iOS 19 ‘leak’ shows new icons, shimmery buttons, and lots of glass

Fans of tedious online drama will be pleased to hear that the great iOS 19 rumor feud has escalated. YouTube comedian Jon Prosser has hit back at Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman in a new video that offers an unprecedentedly thorough look at iOS 19, this year’s major iPhone software update, and appears to contradict Prosser’s own previous claims that it will be a dull release with few design changes.

Until now, the dispute has appeared clear-cut: Gurman thinks we can expect to see a significant redesign at WWDC in June (he called iOS 19 “one of the biggest iOS updates–if not the biggest–in the company’s history”) while Prosser has been more skeptical, appearing on a podcast to say he wasn’t impressed by the build he’d tried, and showing off screenshots of first-party apps that didn’t seem to have changed very much. Gurman in turn responded to this by insisting Prosser was working from an unrepresentative older version and that the final update would be more impressive.

But now the battle lines have become blurrier. Prosser has released a new video that specifically criticizes and repeatedly mocks Gurman even though the substance of the video favors Gurman’s view that we’re heading for a major redesign rather than his own. Having been stung by the accusations, Prosser claims to have explored the latest build of iOS 19 and discovered a range of significant visual changes, some of which he says were hidden from casual view and had to be activated to be visible.

Take the app icons, for example. Many pundits claim these are going to change from the classic squircle to a circle, like on visionOS. Until now, Prosser has indicated otherwise–but he now says that when you press and hold on a squircle icon in iOS 19, it switches to a new shape. Not a perfect circle, at least in the build he used, but definitely something rounder. Prosser expresses uncertainty around this, and says Apple could go for full circles by the time summer comes around. (My take is that the icons in the renders he shares look distinctly odd in this hallway house look, and Apple will change either the shape of the icon or what’s depicted inside it before WWDC.) The one thing he says we know for certain is that the icons are changing in some way.

But there are other design changes in the offing. Screen elements have been tweaked to have rounder corners to match the new icons. Sliders are thinner. There seem to be more animations, with many elements reminiscent, Prosser says, of the look of the Dynamic Island. Persistent tabs appear at the bottom of many first-party apps. Some buttons, such as the default camera and flashlight on the Lock Screen, have new shimmer effects when you move the device, and the system-wide glass-like effect predicted by Gurman appears to be in full effect.

To be clear, the changes, while numerous and wide-ranging, do appear to be cosmetic rather than structural. Later in the video, Prosser says this is wise, given that the iPhone itself is going to get a different look this year (albeit not a very different look), and less tech-savvy users would be put off by major changes to both hardware and software at the same time. (I agree that fundamental change would be a bad idea.) But Gurman never said the underlying structure of iOS would change either: he said it wouldn’t be “a total overhaul that mirrors visionOS.” Unless there’s some nuance I’m missing, the pundits appear to be in acrimonious agreement.

Mark Gurman and Jon Prosser are two of the biggest names in the Apple rumors game right now, but approach things very differently. The former writes up his predictions in the serious prose style one would expect from a Bloomberg reporter, whereas the latter makes videos sprinkled with smash cuts, silly voices, and toilet humor. They each have a decent track record of accurate predictions interspersed with occasional errors. Until now, it’s looked like at least one would have their record marred by a major misstep this year… but now perhaps they find themselves in closer agreement than expected.

For all the latest news and rumors as we head up to the announcements this summer, check out our regularly updated iOS 19 and WWDC 2025 superguides.