Platforms State of the Union

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TL;DR

Apple Intelligence in apps

The session positions Apple Intelligence as both an in-app capability and a system integration surface. Apple Foundation Models now power Apple Intelligence using models adapted for on-device execution and Private Cloud Compute, and the Foundation Models framework expands beyond the local model to support image input and server models through a single Swift API.

The Foundation Models framework adds multimodal prompting with text and images, Vision framework integration for tools such as OCR and barcode reading, support for server models such as Claude and Gemini through providers that conform to the Language Model protocol, and access to Apple Foundation Models running in Private Cloud Compute with no cloud API cost for qualifying developers with fewer than 2 million first-time App Store downloads.

Dynamic Profiles are new declarative APIs for adaptive AI experiences. They let a LanguageModelSession switch models, instructions, tools, and behavior over time while preserving a continuous transcript, enabling patterns such as skills, sub-agents, and context-aware model routing.

• New tooling includes the Evaluations framework for prompt and feature validation, an upgraded Foundation Models instrument for visualizing model behavior, and the fm command-line tool for prompting from the terminal.
• Additional announced Foundation Models capabilities include a Python SDK, tool calling with images, and a private RAG tool powered by Core Spotlight.
• The Foundation Models framework is planned to become open source later in the summer, enabling the same Swift APIs to run in apps and on Swift servers.
• Core AI is a new framework for bringing custom models on device, with Swift APIs, PyTorch conversion/optimization tools, ahead-of-time compilation, Core AI instruments, and a tensor-value visual debugger tied back to Python source.

Dynamic Profiles concept

The demonstrated pattern starts with a LanguageModelSession, selects a Dynamic Profile based on app state, and swaps among profiles for brainstorming, tutorial generation, and lightweight jargon explanations while sharing one transcript.

System intelligence with App Intents

App Intents is the bridge between apps and system intelligence. By describing app content and capabilities with schemas, apps can contribute personal context to the Spotlight semantic index, expose system-understandable actions, and become available through Siri AI, Shortcuts, widgets, the Action button, and other system surfaces.

Entity schemas describe the content and concepts an app works with, while intent schemas describe actions the app can perform. Because schemas are system-defined, Siri can understand natural requests without developers defining every phrase, and apps can benefit from future language-understanding improvements.

The new View Annotations API lets an app associate visible UI with entities, so users can refer to on-screen content naturally, such as "this photo" or "the second message," and pass that referenced content into app intents.

• Entities in the demo conform to IndexedEntity so they can be indexed into Spotlight.
• @AppEntity is used for schema-conforming content such as messages, contacts, and conversations.
• @AppIntent is used for actions, such as conforming a send-message intent to a system schema.
• Combining Spotlight semantic indexing, intent schemas, and View Annotations enables natural-language discovery and action from inside and outside the app.

Schema adoption pattern

The transcript describes using @AppEntity for content entities and @AppIntent for actions so Siri can reason over app content and perform supported actions.

@AppEntity
struct MessageEntity: IndexedEntity { /* app content indexed into Spotlight */ }

@AppIntent
struct SendMessageIntent { /* action conforming to a system intent schema */ }

Design, adaptability, SwiftUI, and Swift

Liquid Glass continues to be refined across the 27 releases. Apps already using Liquid Glass receive improved readability, diffusion, edge separation, specular highlights, and accessibility adaptation automatically when running on the new releases. Users also gain a settings slider to tune Liquid Glass from ultra clear to fully tinted.

App adaptability becomes more important because iOS apps can now be resized in iPhone Mirroring and on iPad after rebuilding with the latest SDK. SwiftUI, Auto Layout, scene lifecycle support, size classes, trait collections, the new resizable iOS simulator, and Previews are the recommended path for validating layouts across dynamic sizes and aspect ratios.

SwiftUI gains richer interactions, better performance, and new app capabilities. Highlights include reorderable containers outside lists, swipe actions in any scrollable container, improved text selection, faster nested stack layouts, lazy @State initialization under the hood, HTTP caching in AsyncImage, adaptive toolbar controls, a new document infrastructure, and the Spatial Preview framework for Mac apps streaming spatial previews to Apple Vision Pro.

Swift 6.4 focuses on day-to-day workflow improvements: targeted warning suppression or promotion to errors, anyAppleOS availability shorthand, await in defer, and better diagnostics for expressions that previously failed with the generic type-checking timeout message.

