Tactile Tech

Inside the launch of Apple's Liquid Glass at the Worldwide Developers Conference with Alan Dye and Craig Federighi, the minds behind the new look and feel of iOS 26.

- KIERAN PRESS-REYNOLDS

Smiling. Everyone is smiling. There is not a single frown detected. Every employee chirps hello and welcome with the most ecstatic grins; they clap in sync with Ed Sheeran's “Azizam” as it cannonballs out of massive speakers. The vibe: This Is The Best Day Ever.

We're not at Disneyland. This is the 2025 edition of WWDC, or the Worldwide Developers Conference, an annual event where Apple unveils its flashiest new software. In an outdoor pavilion, thousands of wooden chairs quickly fill up with TikTokers, designers and Apple employees—including two of the guys most responsible for Apple's new update, Alan Dye and Craig Federighi, whom I'll meet later for an exclusive conversation about the day's biggest announcement. This tech spectacle is so hotly anticipated that the many programmers who came from around the world had to submit to a lottery to gain entrance. It feels like the first day of college: a tangle of first-timers and veterans milling about in organised anarchy, a hundred accents blending together under the beating California heat.