 livestream. I use an Apple product in each category, and I am genuinely excited to see what the company does next. I suspect we’ll see a mix of bug fixes, design changes, and some new features to highlight, but less from Apple Intelligence than we did last year. We’ll all find out soon!
