Technologies

Getting Beaten by Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy Set Designer Was a Wild Ride

At Summer Game Fest, I got to play (and get schooled by) the man who turned Cloud, Sephiroth, Aerith, Terra, Yuna and others into Magic cards.

In an air-conditioned tent on a sweltering Los Angeles day at Summer Game Fest, I sat down to play a hand of the card game Magic: The Gathering and drew a handful of characters from Final Fantasy. Sitting across from me was the man who oversaw the process of turning some of the world’s most beloved video game characters into playable cards for what’s shaping up to be Magic’s most popular set ever — already a best seller a month before its release.

Magic: The Gathering is a storied collectible card game made by Wizards of the Coast that’s arguably more popular than it’s ever been since it debuted in 1993. In recent years, the game has ventured into the mainstream by adapting the most popular nerd properties, like Marvel superheroes, Warhammer 40K and Lord of the Rings, into playable cards. These Universes Beyond sets, as they’re called, have had special releases that make them legal only in select formats of the game — meaning you couldn’t bring them to play in tournaments with the most recent sets.

That all changes with the Final Fantasy set, whose cards feature every mainline game from the original Final Fantasy first released in 1987 to Final Fantasy 16 from 2023. The new set is being released in the Standard format, which means players will be able to bring the most famous characters, like Cloud, Sephiroth, Yuna, Lightning, Noctis and Y’shtola, in their decks to play in regular competitions alongside the other newest sets.

I’m no Magic scrub, but it’s been years since my teen days when I started collecting during the Urza’s Saga and Sixth Edition sets. The game has changed a lot since then, with new keywords and more powerful cards than ever, but the basics remain the same: Take a deck of cards with a mix of mana-generating lands, creatures, artifacts and other spells to battle against your opponent. Untap, upkeep, draw, play, combat, end phase.

As I sit across from Gavin Verhey, principal Magic: The Gathering game designer and set design lead for Final Fantasy, I’m daunted by the task of playing someone who literally oversaw the development of every card in my hand. But I’m comforted that, like me, he’s a huge fan of the Final Fantasy games, as was everyone on the team.

«The good news is we’ve been doing the homework for the past 30 years of our lives,» Verhey said. «I mean, we did play through the games, we all revisited the old ones.»

Though not everyone on Verhey’s team had played every one of the series’ games, collectively they’d covered them all. For instance, he’s never played the massively multiplayer online Final Fantasy 14, but he pointed to a colleague across the tent at a different table — «Dylan over here, he’s played thousands of hours of 14,» Verhey said.

Turning Final Fantasy icons into playable cards

The first official Universes Beyond set was Warhammer 40K in 2021, but Verhey told me Wizards of the Coast has been working on the Final Fantasy set for about five years, requiring a lot of back-and-forth from the card game maker and Square Enix to get all the details and translations right, along with the extensive design process to adapt the venerable property.

«What really helped us out was that Square Enix has huge Magic players,» Verhey said.

One of the challenges was to incorporate Final Fantasy 16, which was released in mid-2023, years into the Final Fantasy Magic set’s development. Verhey’s team had precious little time to incorporate the game.

«When it came out, we had a marathon weekend where we’re all gonna play through,» Verhey said. «We’re putting in the chat, we should make this a character, and this a card, and this a card. It was super fun.»

In preparation, Verhey had saved 10 card slots out of the 310-card set for Final Fantasy 16 cards. Their goal was to make sure every game had at least 10 cards and at least one of rare quality, to make sure fans could find some representation from their favorite games. Of course, some more-popular entries in the series got more cards, leading to more from Final Fantasy 6, 7, 10 and 14 — games that make their way on the lists of the best RPGs of all time.

But there were design directives Verhey held to make sure that players would recognize staples of the series even if they hadn’t played every game.

«When I was designing the set of common and uncommon cards, especially common, I wanted to put in things that were generic across many Final Fantasy games, so no matter which ones you played, you’d find a thing you recognize,» Verhey said. «If you’ve played any Final Fantasy game, or even any RPG, you’re like, Yep, there’s the weapons vendor, the item person, there’s the person greeting you when you come into town.»

