WWDC26: Apple unveils next generation of Apple Intelligence, Siri AI, powerful parental controls, and an expansive set of software improvements

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 8, 2026--

Today, during the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple® previewed its upcoming software releases that will deliver the next generation of Apple Intelligence ™ and introduce Siri® AI, an entirely new version of Siri that is profoundly more intelligent, knowledgeable, and capable. The releases also bring powerful and intuitive new features to help parents create safe digital experiences for kids, as well as improvements that further elevate the software design and performance of Apple products while making them more responsive, delightful, and easier to use with iOS 27, iPadOS® 27, macOS® 27, watchOS® 27, visionOS® 27, and tvOS® 27.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260608304595/en/

“Apple products are an essential part of people’s lives, and this year we’re bringing powerful new capabilities to empower our users in even more ways,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “We’re delivering the next generation of Apple Intelligence across our platforms; introducing Siri AI, a profoundly more intelligent, knowledgeable, and capable Siri; expanding child safety features with intuitive new tools for families; and making our software platforms faster, more reliable, and more delightful than ever before.”

Next Generation of Apple Intelligence and an Entirely New Siri Experience

Leveraging a bold new architecture uniquely designed to protect users’ privacy, the next generation of Apple Intelligence powers Siri AI and brings helpful new features to apps users rely on every day.

Siri AI is an entirely new version of Siri deeply integrated into iPhone®, iPad®, Mac®, Apple Watch®, and Apple Vision Pro®. It can draw on personal context understanding to search across messages, emails, photos, and more, and get things done across apps with even more systemwide app actions. Additionally, Siri AI can answer questions related to the content on a user’s screen or go out to the web to get up-to-date information using broad world knowledge and generate a helpful answer. A dedicated Siri app allows users to revisit a past conversation or kick off a new one — all in one place — and uses iCloud® to privately sync conversational history across a user’s products.

In addition to Siri AI, the next generation of Apple Intelligence powers tremendous new features in apps across the system to simplify the things users do every day, like editing images in Photos, browsing across multiple tabs in Safari®, expressing creativity with Image Playground™, communicating in Messages and Mail, and so much more.

New Parental Controls and Significant Updates to Screen Time

Powerful and intuitive new features that are easy to use help parents manage what their kids can see, who they can talk to, and when they have access to apps. By setting up a Child Account, parents can immediately enable age-appropriate protections across the system, and with Setup Assistant, parents can choose exactly which apps to make available and stay in control of what gets added over time. With communication safety features, parents can require approval for each new contact their kids connect with and enable automatic interventions if explicit or violent content is being shared.

New tools aimed at building healthier screen time habits make it easy to set daily total time allowances across Entertainment, Games, and Social Media apps, with a daily time allowance recommendation based on guidance from leading clinical and child development experts that gives parents a helpful starting point. Schedules let parents manage which apps their children have access to at different points in the day, and Screen Time has been redesigned to be more intuitive for parents, offering an at-a-glance view of their kids’ average device usage and top apps.

To help parents stay informed and learn more, Apple has launched a dedicated website that features the latest tools, helpful resources, and answers to common questions — like how to get started.

More Responsive, Reliable, and Delightful Experiences Across Software Platforms

The 2027 releases make Apple products even more responsive, reliable, and delightful to use through design refinements, performance improvements, and enhancements to the ways users work, communicate, share memories, enjoy music with AirPods®, track their health, and more.

Improvements across platforms push key system capabilities forward so everyday tasks feel faster, smoother, and more enjoyable. For example, iPhone and iPad apps launch up to 30 percent faster, 1 photos load up to 70 percent faster after being taken, 2 and AirDrop® transfers are up to 80 percent faster. 3 During network transitions, moving between cellular and Wi-Fi networks is more seamless than ever, and browsing and transferring files between external drives and iPad is up to 5x faster — making it just as fast as Finder® on Mac. 4 In Spotlight®, Photos, and Mail, the search experience has been rebuilt to make it more stable and efficient to help users find exactly what they are looking for. And in Mail, a completely new ranking system surfaces even more relevant results in Top Hits.

Refinements to the software design deliver an even more focused and approachable experience across apps and platforms. A new slider in Settings gives users the option to personalize Liquid Glass, adjusting it anywhere from ultra-clear to fully tinted to match their preference, and app icons have been updated to be sharper and more defined. On Mac, updates reincorporate cornerstones of the macOS design that users have always loved, including a more uniform toolbar across the top of apps, edge-to-edge sidebars, colored sidebar icons, and more.

