The good, the bad, and the ugly of Apple’s 2025 - 9to5Mac

As 2025 draws to a close, here’s a look at what defined Apple over the last 12 months, for better or for worse. The good 1. iPhone 17 This is as close to a unanimity as anything Apple-related can possibly get. With ProMotion, Always-On Display, 48MP Main and Ultra Wide rear cameras, the A19 chip, and now starting with 256GB of storage, it is now hard to recommend any other iPhone to about 95% of the people I know. While some rightfully say that some of these features are long overdue, they are here now, and that is pretty great. 2. Accessibility efforts This year, Apple introduced features such as Magnifier for Mac, Live Translation for AirPods, and welcome upgrades to Personal Voice. While some of these features may be too niche to garner the attention they deserve, this is an area of Apple’s work that keeps firing on all cylinders. For the past few years, Apple has taken it upon itself to lead the way with incredibly thoughtful and helpful accessibility features across its entire ecosystem, and 2025 was its best year yet. Here’s to much more of that in 2026. 3. iPadOS 26 Back in 2017-2018, I tried using the iPad Pro as my only work device. Despite my best efforts to leverage Workflow, and then Shortcuts, to make up for Apple’s vision at the time of what work on the iPad should look like, I came back running to the Mac and never looked back. Still, I’ve been gladly following along Apple’s decisions to embrace proper mouse and trackpad support in 2020, embrace somewhat improved multitasking in 2021, and so on. This year , with enhanced windowing and multitasking support, alongside Slide Over and Split View improvements (some of which just reverse past dumb decisions), this feels like the first year that Apple has actually come to terms with the fact that there’s a difference between rethinking UI and UX, and stubbornly refusing to accept reality. 4. Apple TV Not the Apple TV device, not the Apple TV app, but rather the Apple TV subscription service . With wide recognition in both entertainment awards and pop culture in general, Apple TV had its best year yet. Severance season 2 had a good run, The Studio came out of nowhere and became an instant hit, F1 The Movie has been paying in aces all the investment and effort Apple put behind it to make it the hit that it is, and that’s not even mentioning the multiple nods at the Emmys, Golden Globes, and beyond. Apple TV has had its share of flops, but at this point, it is closer than ever to its original vision of becoming as much a symbol of quality TV as HBO enjoyed for the better part of the last few decades. 5. Liquid Glass While Liquid Glass stands firmly at the opposite end of the unanimity spectrum from the iPhone 17, I’m giving it the win. I don’t love what Liquid Glass...

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