14 Ways Apple Improves Messages in iOS 27

Apple, at this year’s WWDC, emphasized that its approach to developing iOS 27 was to add fewer new features and improve existing ones. Examples of this approach can be seen throughout the operating system, but it’s arguably most evident in the upcoming changes to Messages.

That’s not to say there’s nothing original in Messages in iOS 27. For example, a new Apple Intelligence feature brings content-aware suggestions directly into conversations. If someone asks for photos, for example, Messages can recognize what’s being discussed and suggest searching your photo library, using details like people, places and keywords to bring up relevant images.

The app can also detect when a conversation would benefit from creating a reminder or note and offer a shortcut to do so without leaving the chat thread. Apple also integrates drawing tools directly into Messages, allowing users to create and share hand-drawn sketches within conversations.

Otherwise, Apple has focused on the following improvements and enhancements to its broader Messages platform:

• Faster loading of messages: Large conversations, especially those with years of history and thousands of attachments, should load and scroll faster.
• Improved synchronization between devices: Apple says messages, reading states, reactions, and attachments sync more reliably and faster between iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro.
• Find unloaded media in Messages: The search may bring up photos and videos that have been offloaded from local storage and stored in iCloud.
• Thumbnails of unloaded media: Offloaded photos and videos now get visible preview thumbnails instead of generic placeholders, making it easier to identify old media.
• Personalized Smart Reply Suggestions: Smart reply suggestions generated by Apple Intelligence can now reflect a user’s writing style, making suggested replies more natural and personal.
• Consolidated notifications for multiple Tapbacks: Multiple reactions to a message are grouped into a single notification rather than generating separate alerts.
• Continuous sending of photos, videos and texts: Messages continue to be sent in the background and automatically resume when connectivity returns, reducing interrupted sends.
• Search conversations by phone number or nickname: Conversation search now works with saved nicknames and phone numbers, not just contact names.
• Faster access to recent camera captures: Recently captured photos and videos appear faster in the Messages media picker.
• Failed messages automatically retry to be sent: Messages that fail due to temporary network issues will automatically attempt to be resent without user intervention.

Early adopters of iOS 27 will have access to the public beta next month, where they can test the new features and improvements for themselves. Apple is expected to release a general release in the fall.