Liquid Launch 🍏📱

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover WWDC 2025. As expected, Apple’s annual showcase was more about design revamps of its products than mind-blowing reveals, but we did get some very important news on Apple opening up its AI ecosystem to 3rd party developers. We share the main highlights from the event below. We also have news on how AI search overviews are impacting website traffic (spoiler: not good), OpenAI’s revenues, showcase a calorie-counting app with a twist, and more!

🎬 Our Top Take

📱🍏 WWDC  2025 – Apple Rings the Changes But Is Light on AI

There’s been a joke going around social media for a few days, basically suggesting that Apple’s strategy for dealing with (losing) the AI race is pretending that the technology does not exist or, at the very least, downplaying its capability. While there’s probably only the smallest grain of truth in that, AI was notably low on the agenda at WWDC 2025. Instead, we got a lot of cosmetic changes: Apple’s operating systems will now follow a unified branding (referring to the year) across devices – iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, etc. That unified approach also relates to design, with iPhones, iPads, Macs, and more incorporating Liquid Glass, a kind of translucent display that makes your apps seem fluid on the screen. People are really divided on this, so you can decide for yourself by seeing Apple’s presentation here and some of the less impressive examples here. Apple also addressed the iPhone app that it has neglected more than any other down the years – the Phone App – showcasing a big overhaul in design and call screening/security features. There was a new Games App, highlighting Apple’s desire to make an impact in the AAA gaming market. Apple Wallet is getting more digital ID features, getting closer to replacing your passport. Apple Maps also got a big redesign. Finally, there were a lot of updates for iPad, with many experts saying it was a big step into transforming the device from being a ‘big smartphone’ into a true rival to PC/MacBook. So, you’ll note that all those announcements were light on AI. Yet, there was one important AI twist that caused a stir in the bowels of tech social media (and here at 3Advance; find out why we are excited in our Meanwhile section): Apple announced it would open up its LLMs models to 3rd party developers, allowing them to build apps on Apple Intelligence. It’s a huge step forward and something that might give Apple’s AI ecosystem the jolt it needs. #WWDC2025 Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: Cal AI App

Calorie-counting apps are hardly a new innovation, but Cal AI takes the work out of manually counting what you consume. The process is simple: Take a photo of your meal, let the AI calculate the nutrition – the “Macro,” as it calls it – track your progress each day, recommend meal plans, and so on. The AI doesn’t always get the analysis perfect, but Cal AI is constantly updating the tools to make improvements. You can check out Cal AI for iOS here and Android here. It’s free, but in-app purchases may apply.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 22%

📈📉 AI – Study Suggests Most Americans Dislike Using AI

We all know AI is here to stay, whether we like it or not. Yet, as it turns out, there might be a lot more in the “not” camp. A study published by Statista last month found that just 22% of Americans actually enjoyed using AI tools, far behind users in India (the top place at 48%) and China (37%). Can you guess the nation that came at the very bottom? It was Japan with just 10%. #AIEnjoyers Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

WWDC is practically a holiday over here at 3Advance. Even though we do a lot more than iPhone apps these days, it’s always an exciting day when we get to celebrate or ridicule Apple’s announcements. This year, they were all excited about the Liquid Glass design. Meh! Our screens are going to be less important as time moves on, and OpenAI is in hot pursuit. We are more interested in the engine than the pretty interface. The news that we can access Apple Intelligence from the apps we build is a game changer, allowing us to use a powerful local LLM that is secure and snappy! We’ve touted local LLMs before, but they’re complicated for the average user, they’re not integrated directly with the device SDKs, and they take up a big chunk of extra space and memory on your phone. Apple’s model will be bundled in iOS, with no need for any of this. Because, unlike ChatGPT, the model is local, it’s so much faster and will function with no internet connection.

The implications are staggering – live photo analysis, screen reading, voice processing and translation, content generation, and a whole lot more. Additionally, you can feel better about your regular device and battery doing the lifting, rather than the power and water-hungry default LLMs on server farms. Not to mention security, as the data can stay personal on your device. All in all, this has made our week so far, and we’re already planning to integrate this into an app that converts physical event posters into structured data, in an instant. There are so many more opportunities, too, so if you’re dreaming up something special, it’s time you reached out.

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