Apple finally introduced iOS 27 to iPhone users at this year’s WWDC. This next software update, which will be available on iPhone 11 or later, will be released later this fall. While iOS 26 was responsible for introducing the all-new Liquid Glass design, which the company called the biggest iPhone UI design update since iOS 7, iOS 27 aims to improve the interface, Apple Intelligence features with an all-new Siri, new editing tools for the Photos app and much more. Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said iOS 27 delivers on long promises made at WWDC 2024 with a new push from Apple Intelligence.
His exact words were: “We are delivering the next generation of Apple Intelligence on our platforms; we introduce Siri AI, a profoundly more intelligent, competent and capable Siri; we’re expanding child safety features with new, intuitive tools for families; and we’re making our software platforms faster, more reliable and more enjoyable than ever. » That being said, the iOS 27 developer beta begins now, with a public beta planned for July. While these early releases are focused on those preparing their apps for the new software, here are some of the best features coming to iPhone this fall that Apple is already previewing.
The all-new Siri is (almost) here
After two years of delays, Apple has finally revealed the promised next-generation Siri. The personal assistant now lives in the dynamic island of the iPhone and is more proactive than ever. More than just a UI tweak, this new Siri is powered by custom Google Gemini models that use Apple’s Private Cloud Compute. With this, the personal assistant can finally mine user data by checking apps like Messages, Calendar, Mail, Phone, Podcasts, Music, etc. This way, if you want to be reminded of “that song” a friend showed you a few weeks ago, Siri can proactively go through your messages and discover that Apple Music shared with you.
Apple calls this new generation of Siri Siri AI, and it makes apps smarter and more useful. With Apple Foundation Models, now deeply integrated with Google Gemini, Apple Intelligence and Siri can understand text, voice, images and more. For example, among the improvements, Siri offers greater accuracy when dictating, better language understanding, and an all-new Siri app that works like a ChatGPT-like app where you can access previous and current conversations, change how the personal assistant speaks to you in English, and more.
Apple says this new Siri will be ready for developers to try now and will launch as a beta for customers later this year, meaning the company will continue to explore its AI efforts as a beta product, instead of calling it a final offering.
The Photos app has three powerful editing tools
Still talking about Apple Intelligence, Apple has enhanced the Photos app with new and improved features, including cleaning, enlarging, and spatial cropping. With iOS 27, users will see a new Tools toggle when editing a photo, which is powered by a new generation of its Image Templates. For example, Clean Up is much better at handling tougher objects in the background, making it easier to spot what you want to remove from the photo without significantly altering its appearance.
Not only that, but the new Expand and Spatial Recading also go further than what the company has previously said about using AI to edit images. With Expand, as the name suggests, users can enlarge the background, making it look like a portrait photo was taken in landscape mode. This feature is also important with the new spatial crop.
Using technology introduced with Apple Vision Pro, users can crop the photo by slightly changing the angle at which the photo was taken. With this, the photo can be centered, realigned, and then users can take advantage of the “Enlarge” feature to recreate the background of the original photo and, as Apple described it, feel like the user is “going back in time” to adjust the photo.
Liquid glass is getting better and overall performance is better
After the big release of Liquid Glass in 2025, Apple is now making its first big change with iOS 27. This modified version offers better readability across all platforms as it features “more uniform refraction and improved contrast.” In general, Apple has improved contrast, made app icons sharper, and even added an extra layer of detail in some of them, like the Apple Maps app. To ensure everyone has a more enjoyable experience, Apple is adding a new slider allowing users to decide whether the experience should be lighter, tinted, or somewhere in between. This is a long-standing feature request, and it’s coming later this fall.
Besides that, the sixth most important update of iOS 27, which continues to support the same iPhone models from iOS 26, is that everything seems smoother in general. Although newer models may become more noticeable, Apple says it makes iOS faster, as apps can launch 30% faster, new photos load up to 70% faster, and AirDrop transfers can be up to 80% faster. Apple says it was able to improve the CPU Scheduler, a system component that makes older iPhones more responsive, so owners of the latest devices will feel like their iPhones are flying faster, but even owners of older models will still get a nice performance boost.
Visual Intelligence Improvements and More
The seventh improvement available with iOS 27 concerns visual intelligence. As the new Siri becomes much more convenient, visual intelligence gets several new tweaks with a new “Siri in-camera mode.” According to Apple, you can use this new tool to understand a food’s nutritional score, what it’s made of, intelligently split the bill by selecting what you had, and even select and add multiple events to your calendar from a flyer. Another cool feature announced is that it will be easier to switch between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, and iOS will intelligently switch to the strongest connection.
Additionally, a later improvement feature of iOS 27 that is worth listing is that when you send a bunch of photos or videos to your friends, but your internet connection is not good, sending your conversation will not be delayed, because text messages will be prioritized, while the rest goes by. Other big tweaks include the fact that Shared Albums now supports full resolution sharing and AirPods now bring custom EQ, so users can customize the frequencies of their headphones to make the sound much closer to what they enjoy.
Safari, Shortcuts, Passwords and Home apps are even better
Safari finally organizes pages by theme. This feature is available in several browsers, like Opera One, and Apple says it’s all done locally. Among Safari’s improvements, you can also ask Siri to monitor a page with a new “Notify You.” For example, you can keep an eye on a sold-out product, concert tickets, or even airline ticket changes, because Safari will notify you when something changes on that page.
If you’ve always wanted to create multiple shortcuts, but the Shortcuts app always seemed too demanding, the new Siri also lets you describe, with natural speech, what you want the shortcut to do. For example, you might say that you want to send your estimated arrival time to a family member every time you leave work. Instead of going through complex steps, the Shortcuts app will do everything for you. And now the Passwords app can finally update your compromised passwords.
While it doesn’t work with all apps, at least Apple responds to those annoying notifications that an account might be compromised by doing the hard work of logging in for you, changing and updating the password. Finally, the Home app now also lets you record 4K footage in select home security cameras. It also saves clips you might be interested in and provides real-time updates about someone visiting your home, but without sending the same notification over and over again.
