Don’t get too excited by those iOS 19 mock-ups — they’re probably not accurate

By Willow Roberts Published March 26, 2025

Everyone is getting hyped about the big design changes reportedly coming to iOS 19 this year — so when Jon Prosser shared a mock-up based on an iMessage screen he claimed to have seen for himself, we all got excited.

A few hours later, however, the biggest Apple tipster of them all, Mark Gurman, shared a post on X addressing the images.

iOS 19 images floating around aren’t representative of what we’ll see at WWDC. They look to be based on either very old builds or vague descriptions, missing key features. Expect more from Apple in June. Regardless, mockups – real or not – are always exciting for Apple watchers.

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 25, 2025

According to his information, recent mock-ups are “not representative” of what Apple is going to show us at WWDC. Instead, he thinks they’ve been made based on older builds or vague second-hand information.

Gurman isn’t really the type to share mock-ups himself, but it’s useful to hear his opinion on the ones floating around. He also makes sure to end the post on a positive note — commenting on how exciting mock-ups are for Apple fans. Though he doesn’t agree with the images he’s seen recently, he clearly doesn’t want to discourage people from sharing their thoughts or the information they’ve heard.

The most widely accepted rumor going around right now about iOS 19 is that it will be loosely based on visionOS. As some of the biggest differences between visionOS and other Apple operating systems are the circular icons and translucent panels, that’s what people are expecting to see on their iPhones later this year.

As for what I’m expecting to see — remember that iOS 18 feature that lets you tint the color of your app icons? I was so excited when it was announced, until it finally arrived and I discovered that the background color is always black. I’m not saying we should get free choice for both colors (though maybe we should?) but at the very least we should get to choose between black or white for the background color.

I’m a pastel color person — I can’t do anything with a black background. I had to ignore the whole feature completely and just keep my “shortcuts with custom images” setup. I can’t even describe the disappointment I felt. So, Apple, do whatever you want with circular icons and all that — just make sure you give me an expanded version of the app tint feature too.