Cold open: Apple Park at dawn
Keynote opens with a montage of Apple Park at sunrise; Tim Cook walks on stage to open his final keynote as CEO before a hybrid in-person and streamed audience.
Apple's WWDC 2026 keynote, June 8, Steve Jobs Theater: Siri AI, Liquid Glass, iOS 27, child safety and more, tracked to the minute.
Keynote opens with a montage of Apple Park at sunrise; Tim Cook walks on stage to open his final keynote as CEO before a hybrid in-person and streamed audience.
Cook sets the theme for the keynote, saying technology should be "personal, powerful and easy to use" — the throughline for everything that follows.
Cook notes this hybrid keynote is just the start — select developers, students and press join in person at Apple Park for a week of labs, one-on-ones with engineers, and the Platform State of the Union.
Federighi walks through refinements to last year's Liquid Glass interface, extending consistent translucent materials and motion across iOS, iPadOS and macOS.
In Apple's own release, Federighi frames the year's work as "making our software platforms faster, more reliable, and more delightful than ever before."
The headline announcement: a rebuilt Siri with personal context, on-screen awareness and broad world knowledge, presented as a genuine conversational assistant rather than a voice shortcut.
Before the Siri AI demos, Federighi stakes out Apple's position on-stream: "We believe privacy in AI is non-negotiable," with requests handled on-device or via Private Cloud Compute.
Without naming names, Federighi takes a swipe at the wider industry, warning that some are "racing forward, seemingly pursuing AI for the sake of AI" — widely read as aimed at OpenAI, Google and Meta.
On-stage demos show Siri AI planning errands, messaging groups of friends, pulling information from the web, and integrating directly into Spotlight on the Mac.
Explaining the new dedicated Siri app in a later press session, Federighi describes it as "an integral but conversational tool that you use in the moment," not a bolted-on chatbot.
New Camera app customization, an Apple Intelligence photo editor that can swap backgrounds or clothing from a text description, and a visual overhaul of Maps Flyover.
A dedicated session lands on Spotlight and system search — Apple's VP of OS Program Management Stacey Ford opens by admitting a familiar frustration: search that misses things you know are right there.
Mandatory child accounts for under-13s, more granular parental approval for new contacts, and a redesigned Screen Time give parents more visibility and control.
Apple describes the new mandatory-under-13 child account in its own words: it "enables safeguards across the system, tailored to the child's age," covering contacts, app access and browsing.
About an hour in, the Watch gets its moment: a new app layout and Apple Intelligence features including access to the new Siri.
Nearly an hour into the keynote before the Watch is mentioned at all — live-bloggers note the wait — Apple pairs the new app layout with Apple Intelligence features including access to Siri AI.
A refreshed Safari and system-wide Spotlight/Siri integration for Mac, followed by Federighi outlining the frameworks developers get this week to build with Siri AI and Apple Intelligence.
Federighi closes the software rundown with the release cadence: developer betas go out this afternoon, public betas follow in July, and the finished releases arrive in the fall.
Cook closes with personal reflections on his time as CEO, thanking the community for its support and saying "the best is yet to come."
Within hours Apple publishes the full keynote on Apple.com and YouTube, alongside an ASL-interpreted version, so anyone who missed the live stream can watch it end to end.