Many of the most recognizable heroes, like Cloud and Sephiroth, are reserved for the rare and mythic rarity character cards, which are intentionally powerful, yet the latter of which show up only in one of every eight packs of cards. It’s a tough balance, Verhey said — but to make sure players still get these popular heroes in their decks, they splashed them into the art of common and uncommon cards for different spells, artifacts and enchantments. These often depict memorable moments in the games, including, perhaps most infamously, in Final Fantasy 6 where a martial arts character suplexes a train. (I’m not kidding. It’s really a card in the set.)

As I draw more cards, Verhey points out the many details his team made sure to pack into them, including a small indicator near the artist credit that says which game they came from. Even the simplest card in the game, a mana-producing land, evokes the moments and settings from Final Fantasy games — when I drew a basic plains (white) land, it showed the iconic car from Final Fantasy 15, the Regalia, driving up a road. I was instantly brought back to playing the game and its boys road trip adventure (which kicks off with one of the greatest intros of the series).

Designing Final Fantasy for Magic: The Gathering newcomers

If you have a friend who’s been into Magic: The Gathering, you’ve probably heard a lot about the Final Fantasy set already, and many newcomers are being drawn in by all the hype. I asked Verhey what design decisions they made to make the set as welcoming as they could for folks who’ve never played a game of Magic before (indeed, in addition to the interview, I and other Summer Game Fest attendees were offered introductory demos to learn Magic if we were totally new to the game).

«One of the things with Final Fantasy, and any Universes Beyond IP, that I think is amazing is we just start that conversation a little further down the road, because if you play Final Fantasy, I don’t need to explain health and mana and strategy and goals as much,» Verhey said.

Verhey also notes that the Starter Kit for the Final Fantasy set is a great entry point for new players, including two premade 60-card decks that are themed around Cloud and Sephiroth, as well as codes to redeem the decks in the Magic: The Gathering Arena online digital version of the game.

But the team also made design decisions to make the Final Fantasy set easier to grasp for newcomers, too.

«The mechanics in the set, many of them are things that are very approachable, like flashback [being able to cast some spells twice] and landfall mechanics [effects that trigger whenever you play land cards] that players know and have played with for ages,» Verhey said.

«The new mechanics are stuff like job select, which is a riff on living weapon from [Magic expansion] Mirrodin, which is kind of simple to understand: You get a token and put this [weapon] on it, right?» Verhey continued. «But the flavor really helps you with this because, Oh, it makes sense that a samurai katana would have a hero that comes with it and is holding the katana.»

That doesn’t mean the design process was seamless. Adapting some famous Final Fantasy heroes into a card game was occasionally tricky as Verhey’s team decided how best to translate their abilities onto a card, often going to the teammate who knew that particular game best. Verhey gave an example he had «a heck of a time with»: Kain Highwind, the best friend of the protagonist of Final Fantasy 4, who keeps switching sides with and against the party. After six different attempts at design concepts, he went to a co-worker who knew that game backward and forward, who sent Verhey a design that same day that ended up in the set: If the Kain, Traitorous Dragoon card deals damage to a player, they get control of him. Elegant.

Of the 310 cards in the set, there are some that Verhey is particularly proud of. Esper Terra is a version of the heroine of Final Fantasy 6 and one of the first Saga creatures, a new card type combination introduced in the set, which switches back and forth between normal hero and pumped-up esper (think summons or guardian forces in other FF games) for some turns. Another card, a version of Sephiroth (Fabled Soldier, which flips over to transform into One-Winged Angel), leaves a permanent emblem on the board to represent his lingering presence in Final Fantasy 7, always needling the heroes in that game.

