WWDC25: Platforms State of the Union Developer Summary

Apple’s WWDC25 Platforms State of the Union gave developers a closer look at what’s really changing under the hood. While the morning keynote was more high-level, this session focused on what matters to us: tools, APIs, and frameworks that shape how we build.

This year, Apple rolled out:

• A new visual style called Liquid Glass
• Major tooling updates in Xcode 26 and SwiftUI
• System-level access to Foundation Models
• New backend support with Containerization
• Big upgrades to Metal 4 and VisionOS 26

Let’s dive into the updates and why they’re exciting for developers.

New Design with Liquid Glass

What is it?

Apple introduced Liquid Glass as a universal design language that brings a glassy, translucent aesthetic to all its platforms. The goal is a unified design and same experience across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and even visionOS.

For developers, adopting Liquid Glass is straightforward. Many standard UI elements will automatically update to the new style when you build the latest SDKs (iOS, iPadOS, macOS 26, etc.) . Native frameworks like SwiftUI are updated to support Liquid Glass, so your app can use the new look with almost no change.

How to adopt?

1. Build with Xcode 26 and the latest SDK — almost every system control automatically opts in.
2. Opt‑in your custom views via the new .glassEffect() modifier (SwiftUI) or UIGlassEffect (UIKit).(YouTube Link)
3. Follow updated HIG guidance for contrast and legibility.(developer.apple.com)

Sample Codes

SwiftUI

VStack {
    Text("Liquid Glass!")
        .font(.title)
        .padding()
        .glassEffect()

    Button("Tap me") {}
        .buttonStyle(.glass)
}
.frame(maxWidth: 300)

UIKit

let glassView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: UIGlassContainerEffect(style: .regular))

You can find more about Liquid Glass on our other articles: [WWDC 25: Build a SwiftUI App with the New Liquid Glass Design] , [WWDC25: Build a UIKit App with the New Liquid Glass Design]

Foundation Models

What is it?

One of the biggest highlights in WWDC25 is Apple’s new Foundation Models framework. This framework gives third-party apps direct access to Apple’s native on-device language model, allowing developers to build AI-driven features that run privately and offline on users devices. In short, Apple is giving developers access to the same powerful Apple Intelligence model that drives features like the new Siri and Live Translation, so apps can now tap into it to build their own generative AI experiences.

How to adopt?

1. Add the FoundationModels framework.
2. Make a request from the model
3. Pass your prompt and await a streamed or structured response.(machinelearning.apple.com, apple.com)

Sample Code

do {
  let prompt = "Create a basic plan for trip to Istanbul"
  let session = LanguageModelSession()
  let response = try await session.respond(to: prompt)
  print(response)
} catch {
  print("Error from LanguageModelSession: \(error)")
}

You can find more about Foundation Models on our other article: [WWDC25: Bring on-device AI to Your App Using the Foundation Models Framework]

SwiftUI

Apple’s declarative UI toolkit SwiftUI continues to mature in WWDC25, gaining new frameworks and performance tools that make it more powerful for building apps across Apple platforms. One of the biggest improvements is how easy it is to embed web content now is SwiftUI includes a built-in way to display web views, so developers no longer need to rely on bridging to UIKit or AppKit just to show a simple web page. This means more native integration of web tech in SwiftUI, useful for things like rich text rendering or hybrid apps.

Speaking of text, SwiftUI now includes a Rich Text Editor component, which lets you present and edit formatted text with custom styling options . Developers can use it to allow bold/italic styles, headings, or other text formatting in their apps without dropping down to UITextView or NSAttributedString. Data visualization also gets a boost, Swift Charts (introduced in 2022) can now create 3D charts . This enables more visually compelling data displays like three-dimensional bar charts or surfaces, adding depth to data presentation with minimal code changes.

import SwiftUI
WebView(url: URL(string: "https://developer.apple.com")!)

@State private var body = AttributedString("**Bold** _Italic_ \nHeading")
TextEditor(text: $body)
    .textSelection(.enabled)  

# Pull Alpine
container image pull alpine:latest

# Launch interactive shell inside Alpine
container run -t -i alpine:latest sh

import Containerization

let redis = try Container(image: "redis:7").run()
print("Redis @", redis.address)