All the entertainment tech news from Apple’s WWDC 2025

Apple held its annual WWDC developer conference in Cupertino Monday, striking a bit of a different tone than its biggest competitor. While Google’s latest developer conference was all about AI, Apple held a much more traditional show: One presenter after another highlighted everything that’s new in iOS, Mac OS, iPad OS, Watch OS and VisionOS.

Many of the key details once again leaked before the show, including Apple’s decision to rename all of its operating systems to reflect the release year, and its new “liquid glass” design language (think: transparent, shiny and responsive buttons). But the show also still had plenty of news, including a bunch of things relevant to anyone working in or obsessed with entertainment tech.

With that in mind, I once again decided to sum up the show’s entertainment technology highlights:

Automatic sign-ins are coming to tvOS. Like the rest of Apple’s ecosystem, Apple TVs are also getting a refreshed user interface with liquid glass elements – but there are also some more substantial changes affecting developers and publishers.

• Part of the UI refresh is new vertical cover art for movies and shows, which I’ve been told Apple started requesting from content partners a few months ago. Those posters should in theory also work well on the Apple TV mobile app, but the company did not announce a refresh of that app this week.

• Developers and publishers can now help their users to automatically sign into apps on their Apple TVs, thanks to a new Automatic Signin API. No more painful on-screen keyboards!

The Vision Pro gets controllers – and more video. Two years after first announcing the Vision Pro, Apple arguably unveiled some the biggest platform updates for its headset to date.

• Apple is adding support for Sony’s PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers, which developers can use for 6DOF gaming. That should go a long way towards making the Vision Pro more appealing to VR game developers. Separately, the company also announced support for a new Logitech 3D stylus.

• VisionOS gets widgets, which users can place anywhere in their surroundings, and then revisit the next time they use the device. Meta announced something similar called “Augments” two years ago, but has yet to ship it. It will be interesting to see how entertainment app developers use these widgets. Album art pinned to the wall over your Sonos speaker, perhaps?

• The Vision Pro is getting native support for 180-degree and 360-degree video, which should make it much easier for immersive media producers to bring content to the platform. Also now supported: Wide FOW video from GoPro’s and Insta360 cameras.

• Vision Pro owners will also be able to view existing 2D photos in immersive 3D via something Apple calls “spatial scenes.” In a nutshell, the company is using on device generative AI to generate 3D for multiple viewpoints, making it possible to “lean in” to photos.

Apple Music is going to be front and center on iPhones. Apple Music got a surprising amount of stage time during Monday’s keynote, as Apple announced a bunch of new features.

• These include an intriguing new integration with iOS: When your iPhone is locked, you just need to tap on the Apple Music lockscreen widget to replace your lock screen background with animated album art.

• Apple Music also gets lyric translation and lyric pronunciation features on iOS. No lyric explanation feature though, so Genius is safe for the time being.

The new Apple Games app will be (almost) everywhere. A new Apple Games app to aggregate all of Apple’s gaming efforts was one of the tidbits that leaked ahead of WWDC. On Monday, Apple execs actually got to show it off on iOS, iPadOS and MacOS. No word yet on whether it will come to Apple TV and VisionOS as well.

Apple is positioning the iPad as a creator device. The iPad got some of the most noteworthy updates at this week’s WWDC, including new ways to multitask, a menu bar and a preview app. In essence, Apple’s tablet is becoming a lot more Mac-like. And with that, Apple is also looking to get creators to embrace the iPad as a content creation machine.

• Users will be able to switch between different audio inputs for each app, making it easier to switch back and forth between, say, Airpods and a professional Bluetooth microphone.

• iPads are also gaining a local capture feature, which makes it possible to locally record video during a call, and then share the recording with anyone else who was on the call. I could see this getting a lot of use from podcasters.

Availability: Most of these things are being made available to developers this week. Public beta versions are going to be released next month, and consumer-ready updates are expected this fall.

What else

Warner Bros. Discovery spins out linear business. The cable network part of the company will essentially be a debt-servicing machine to free up HBO Max for further growth.

Roku is testing a more personalized homepage. The company is taking another baby step towards a content-first UI.

Additional details on Meta’s next-gen headset leak. The lightweight headset with compute puck is supposed to use Micro-OLED panels, offer a biometric unlock feature.

Roku gets live wrestling. It’s not WWE, but it’s something … to tune in every Tuesday.

YouTube has changed its content policies. Content reviewers are reportedly being told to “favor ‘freedom of expression’ over the risk of harm.”

Disney is completing its acquisition of Comcast’s Hulu stake. Turns out the mouse owes Comcast another $439 million.

Cineverse commercializes its AI search. The company is ready to license Cinesearch, which I wrote about a year ago, to other streaming services.

Roblox poaches Paramount Global CFO. Naveen Chopra previously held chief finance roles at Pandora and Tivo.

That’s it

This is a busy week in tech: Monday was not only the start of WWDC, but also the eve of Augmented World Expo in Long Beach. Then, on Wednesday, the Stream TV Show is starting in Denver. I’ll be at the latter, feel free to say hi if you’re there as well. Because of all of this, I decided to publish Lowpass early this week. Next week, you’ll find this newsletter in your inbox a bit earlier than usual again, as Thursday is Juneteenth — and I can’t wait for a long weekend ...

Thanks for reading, have a great rest of your week!

And many thanks to LinkedIn, iSpot & TVREV for sponsoring this issue of Lowpass.

Apple Park photo by Artem Horovenko on Unsplash