How they balanced Final Fantasy cards for all Magic: The Gathering formats

Clearly, Magic can get complicated, and this intrinsic complexity of cards and interactions is a hallmark of high-tier play and fascinating deck strategies. By making the Final Fantasy set legal in Standard format, Wizards of the Coast is enabling it to affect mainstream play, including competitive tournaments that feature the latest sets before and after Final Fantasy. This includes debuting the aforementioned Saga creatures, which Verhey’s team developed as a way to embody some of the most powerful of Final Fantasy party abilities, like summons, that make a flashy impact for a turn or two. In development, the team tried out a «vanishing» mechanic where a summon-like creature would slowly die over several turns, which was read as a downside.

Instead, Saga creature cards balance that big impact with temporary presence, dependably swinging the pendulum of pressure back to your opponent — after all, you paid mana for something that goes away eventually — but presents an interesting dilemma: Does your opponent block it? Kill it? Spend a spell on it?

«We balanced [Saga creatures] using the power, toughness and abilities to make sure it would be appropriate, but I think more interesting is, once they’re in play, what happens? They really make gameplay interesting,» Verhey said.

As it was the first Universes Beyond set to be legal in Standard play, Verhey acknowledged that there was pressure to make sure they balanced it well. That meant putting it through the same play design process of other sets, like the recent Tarkir Dragonstorm, with ex-pro Magic players play-testing and iterating the cards. «We put our whole team on it for the balance portion,» Verhey said.

This process will be used for all future Universes Beyond sets, like the upcoming Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender sets, which will be similarly balanced and legal for Standard and other formats. Wizards of the Coast could always change their mind and pare this back for future sets, but making these new IP adaptations ready to play in tournaments and beyond is the plan for now.

How Final Fantasy pushes Magic: The Gathering into the future

Unsurprisingly, it’s challenging to pick the IPs to adapt. A separate team from Verhey and his designers chooses which recognizable properties to pick, and one of their filters is deciding whether it’s possible to bring to Magic in the first place. While harmonious, ambitious, aggressive and smart characters match white, black, red and blue mana identities, respectively, some IPs don’t have much to offer green, the color of earth and nature. Other requirements include enough characters and monsters that can make small, medium and large creatures or can fit Magic staples like flying creatures, which are important for supporting play environments like drafts.

Verhey and his team learned a ton from developing the Final Fantasy set, including tackling the arduous task of filtering all the characters into all five colors of mana in Magic, which define play-style and strategy. In the years developing this set, Verhey pioneered what he calls the «snapshot moment,» picking a crucial time in that character’s story for the card they’re making.

For example, there are multiple Sephiroth character cards. One is included in a Commander premade deck and is white and red mana, depicting a pivotal moment in Final Fantasy 7’s backstory when he discovers his past and angrily burns the town of Nibelheim to the ground. Another, a black mana card, is the Sephiroth that players encounter during the main plot of Final Fantasy 7 as the evil one-winged angel trying to destroy the world.

«They’re two very different moments of Sephiroth’s story that let us show different colors through them, and that separate method is what we’re going to definitely take forward and use in future Universes Beyond sets,» Verhey said.

It’s a perfect moment in our real-world game of Magic as I sit across from Verhey: He, running the blue and black deck of the Starter Kit, plays his Sephiroth creature card. Noticing he used all his mana, I use an instant spell to kill the villain on his turn, and a turn later, I play my Cloud card, swaggering with confidence that I turned the tide. Sadly, Verhey notices I overcommitted and plays a Magitek Scythe on one of his other creatures, which forces my Cloud to block and get killed. A turn later, he uses a spell card to resurrect Sephiroth to the battlefield and quickly overwhelms me — a fitting, Final Fantasy 7-appropriate end to our match.

Over the weekend, Verhey played a lot of Magic matches with many other Summer Game Fest attendees — some veterans, some newcomers to the game. And what he’s been noticing, this weekend and in the monthslong lead-up to the set’s release, is the joy when fans see cards of their favorite characters and moments from the games.

«I think the biggest thing is remembering that everything has fans,» Verhey said. «There’s 16 games we’re trying to cover here, and every game, people are like, Oh my gosh, this card from Final Fantasy 2 is in here. Or, I can’t believe this card from Final Fantasy 7 is in here. Or, I wish this character from Final Fantasy 8 was in here. People really do care about it, and the missing stuff is really noticed, is really relevant.»

