Apple’s iOS 19 Could Completely Redesign Your iPhone Screen 2025

Don’t get too comfortable with the look of your iPhone app screen with the latest iOS 18 update. One of our most reliable sources for Apple rumors and leaks said the next iPhone update won’t just offer users a way to tint their app icons, like iOS 18 offered. Apple reportedly aims to rework how you use and navigate the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Strangely enough, the new design will supposedly take cues from the red-headed stepchild of Apple’s hardware lineup, the Vision Pro.

Apple could show off these new layouts at WWDC, which normally takes place in June. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, based on anonymous sources, apps could appear in circular icons with translucent panels, very much like they currently appear in the app menu on Vision Pro’s visionOS 2. The goal is to make everything look and function more consistently across Apple’s three main product lines: iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

I hate to be that guy, but circular app icons sound like what Android has going on. We’ll have to wait and see what’s truly different with Apple’s next big software release. The codename for iOS and iPadOS 19 is “Luck,” and the fact the two are being combined into one implies that the iPad could start to behave more like the iPhone, at least in terms of how you use and manage your apps. The current version of iPadOS allows for three modes of operation: regular, split screen, or stage manager—the latter offers the easiest way of managing multiple windows at once. Still, apps and widgets on the main screen already function virtually identically to the iPhone.

Gurman said this will be the biggest update to iPhone since iOS 17 in 2013. The new version of macOS 16 is named “Cheer,” but it’s unclear exactly how Mac will be different under the new update. Apple could change how your quick-access apps and software on your Dock look by making the icons appear like bubbles on the bottom of the screen.

The iOS 18 update finally lets users change the look, size, and color of app icons, and we hope Apple maintains those functions going into iOS 19. Apple’s visionOS is getting better over time. The most recent update allows for easier guest mode access and the ability to stream what other people see inside the headset. According to Gurman’s sources, visionOS 3 will offer a whole slate of new features, and it could premiere alongside the rest of Apple’s lineup at WWDC 2025.

Apple has to turn people’s attention away from the fact that it’s promised Apple Intelligence features—namely the cross-app capable, AI-enhanced Siri, won’t be around for 2025. The Cupertino, California-based tech giant told Daring Fireball late last week it was “going to take us longer than we thought” to bring us the better Siri. Those features will be rolling out “in the coming year.” Adding to the sense of schadenfreude, Apple then took down its ad featuring The Last of Us actor Bella Ramsey, showing off those promised Siri features.

Initial reports hinted that Apple was aiming for an April release date for iOS 18.4 or iOS 18.5 to feature the new AI capabilities. Bloomberg reported that Apple pulled it after execs—including the company’s senior VP of software, Craig Federighi—tried it and found it failed to live up to any of their expectations. That makes sense, as most AI products have so far failed to live up to our expectations as well.