Apple, Design, and the Future of the Device

By Alex Kantrowitz

Apple on Monday will unveil a beautiful new operating system at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The OS design style, called Liquid Glass, will go heavy on transparency and shine, and make the screen feel like a shimmering glass surface. All this sets up “Glasswing,” a major iPhone update anticipated in 2027 that, according to Bloomberg, could feature curved glass on all sides.

Apple’s forthcoming upgrades will solidify the company’s device leadership, but they arrive just as the tech industry questions whether devices will matter at all. The rise of generative AI has given us a new mode of interacting with technology. Along with typing and tapping, we can now chat, talk, and show things to computers and phones, and they’ll respond in natural language. If AI progress continues apace, the device itself could fade away, leaving us with an ambient companion and teacher that inhabits the world alongside us.