Unfortunately, that meant cutting cards even Verhey wanted, like one for Eiko from Final Fantasy 9, as well as others left on the cutting room floor from Final Fantasy 4 and 5. (I was personally hopeful for more Final Fantasy 8 cards myself.) But within the tight constraints of trying to represent 16 games in a 310-card set, they still managed to cram in enough iconic scenes that respect the beloved idiosyncrasies of a video game series nearing its 40th birthday — things like, yes, being able to kill Final Fantasy 6’s Phantom Train with the Phoenix Down card.

«In this set, [someone asked,] ‘Hey, can you remove — I don’t know why it’s even there — killing an undead thing on your Phoenix Down?'» Verhey said. «I’m like, ‘Absolutely not. That is critical. You cannot touch this.'»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for June 15, #469

Here are hints and answers for NYT Strands puzzle No. 469 for June 15.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle celebrates Father’s Day, but in kind of an oddball way. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Here’s to him.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Dad food.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

DRAW, WARD, PAIR, SPARE, PORE, PADS, CLAY, PLUS, FORE, SCORE, CORE, CRAW, CORN, PATH

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

CHALUPA, CRAWDAD, POPCORN, POPSICLE, PAPARAZZI

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is FATHERSDAY. To find it, start with the F that’s five letters down on the first row to the left, and wind over.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for June 15, #265

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 265, for June 15.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition might be tough. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Sign on the dotted line.

Green group hint: Monaco Grand Prix.

Blue group hint: Just like dad.

Purple group hint: Three titles.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: People often involved in a contract negotiation.

Green group: F1 teams.

Blue group: Baseball father and son duos.

Purple group: NBA players to win titles with three different teams.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is people often involved in a contract negotiation. The four answers are agent, GM, owner and player.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is F1 teams. The four answers are Aston Martin, Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is baseball father and son duos. The four answers are Bonds, Griffey, Guerrero and Tatis.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is NBA players to win titles with three different teams. The four answers are Green, Horry, James and Salley.

Technologies

Liquid Glass, New Photos App and All the Other iOS 26 Features Coming to Your iPhone

The iPhone is poised to get a new look and improved features in iOS 26.

Your iPhone will soon look a lot different when iOS 26 (named for 2026) comes out in the fall, but there’s more to see under the frosted glass facade. Announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the latest version of the iPhone’s operating system incorporates some features iPhone owners have watched their Android friends enjoy, plus plenty of other enhancements.

For instance, the Camera and Photos apps are gaining long-awaited functional redesigns; the Messages and Phone apps are taking a firmer stand against unwanted texts and calls; and Apple Intelligence contributes some improvements in a year when Siri has been delayed. Here are the updates you can expect to see on the iPhone soon.

The next version of the operating system is due to ship in September or October (likely with new iPhone 17 models), but developer betas are available now, with a public beta expected in July.

Transparent new Liquid glass design

After more than a decade of a flat, clean user interface — an overhaul introduced in iOS 7 when former Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive took over the design of software as well as hardware — the iPhone is getting a new look. The new design extends throughout the Apple product lineup, from iOS to WatchOS, TVOS and iPadOS.

The Liquid Glass interface also now enables a third way to view app icons on the iPhone home screen. Not content with Light and Dark modes, iOS 26 now features an All Clear look — every icon is clear glass with no color. Lock screens can also have an enhanced 3D effect using spatial scenes, which use machine learning to give depth to your background photos.

Dynamic and adaptable lock screen

Translucency is the defining characteristic of Liquid Glass, behaving like glass in the real world in the way it deals with light and color of objects behind and near controls. But it’s not just a glassy look: The «liquid» part of Liquid Glass refers to how controls can merge and adapt — dynamically morphing, in Apple’s words. In the example Apple showed, the glassy time numerals on an iPhone lock screen stretched to accommodate the image of a dog and even shrunk as the image shifted to accommodate incoming notifications. The dock and widgets are now rounded, glassy panels that float above the background.

