Apple took to the virtual stage yesterday for its annual WWDC keynote and, while it did not go so far as to apologize for anything (please, that would be uncouth), it almost might as well have.
Take Liquid Glass. Please. Apple didn’t so much walk back Liquid Glass as it did slide back Liquid Glass by providing a slider that goes from “All your layers are one incomprehensible jumble that we call Liquid Glass Ultra, and we think you’re gonna hate it” to “Oh, thank god, I can see things again”.
That slider should make a slide whistle noise.
That wasn’t all. Apple de-iconed the menus in macOS, another bone of contention among long-time Mac users, and standardized the corner radii of windows. Now if it would just fix those horrible app icons, it’d be all good.
With macOS Golden Gate on the horizon, Tahoe may be the first release of macOS that will never make it onto the Macalope’s primary machine.
In a bit of a surprise, Apple spent a good chunk of the early keynote discussing new and greatly needed improvements for parental controls. While they definitely raise concern about potential abuse by parents who are not supportive of kids just being who they are, they attempt to address the needs of parents trying to protect children from overtly sexual, violent or hateful content who have been struggling with iOS’s existing parental controls for years.
Thus, it was a bit unusual for a keynote in the Year of our Lord 2026 to get almost 30 minutes in with barely a mention of AI. The first real mention was in the context of parental controls as one of the things parents might be concerned about their kids having access to. Craig Federighi went so far as to say that it often seems like “some are racing ahead with AI for the sake of AI”.
Truly helpful AI must be centered around you and your needs.
It seems like Federighi saw the same stories about people booing mentions of AI that the Macalope did.
Of course then the company spent the rest of the keynote talking about AI, but it did grease the skids for it and couch it in terms of what AI can do for people without sacrificing their privacy rather than just cheerleading AI itself.
The first demo for Siri AI was, not surprisingly, very similar to Google’s demo at I/O: planning a party.
You may not like or be aware of it, but the big problem people currently have across the globe is, um… party planning.
We’ve had two keynotes in two months about it, so it must be.
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Yes, whether it’s a get-together with neighbors or a World Cup party with friends, the dark art of sending out an email, planning a menu and… whew… making a cringe-worthy image to highlight the event is what the masses are struggling with?
The Macalope knows it seems like there’d be bigger problems in the world people were trying to solve, but tech companies seem pretty sure it’s party planning. So, there ya go. Fortunately, they are ON IT. Rest assured, they have been WORKING ON THE ISSUE and have some very exciting solutions to the party planning problem.
It’s not that they have this AI technology they’re desperate to sell to people and are just trying to find something, anything, they can do with it. Perish the thought. And Apple’s not showing the same demo with just a different kind of party because it’s using Google’s AI. That’s not it, either. Nope. They’re doing it because none of you dopes know how to make a party happen. Apparently.
The company also showed a number of other AI features coming in its new operating system releases. The ability to reframe photos was a particular standout, and the Macalope feels like he could actually use the Safari extension creator and tab organization features.
Overall, the horny one thinks Apple hit the right tone with its announcement. If you need any proof, just know this: the stock market hated it! Apple shares dropped precipitously and predictably as soon as Siri demos started.
If it wasn’t for the market then it was probably for us.
Indeed, while the keynote may have lacked anything huge and saddled with the baggage of trying to finally deliver the stuff they promised two years ago, it focused on tangible benefits and on fixing what currently isn’t working so well. Calling this a Snow Leopard year is far from an insult, it’s a compliment.
