The Phone and FaceTime apps haven’t gotten as many new features as some of Apple’s other apps, but there are a handful of features that add utility and convenience.
Phone app
The Phone application has a major update: Call Context. When you call a business, the Phone app can display relevant information from the Mail app.
If you call an airline, they may display your confirmation code for an upcoming flight or your reservation code if you call a hotel. It doesn’t listen to what you say, but looks at the number you’re calling and links it to details in the Mail app.
Call Context is an Apple Intelligence feature that runs entirely on-device and requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. This also works when you make a phone call from your iPad or Mac.
FaceTime
FaceTime has a few new features, but the biggest one is Dual Capture. On iPhone 17 and iPhone Air models, you can use the front and rear cameras at the same time during a FaceTime call.
The person you are calling can see your face and what is displayed through the rear camera.
You can enable Dual Capture on a supported iPhone by pressing the camera roll button. If you only want to view the rear camera feed, you can tap to turn off the front camera view.
Although video streaming with Dual Capture is limited to iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air and newer, anyone running iOS 27 can see a dual video stream during a FaceTime call because there are no hardware requirements for the receiving device.
There are a few other cool features to know about:
- Connection quality – When you have a poor connection, FaceTime calls will now be of better quality than before.
- Wi-Fi/cellular – In iOS 27, iPhones are better at switching from a Wi-Fi connection to a cellular connection and vice versa, so you’ll lose connection less often when moving between networks.
- Live subtitles – Live subtitles are now available in Traditional Chinese.
- Communications security – Communications Security blocks blood and violence in FaceTime and messages instead of just nudity.
Launch of iOS 27
iOS 27 is currently in beta testing and can be downloaded by developers and public beta testers. It will launch this fall alongside new iPhone models.
Learn more
To learn more about the new features in iOS 27, we have a dedicated iOS 27 roundup.