Camera and Photos apps go even more minimal

The Camera app is getting a new, simplified interface. You could argue that the current Camera app is pretty minimal, designed to make it quick to frame a shot and hit the big shutter button. But the moment you get into the periphery, it becomes a weird mix of hidden controls and unintuitive icons.

Now, the Camera app in iOS 26 features a «new, more intuitive design» that takes minimalism to the extreme. The streamlined design shows just two controls: Video or Camera. Swipe left or right to choose modes. Swipe up for settings such as aspect ratio and timers, and tap for additional preferences.

With the updated Photos app, viewing the pictures you capture should be a better experience — a welcome change that customers have clamored for since iOS 18’s cluttered attempt. Instead of a long, difficult-to-discover scrolling interface, Photos regains a Liquid Glass menu at the bottom of the screen.

The Phone app gets a revamp

The Phone app has kept more closely to the look of its source than others: a sparse interface with large buttons as if you’re holding an old-fashioned headset or pre-smartphone cellular phone. iOS 26 finally updates that look not just with the new overall interface but in a unified layout that takes advantage of the larger screen real estate on today’s iPhone models.

It’s not just looks that are different, though. The Phone app is trying to be more useful for dealing with actual calls — the ones you want to take. The Call Screening feature automatically answers calls from unknown numbers, and your phone rings only when the caller shares their name and reason for calling.

Or what about all the time wasted on hold? Hold Assist automatically detects hold music and can mute the music but keep the call connected. Once a live agent becomes available, the phone rings and lets the agent know you’ll be available shortly.

Messages updates

The Messages app is probably one of the most used apps on the iPhone, and for iOS 26, Apple is making it a more colorful experience. You can add backgrounds to the chat window, including dynamic backgrounds that show off the new Liquid Glass interface.

In addition to the new look, group texts in Messages can incorporate polls for everyone in the group to reply to — no more scrolling back to find out which restaurant Brett suggested for lunch that you missed. Other members in the chat can also add their own items to a poll.

A more useful feature is a feature to detect spam texts better and screen unknown numbers, so the messages you see in the app are the ones you want to see and not the ones that distract you.

Safari gets out of its own way

In the Safari app, the Liquid Glass design floats the tab bar above the web page (although that looks right where your thumb is going to be, so it will be interesting to see if you can move the bar to the top of the screen). As you scroll, the tab bar shrinks.

FaceTime focuses on calls, not controls

FaceTime also gets the minimal look, with controls in the lower-right corner that disappear during the call to get out of the way. On the FaceTime landing page, posters of your contacts, including video clips of previous calls, are designed to make the app more appealing.

New Music app features

Do you like the sound of that song your friend is playing but don’t understand the language the lyrics are in? The Music app includes a new lyrics translation feature that displays along with the lyrics as the song plays. And for when you want to sing along with one of her favorite K-pop songs, for example, but you don’t speak or read Korean, a lyrics pronunciation feature spells out the right way to form the sounds.

AutoMix blends songs like a DJ, matching the beat and time-stretching for a seamless transition.

And if you find yourself obsessively listening to artists and albums again and again, you can pin them to the top of your music library for quick access.

New Games app is a reminder that yes, people game on iPhone

The iPhone doesn’t get the same kind of gaming affection as Nintendo’s Switch or Valve’s Steam Deck, but the truth is that the iPhone and Android phones are used extensively for gaming — Apple says half a billion people play games on iPhone.

Trying to capitalize on that, a new Games app acts as a specific portal to Apple Arcade and other games. Yes, you can get to those from the App Store app, but the Games app is designed to remove a layer of friction so you can get right to the gaming action.

Live translation enhances calls and texts

Although not specific to iOS, Apple’s new live translation feature is ideal on the iPhone when you’re communicating with others. It uses Apple Intelligence to dynamically enable you to talk to someone who speaks a different language in near-real time. It’s available in the Messages, FaceTime and Phone apps and shows live translated captions during a conversation.