Additional features coming this fall:

Availability

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Footnotes

1. Testing conducted by Apple in April and May 2026 using iPhone 11 Pro Max with iOS 26.4.2 and prerelease iOS 27. App launch performance measured after many cycles of device usage. Performance varies based on configuration, settings, content, usage, software versions, environmental conditions, and other factors.
2. Testing conducted by Apple in April and May 2026 using iPhone 15 with iOS 26.4.2 and prerelease iOS 27. Photos app tested using a 50,000-asset library and taking additional individual photos with the Camera app. Performance varies based on configuration, settings, content, usage, software versions, environmental conditions, and other factors.
3. Testing conducted by Apple in April and May 2026 using iPhone 16 Plus with iOS 26.4.2 and prerelease iOS 27. AirDrop tested by transferring multiple photos totaling 30MB between nearby contacts while not associated with a Wi-Fi network. Performance varies based on configuration, settings, content, usage, software versions, environmental conditions, and other factors.
4. Testing conducted by Apple in April and May 2026 using iPad Pro 11-inch (M4) with iPadOS 26.4.2 and prerelease iPadOS 27, and an APFS-formatted USB4 external SSD drive. Files app tested using 10,000 JPG files, copying and browsing from iPad to the external drive. Performance varies based on configuration, settings, content, usage, software versions, environmental conditions, and other factors.
5. The Cycle Tracking app should not be used for birth control or to diagnose a health condition.

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple Newsroom ( www.apple.com/newsroom ), or email Apple’s Media Helpline at media.help@apple.com.

© 2026 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Apple Intelligence, Siri, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, tvOS, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, iCloud, Safari, Image Playground, AirPods, AirDrop, Finder, Spotlight, Find My, GymKit, AirPods Pro, Flyover, iPad mini, Apple Watch Ultra, Apple Watch SE, and iCloud+ are trademarks of Apple. iOS is a trademark or registered trademark of Cisco in the U.S. and other countries and is used under license. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

At WWDC26, Apple unveiled the next generation of Apple Intelligence, Siri AI, powerful parental controls, and an expansive set of software improvements across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS.

Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a resurgent pest that could devastate the nation's cattle industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. The flies lay their eggs in open wounds of animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. The government has a program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females, which kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.

So far, there are five confirmed cases: three calves and a goat in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state. The animal's travel history is being investigated.

The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. A case was announced Monday in a calf in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio, and in a goat in Gillespie County, west of Austin.

Scientists expect new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn't mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.

“When that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,” Burgess said. “And when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.”

Screwworm gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA.

The agency and the U.S. cattle industry have been racing to prevent an outbreak since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. The USDA has been dropping sterile flies in south Texas since February, and is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the U.S. and build a $750 million fly factory in Texas.

So far, screwworm's reappearance hasn’t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the United States. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit. There are also a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.

Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses or other livestock from Texas on Friday. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 77 F (25 C), making them more of a summer problem up north.

Burgess said the long-term solution — breeding sterile male flies — is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.

The goal is to have enough sterile flies to stop the pests from returning in 2027 after the winter kills off most of them, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a news conference at the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas.

Scientists are also working on ways to sterilize only male flies to make the program even more effective.

Texas officials encouraged ranchers to keep a close eye on their herds and local wildlife. There's now a 24-hour screwworm hotline and a website and map for reported cases.

“This is a highly treatable condition if you act on it immediately,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.

However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — who lost the recent Republican primary to a candidate backed by Abbott — said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry.

Instead, he says a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if the USDA and other experts say the bait hasn’t been proven effective and could poison other flies, animals and even humans.

“What the hell is a good fly?” Miller said in an interview.

This story has been updated to reflect that the USDA revised the dog screwworm case to New Mexico, not Texas as the agency initially reported, and to correct the spelling of Kerrville.

Associated Press writer Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, center, holds a news conference with ranchers, researchers and officials at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A ranchers arrivse for a news conference with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

FILE - A test container of dyed fly pupae are displayed at a Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility to combat the northward spread of NWS and protect American livestock, in Edinburg, Texas, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - An adult New World screwworm fly sits in this undated photo. (Denise Bonilla/U.S. Department of Agriculture via AP)