a big week in tech

Hey, and welcome to the first (official) article on ohno!

There's a lot to unpack this week, so let's get to it.
First, a note from me:

On ohno, I'm aiming to give you a general refresher on what's happening all across the tech world. However, this is an incredibly anticipated upcoming week, so I decided to take this post and create a special edition article of sorts.

Here's the big news:

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is set to kick off on Monday, June 9th.
This is when Apple announces new software updates across their platforms, like iOS (for iPhones), iPadOS (for iPads), macOS (for Macs), watchOS (for Apple Watches), visionOS (for, currently, Vision Pro), and tvOS (for Apple TVs).
Now, this event happens every year, but there are a couple things about this year's WWDC that make things extra special.

First, Apple is rumored to be bringing some major design changes across all their platforms, as well as several other new concepts for the future of Apple devices. Here's some intel to get you caught up.

Breaking news: There's not going to be an iOS 19.

Your Apple device is about to get even more luxury. No imitation leather included, unless you buy a FineWoven case.

That's right, Apple is rumored to be changing their naming scheme for all of their software platforms, switching from a counting-up system to a year-based system, similar to car manufacturers' naming schemes for new car models. This naming system is designed to bring more consistency and clarity across Apple platforms to make it easier for users to understand if their software version is up-to-date, for developers to know which version of the software they're developing for, and for Apple to market their products more effectively.

So, you'll be getting iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, visionOS 26, and tvOS 26, instead of iOS 19, iPadOS 19, macOS 16, watchOS 12, visionOS 3 and tvOS 19.

You may be wondering why the number would be 26 instead of 25, since Apple is announcing the updates this year, 2025. That's because while the software is announced in 2025, the releases generally coincide with the release of new iPhone models, which typically occurs in September or October. This means that for much of the operating system's release lifecycle, it'll be 2026, hence the 26 in the name.

Rumored visionOS-like design changes across Apple platforms.

A design so innovative, you're supposed to look through it.

This is, again, designed to bring further consistency across Apple's operating systems.

If you're not familiar with the look and feel of visionOS, the operating system for the Vision Pro augmented reality headset, it's very glassmorphic.

Apple is rumored to be bringing this design language to all of their platforms, which will make the software look more modern and cohesive across devices.
I have to admit, I was a little afraid of what it might look like, especially for macOS, since, as contrasted to iOS/iPadOS or even tvOS, it's designed for productivity instead of (mainly) entertainment. This concept sketch from MacRumors made me even more worried. I simply couldn't imagine how Apple could make such quick and massive design changes to an operating system nearly 25 years old.
Plus, the UI in the concept sketch looks really bad anyways.

On top of all this, there were rumors that icons across most (if not all) Apple platforms would be redesigned to be rounder. This, coming after last year's iOS and iPadOS updates, which introduced Dark and Tinted app icons, which prompted developers to design two new additional app icon variations for their apps.

However, I found Lux article that made me a little less concerned and a little more optimistic about how Apple could take these updates and really pull off a major cross-platform design refresh.
Plus, Apple has a history of making design changes and pulling them off in a major way, like iOS 7 (which introduced flat design to the iPhone) and Mac OS X Yosemite (which introduced a flatter design to the Mac). Apple also has access to some of the best graphic, UI, and UX designers there are, plus world-class usability testers.
I've got faith that they can pull this off, but we won't know for certain until the dust settles on Monday.

Hello, Apple Intelligence??

Apple may focus on delivering what they've already promised.

Apple has been criticized in the tech community for over-promising features and under-delivering (or not delivering them at all), from Siri's announced-but-not-yet-released Personal Context feature to Xcode's Swift Assist, essentially a code chatbot for the Swift Programming Language. Both these features (and more) were announced last WWDC when Apple Intelligence was debuted in the Keynote.

However, it seems like Apple is making progress in the slippery slope of AI, recently releasing a new Image Playground design style, Sketch, which was announced at launch but was not released until iOS 18.4, on March 31st of this year.
Bear in mind that Apple Intelligence is still in its infancy, with competitors like Google, Microsoft, and Samsung already having released their own AI features. In response to the fallout, experts have cited a leadership struggle in the AI division at Apple, with a recent power shift ahead of WWDC, replacing the former head of AI, John Giannandrea, with Mike Rockwell (who oversees the Vision Pro headset) with the seemingly haphazard and unprepared release.

Apple Intelligence is also meant to be extremely privacy-focused, unlike its competitors, which seem to be more focused on the speed of development than users privacy rights. Apple has a history of being privacy-focused, so this is no surprise, but it does mean that the development of Apple Intelligence may be more tentative and methodical than its competitors' AI features.
It seems like Apple has learned a lesson from last year's WWDC, where they announced a lot of features that were not ready for primetime, and are now taking a more cautious approach to AI development.

There hasn't been much information about any new Apple Intelligence features (at least ones not already announced), so Apple may be doing an Snow Leopard-style release (the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard was notorious for being announced with “0 new features”, with Apple focusing on performance and stability improvements under-the-hood).
A new rumor suggests that Apple may be delaying Siri's Personal Context feature in favor of upgraded Genmoji functionality, which would let you combine two emojis into one on an Apple Intelligence-capable device.

Hey, it was fun while it lasted

An opinion piece on the sunsetting of the Arc Browser.

Arc Browser is a web browser built and designed by the aptly named The Browser Company of New York (aka BCNY). It runs on Chromium, the same browser engine that powers Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, et al., but it has a striking and bold design that sets it apart from the competition.

Originally released as an invite-only, macOS exclusive, made-with-SwiftUI web browser, Arc expanded to Windows in 2024. The internet loved Arc, and so did I. It was a breath of fresh air in the web browser market, which for years had been dominated by boring and dry UIs.
Arc features a sidebar that houses your tabs, media, downloads, and more, instead of your buttons and menus and toolbars being decentralized in so many different places across the browser interface.

If you know a little bit about me, you might know that I've been working on my own web browser for about a year and a half (or maybe you don't know that, in which case now you do! Congrats!), so you may be wondering why I wouldn't use my own web browser instead of Arc, especially since Arc doesn't use WebKit (A faster and more efficient browser engine, maintained and used extensively by Apple).
To that, I say, good point.
Problem is, since I'm in an endlessly constant state of design iteration in all of my projects, it wouldn't be a great idea for me to use it as my daily driver, since it wouldn't be very stable for everyday use.

Anyways, Arc was a great web browser. It was an intuitive and innovative way to experience the web in a new and exciting way. I know a lot of people felt the same way.

So we were all saddened to hear that BCNY has decided to discontinue Arc (although some users had suspected as much) in favor of so-called Act II, their new AI-powered agentic web browser, called Dia.
According to BCNY, they believe that

“AI won't exist as an app. Or a button. It'll be an entirely new environment — built on top of a web browser”

Now, BCNY has communicated that they aren't completely abandoning Arc, providing new security updates and weekly Chromium releases, but they won't be adding any new features.

I'll still keep using Arc for as long as is sustainable, or until my browser finally materializes into stability.

That's it for this week!

Thanks for reading this special edition of ohno! I hope you found it informative and interesting.

If you're interested in watching the WWDC Keynote live, you can tune in on Monday, June 9th at 10:00 AM PT (noon CST) on Apple's website, the Apple Developer app, or on YouTube.


If you've got any questions, comments, ideas, or noticed something I messed up, feel free to get in touch at hi@owen.uno.
See you soon!