• macOS 27 supports the show borders environment value, allowing custom controls to adapt to that accessibility setting.
• Standard sidebars, toolbars, lists, labels, menus, and app icons receive multiple design refinements automatically or through existing APIs.
• After recompiling with Xcode 27, apps automatically use the new Liquid Glass design because support for opting into the old design is being removed.
• macOS Tahoe was reiterated as the final release supporting Intel Macs; developers can now ship Apple silicon-only binaries on the Mac App Store.

SwiftUI container interactions

SwiftUI adds reorder support for containers such as grids and stacks, and extends swipe actions beyond lists using a scrollable container modifier.

ForEach(items) { item in
    ItemView(item)
}
.reorderable()

ScrollView {
    /* rows with .swipeActions { ... } */
}
.swipeActionsContainer()

Adaptive toolbar priorities

The session describes new toolbar controls such as visibility priority, overflow menu grouping, and a pinned trailing placement for adaptive layouts.

ToolbarItem { ShareButton() }
    .visibilityPriority(.high)

ToolbarItem(placement: .topBarPinnedTrailing) {
    ShareButton()
}

Xcode 27 and agentic coding

Xcode 27 emphasizes both the daily developer experience and integrated intelligence. It is smaller, Apple silicon-only, faster at loading projects, more reliable during debug sessions, and has a console designed to handle heavier logging. Settings can sync through iCloud, new projects can be created with minimal setup, and toolbars and themes are more customizable.

Xcode Cloud setup is streamlined from inside Xcode, with no separate App Store Connect setup shown in the demo, and builds are described as up to twice as fast with support for Apple Vision Pro and Metal apps on Apple silicon. Previews can now generate variations for arbitrary properties, such as all cases of an enum, not just common environment variants.

Device Hub replaces Simulator and unifies simulators with physical devices. It supports simulator controls, system-setting changes, high-fidelity gestures, dynamic resizing for iOS app layout testing, and interaction with connected hardware from the same interface.

Agentic coding is integrated throughout planning, implementation, validation, localization, and crash fixing. Agents can understand projects, search documentation, render previews with variants, interact with the simulator, run tests, use playgrounds, localize strings in context, inspect Organizer crash data, reproduce issues, and validate fixes.

• Xcode supports Model Context Protocol tools and adds Agent Client Protocol support so compatible agents can be brought into Xcode.
• Built-in integrations include agents from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google; ACP support and Gemini integration are shipping in an Xcode 26 update, with more in Xcode 27.
• Xcode 27 ships with Apple-authored skills, documentation, and MCP tools for areas such as SwiftUI, accessibility, universal sizing, testing, and performance.
• Plugins can contain skills, MCP tools, and ACP-based agent integrations; they can be installed from the command line or by pasting a Git URL into Xcode.

Agent planning workflow

The demonstrated workflow asks an agent to plan first, review and refine that plan, then let Xcode and the agent implement, preview, run, and test the feature.

/plan
Implement a choose-your-own-adventure story feature using the latest Foundation Models APIs. Include a diagram and ask clarifying questions before coding.

Other developer tools and where to go next

The session also highlights broader developer tooling updates. Reality Composer Pro 3 has been rebuilt for production-ready 3D experiences with RealityKit, character animations, more realistic lighting, and live previews using Mac Virtual Display. Game Porting Toolkit receives a major update with AI skills for coding agents, and new Metal command-line tools give agents direct control during development and debugging.

Apple points developers to the rest of the WWDC26 program for deeper coverage of Apple Intelligence, Xcode 27, design, SwiftUI, and other platform technologies, plus Group Labs, online panels, Q&A sessions, Developer Forums, Meet with Apple events, and Developer Centers.

• Use Core AI for custom on-device models in apps.
• Use MLX for experimenting with, training, researching, or fine-tuning generative models, including local inference; it now supports Metal 4, GPU Neural Accelerators, and multi-Mac training with RDMA over Thunderbolt.
• Use Foundation Models when an app needs Apple's on-device model, Private Cloud Compute, or server-model integration behind a native Swift API.
• Use App Intents schemas and View Annotations when the goal is Siri AI, Spotlight semantic search, and natural-language actions over app content.

Unofficial, not associated with Apple. By