Apple’s big software extravaganza, WWDC25, starts on Monday morning, June 9. All the rumors point to a complete new look, the biggest design overhaul in more than a decade. So, what will the app icons look like?

Those app icons have gone through several evolutions already. In the first iPhone software released in 2007, the icons were square, with curved edges and a design that made them look 3D, as though they were slightly domed.

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Then, with iOS 7 in 2015, Apple ditched these icons for a layered, flatter look. And the shape of the square subtly changed.

For the new update, iOS 16 as it’s thought it will be called, there have been plenty of rumors about how the app icons — after all, the essential way to navigate a smartphone — will transform again.

Many have suggested the icons will become circular. That makes a kind of sense, as the new OS is believed to have drawn inspiration from the Apple Vision Pro’s visionOS software.

However, a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has news about exactly what the app icons will look like.

“While there has been speculation that the app icons will be round to match the style on the Apple Watch and Vision Pro, the shape is staying largely the same on the iPhone and iPad,” he says.

“Largely” may be the key word. It sounds to me that the icons will remain essentially square with curved corners, but the shape of the corners will change, again. The move from iOS 6 to iOS 7 meant that the straight lines turned to curves further in, that is, the corners were, well, curvier.

This time, perhaps the corners will change in the other direction.

What’s clear, though, is that the expectation of circular icons is rejected by Gurman.

This makes sense to me: for circular icons sit nicely together, you could choose a galaxy of apps like you have on the Apple Watch, but that wouldn’t work for the iPhone. Every mock-up I’ve seen with round apps jarred for me. Everything will be revealed in a matter of hours.

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