Maps gets more personal

Updates to the Maps app sometimes involve adding more detail to popular areas or restructuring the way you store locations. Now, the app takes note of routes you travel frequently and can alert you of any delays before you get on the road.

It also includes a welcome feature for those of us who get our favorite restaurants mixed up: visited places. The app notes how many times you’ve been to a place, be that a local business, eatery or tourist destination. It organizes them in categories or other criteria such as by city to make them easier to find the next time.

New CarPlay features

Liquid Glass also makes its way to CarPlay in your vehicle, with a more compact design when a call comes in that doesn’t obscure other items, such as a directional map. In Messages, you can apply tapbacks and pin conversations for easy access.

Widgets are now part of the CarPlay experience, so you can focus on just the data you want, like the current weather conditions. And Live Activities appear on the CarPlay screen, so you’ll know when that coffee you ordered will be done or when a friend’s flight is about to arrive.

Wallet improvements

The Wallet app is already home for using Apple Card, Apple Pay, electronic car keys and for storing tickets and passes. In iOS 26, you can create a new Digital ID that acts like a passport for age and identity verification (though it does not replace a physical passport) for domestic travel for TSA screening at airports.

The app can also let you use rewards and set up installment payments when you purchase items in a store, not just for online orders. And with the help of Apple Intelligence, the Wallet app can help you track product orders, even if you did not use Apple Pay to purchase them. It can pull details such as shipping numbers from emails and texts so that information is all in one place.

New features powered by Apple Intelligence

Although last year’s WWDC featured Apple Intelligence features heavily, improvements to the AI tech were less prominent this year, folded into the announcements during the WWDC keynote.

As an alternative to creating Genmoji from scratch, you can combine existing emojis — «like a sloth and a light bulb when you’re the last one in the group chat to get the joke,» to use Apple’s example. You can also change expressions in Genmoji of people you know that you’ve used to create the image.

Image Playground adds the ability to tap into ChatGPT’s image generation tools to go beyond the app’s animation or sketch styles.

Visual Intelligence can already use the camera to try to decipher what’s in front of the lens. Now the technology works on the content on the iPhone’s screen, too. It does this by taking a screenshot (press the sleep and volume up buttons) and then including a new Image Search option in that interface to find results across the web or in other apps such as Etsy.

This is also a way to add event details from images you come across, like posters for concerts or large gatherings. (Perhaps this could work for QR codes as well?) In the screenshot interface, Visual Intelligence can parse the text and create an event in the Calendar app.

Some iOS 26 updates Apple didn’t mention

Not everything fits into a keynote presentation — even, or maybe especially, when it’s all pre-recorded — but some of the more interesting new features in iOS 26 went unremarked during the big reveal. For instance:

If you have AirPods or AirPods Pro with the H2 chip, you can use AirPods Camera Remote to start recording video on your iPhone by pressing and holding one of the AirPods.
You can choose your own snooze duration of between 1 and 15 minutes for alarms.
Audio recording options have expanded, enabling high-quality recording during conference calls and high-definition recording in the Camera app with AirPods and AirPods Pro that contain the H2 chip.
Accessibility features include an «all-new experience designed with Braille users in mind,» more options for the Vehicle Motion Cues feature to avoid motion sickness and «a more customizable reading experience.»
Reminders uses Apple Intelligence to «suggest tasks, grocery items and follow-ups based on emails or other text on your device.»
The Journal app supports multiple journals, inline images and a map view that tracks where journal entries were made.
Parental controls have been updated in unspecified ways, including «enhancements across Communication Limits, Communication Safety and the App Store.»

iOS 26 availability

The finished version of iOS 26 will be released in September or October with new iPhone 17 models. In the meantime, developers will get access to the first developer betas starting on Monday, with an initial public beta arriving in July. (Don’t forget to go into any beta software with open eyes and clear expectations.)

Follow the WWDC 2025 live blog for details about Apple’s announcements.