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

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 currently looks like, but I did like its original vision.

And while I can obviously see that Apple’s original concept didn’t exactly translate to real-world usability, I do think it currently looks better than Apple’s prior visual language (and much better than the over-correction Apple made during the early iOS 26 beta stages).

It was time for a visual shake-up. And much like the iOS 7 visual shake-up before it, the mere existence of Liquid Glass is already prompting the rest of the market to try a little harder than sticking to the boring, no-design-personality-at-all-is-actually-just-Apple-like-minimalism that became the market-wide default for the past few years.

The bad

1. iPhone Air

It is a shame, but it’s time to call a spade a spade. The iPhone Air was an interesting idea. I like it. It looks cool, it was an increasingly rare instance of Apple actually trying something different, and it might even be the future of what all iPhones may eventually look like.

But a success, it is not, even if you consider the old “not every iPhone can be the best-selling model” trope.

Whether it was the single camera, or battery life concerns, or the price, or even the fact that the iPhone 17 looks even more appealing by comparison, it looks like this first iteration of the iPhone Air sadly didn’t resonate well with the public at large. Here’s to a better-received iPhone Air 2.

2. The overall state of Apple’s hardware design

I do understand the irony of having this item come right after clocking the iPhone Air as lackluster. But I also just said that it doesn’t look like the problem with the iPhone Air was its design.

Be it as it may, the fact of the matter is that Apple’s overall hardware design has been stagnant for the better part of the last decade. Yes, there have been some changes and experiments with materials, and some products did get a few tweaks here and there. But Apple seems to have completely lost the urge to be creative with its hardware.

It may be because it’s hard to be too creative when you operate at the scale that it does now (which feels like a cop out), or it may be because most Apple products have landed at their optimal configuration, and any change would be easily decried as change for change’s sake (also a cop out). But Apple’s hardware and industrial design feels asleep at the wheel, starting with the fact that Apple hasn’t had a proper industrial designer lead since 2022.

The iPad is generally ending 2025 as it began. So is the Apple Watch. So is the Mac. So is the Apple Vision Pro. And so is the iPhone, Air notwithstanding. Hardware design-wise, 2025 will likely not be remembered as a good year. In fact, it will likely not be remembered at all.

3. The leadership vacuum

Here’s something that has become increasingly clear over the years: Tim Cook’s Apple just sucks at fomenting talent from within.

Very few of the last high-profile leadership changes had a clear succession plan in place. More often than not, outgoing leaders have their roles extinguished, with their responsibilities being split between other leaders. Until these leaders also leave, that is. At which point, their responsibilities get split between other leaders. That’s how industrial design landed directly under Tim Cook.

And speaking of Cook, even Apple’s top spot is suffering from this lack of succession nurturing, as it increasingly looks like John Ternus (who is fantastic at what he does) might inherit the job by walkover. And even so, as The Information recently reported:

But some people close to Apple don’t believe Ternus is ready to take on such a high-profile role, and that could make a succession announcement unlikely anytime soon, said people familiar with the company.

4. Apple Vision Pro

This device also falls squarely under the “it’s a shame” category, alongside the iPhone Air. But two years in, the Apple Vision Pro is still a very, very, very costly pet project that is trying to will a viable market into existence.

The Apple Vision Pro embodies the dichotomy of being the best flop that Apple has ever released. Every aspect of its software and hardware is just short of a technological miracle. But the world’s resounding yawn in response to its second version is a heartbreaking tell that not all technological marvels get their day in the sun.

If Apple had applied half of what it spent on this project to more urgent matters, Apple Intelligence might have had a fighting chance over the last few years.

5. iPad

Most people wouldn’t know it, but Apple released two iPads in 2025.

Paired with iPadOS 26, they’re fine devices in their own right, but 2025 felt like an off year for the iPad, much like 2024 and literally 2023, which saw zero iPads released.

2025 was by no means a terrible year for the iPad, but that’s thanks mainly to iPadOS 26. Hardware-wise, 2025 will hardly be remembered as having any significance to the entire iPad line. If you’re not moving forward…

The ugly

1. Apple Intelligence

At this point, it is impossible to believe that Apple knew what it was doing when it promised all that it showcased during WWDC24, particularly because I don’t believe the company would outright lie about what it had planned for the iOS 18 cycle. Apple actually believed it would deliver, which goes to show it had no idea how far behind it really was in developing these features.

Almost two years later, it feels like Apple is actually further away from delivering on these promises than it was when it first made them. Everything about Apple Intelligence is a disappointing dumpster fire, including the fact that it’s the end of 2025, and the company is in the early days of, again, rebooting its entire division, which has nothing to show for its work.

Apple is filled with talented engineers who work on fantastic technologies, frameworks, and even machine learning models and studies. I’ve covered many of them almost weekly for the better part of the last year. But when it comes specifically to Apple Intelligence, and what the company explicitly told the world that it was going to do, there’s no getting around it: This is one of the most shameful public fumbles to ever come out of Cupertino, and 2025 was all but yet another lost year.

2. The brain drain

Over the last year, but particularly in the last six months, it was hard to go an entire week without reading about yet another top researcher, engineer, or designer being hired away by Meta, OpenAI, or even unknown startups.

Given the leadership vacuum, the lack of creative urgency or drive, and everything about Apple Intelligence, it’s hard to blame them. But up until very recently, it would have been a tall order to make anybody believe that Apple was having a hard time keeping talent who’d rather work for Mark Zuckerberg than for Apple.

Yes, Apple still has more than 150.000 workers, and Silicon Valley was built on talented workers constantly changing jobs. But what was the last time you heard about an unstoppable influx of talent to Cupertino, rather than a relentless exodus? The amount of talent that Apple let slip in 2025 will take years to rebuild, and for many of these divisions, Apple didn’t have the luxury of time to begin with.

3. Tim Cook’s knee-bending

Yes, Tim Cook is doing exactly what he needs to do as the CEO of one of the biggest technology companies in the US and the world. He’s dutifully protecting the interests of Apple’s shareholders and looking out for the long-term well-being of the company, and I honestly believe he’s hating every minute of it.

But from here on out, he’s just going to dance to the music until the music stops, and he’s done trying to hide it.

Still, none of that makes it less depressing and disappointing to watch him have to neuter many of Apple’s fundamental principles, or else.

4. Regulatory battles

“All these antitrust and DMAs stories are so much fun!” said nobody, ever.

Apple is fighting a losing battle on multiple fronts, and the entire company knows it. But like Tim Cook, Apple’s legal team is doing exactly the job it needs to do to protect the company’s interests. Which is not to say they’re wrong.

Many regulatory probes and decisions have gone way overboard, so Apple needs to counter with the same intensity and relentlessness. Apple is not and has never been a charity.

But for better or for worse, these stories are a constant reminder that under all the heartwarming stories and inspiring communication, Apple is run on the same spreadsheets and incentives as many of the companies it spends fortunes trying to keep away from its users.

5. That’s enough negativity

Let’s talk Apple Silicon instead, which is by far one of the best things Apple has ever released. While 2025 didn’t bring mind-blowing news in the Apple Silicon front, that’s because this entire division has been riding high for so long that we probably got too used to it.

Although we’ll likely never see performance gains as in the first years that Apple moved away from Intel, the fact that most Apple Silicon Macs offer more headroom than most users will need for years to come is exactly how these things should go. Even if we only see marginal performance gains in the next few years, that builds on top of some of the best gains the industry has ever seen.

Apple Silicon is probably the best thing to have ever come out of Cupertino, and that includes the Apple polishing cloth.

Just kidding. Nothing beats the Apple polishing cloth.

What are your picks for Apple’s highs and lows for 2025? Let us know in the comments.

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