iOS 27 Guide: All the new features coming to compatible iPhones, 2026 release date and more

What’s New in iOS 27 at a Glance

• Siri AI: Apple’s new Siri AI combines personal context, onscreen awareness and web knowledge to deliver more natural conversations, richer answers, app actions and cross-device chat history.
• Apple Intelligence across apps: Apple Intelligence expands across Safari, Photos, Messages, Mail, Calendar, Home and Shortcuts, adding smarter suggestions, automation, image generation and context-aware assistance.
• Smarter Photos editing: Photos gains Spatial Reframing, Extend and an upgraded Clean Up tool, allowing users to improve composition, expand images and remove distractions more naturally.
• Child safety and parental controls: New parental controls include Ask to Browse, Time Allowances, app schedules and enhanced Communication Safety tools designed to give parents more control.
• Safari and productivity upgrades: Safari can organise tabs, monitor webpages and build extensions from descriptions, while Passwords, Calendar and Shortcuts gain powerful new AI-powered capabilities.

Design and interface changes coming in iOS 27

Apple has done a lot of work on under-the hood technical stuff like display updates, the CPU scholar, wireless connectivity, and more. Apps load faster, Airdrop and external drive transfers are sped up, and photos are added to your library more rapidly.

There are improvements to the interface, too. A slider lets you adjust the transparency of Liquid Glass, and updated app icons add depth and color so they appear more distinct.

Apple has addressed dozens of common user requests and complaints, sweating the details to make iOS 27 more responsive and less frustrating, including a new more powerful search index.

Siri AI in iOS 27

Apple

The new Siri is called “Siri AI” and is built on a brand new Apple Intelligence foundation model that brings together personal context from all the data on your iPhone, understanding of what is on the screen, and new image generation and understanding.

There’s a new Siri voice that is much more human and expressive, and new controls for you to adjust the pace and expressiveness to your taste.

A new Siri app gives you history of your conversations, and all Apple’s cloud processing is built for privacy and security by default.

Trust and Safety

Apple

There are lots of improvements for parental controls, including new time allowances for entertainments, games, and social media, and new schedule tools for different times of day or days of the week.

This includes new features like an expansion of the existing “ask to buy” feature for apps to websites. Before a child can view a new website, they’ll have to ask for permission.

Apple Intelligence across apps

The new Apple Intelligence model isn’t just for the new Siri. Safari will organize tabs into topics and watch webpages for you to notify you when they change. You can even use natural language to describe a Safari extension you want and it’ll build it.

Photos gets improved Clean Up and new Extend and Reframe tools, Passwords can update expired and duplicated passwords automatically, the Home app can analyze and describe video from supported cameras, Calendar supports natural language to add appointments, and the Phone app will automatically find and show relevant info when calling a business. You can even create and edit Shortcuts using natural language.

The Image Playground app gets a huge improvement in quality and flexibility, and can now create realistic images. It’s used throughout the system, other apps can call on this new image-generation prowess. 

What’s coming in iOS 27: At a Glance

• Performance and stability improvements
• New Apple Intelligence features
• New chatbot-style Siri based on Gemini technology
• Camera app customization with new Advanced mode and widgets

Read on for more detail about these changes and what else to expect.

iOS 27 release date: When will Apple release iOS 27?

• First developer beta: June 8, 2026
• First public beta: July 2026
• Final version: September 2026

Apple is expected to unveil iOS 27 during its WWDC keynote on June 8, 2026, where it will showcase the update’s headline features.

While installing a beta lets you test new features ahead of release, its worth noting that pre-release software can be unstable. Bugs, performance issues, and app incompatibility are common, as Apple uses the beta period to identify and fix problems before the final version launches.

iOS 27 compatibility: Which iPhones are expected to support iOS 27?

Roman Loyola/IDG

• May drop support for iPhone 11, 11 Pro & Max, and iPhone SE 2020

Leaker ‘Instant (Momentary) Digital’, who has a decent track record for leaking credible information, has indicated via a Weibo post that the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max (launched in 2019) and the iPhone SE 2 (launched in 2020) will not be able to run iOS 27. As we explain in our guide to how long Apple supports iPhones, Apple does tend to drop devices from new OS releases after about seven years, so their omission isn’t really surprising.

Plus, with iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Max having been relegated to the Vintage iPhone list by Apple, it is inevitable that they will not be supported by iOS 27.

That leaves us with a compatibility list that looks like this:

• iPhone 17, 17 Pro / 17 Pro Max (launched in 2025)
• iPhone Air (launched in 2025)
• iPhone 16e (launched in 2025)
• iPhone 16 / 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro / 16 Pro Max (launched in 2024)
• iPhone 15 / 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro / 15 Pro Max (launched in 2023)
• iPhone 14 / 14 Plus / 14 Pro / 14 Pro Max (launched in 2022)
• iPhone SE 3 (launched in 2022)
• iPhone 13 / 13 mini / 13 Pro / 13 Pro Max (launched in 2021)
• iPhone 12 / 12 mini / 12 Pro / 12 Pro Max (launched in 2020)

The iPhone 15 and older will not be able to take advantage of any Apple Intelligence features, as is currently the case.

The iOS 26 complaints iOS 27 is expected to fix

iOS 26 has been characterized by some users as a “troubled release” due to significant performance issues and unfulfilled promises regarding AI features.

Reports suggest iOS 27 will focus heavily on fixing these stability issues and finally delivering a massive overhaul to Siri.

Common complaints about iOS 26 include:

• Performance and Stability: Users have reported frequent crashes, freezes, and sluggish animations when Low Power Mode is enabled. Some iPhone 17 Pro Max users noted that their devices become uncomfortably hot even when running basic applications like Messages.
• Liquid Glass Interface: While visually striking, the new interface is resource-intensive.
• Battery Drain: The high GPU demands of the Liquid Glass interface, particularly with animated backgrounds, have led to significant battery depletion.
• Broken AI Promises: A major point of frustration is that many “Apple Intelligence” features promised at WWDC 2024 – specifically a contextually aware Siri capable of controlling the entire device – have still not been fully delivered as of mid-2026.
• Bugs in Core Apps: Complaints include unreliable virtual keyboards, disappearing icons, and delayed Face ID authentication.

Anticipated Improvements in iOS 27 include:

• A Siri overhaul: The most significant anticipated change is the transformation of Siri into a full conversational chatbot . Leaks suggest it will use a smarter, more capable foundation (potentially powered by Google servers and Nvidia chips) rather than relying on external partners like ChatGPT for most requests.
• Visual Intelligence Integration: A new Siri option is expected in the Camera app to provide immediate access to Visual Intelligence, allowing users to get information about objects they see every day.
• Notification Redesign: Notifications are rumored to change again, sliding in from the left side of the screen to align with a new gesture system where swiping down from the center opens a dedicated “Search or Ask AI” panel.
• Interface Refinements: To address the “unreadable” text issues of Liquid Glass, iOS 27 may introduce a new interface glow (referred to in marketing as “Coming bright up”) to indicate Siri activation and improve overall clarity.
• Accessibility Upgrades: Apple has already previewed features like natural language Voice Control, which will allow users to navigate their phones by describing on-screen elements by color or content rather than just discrete commands.
• Focus on Fixes: Some reports indicate that instead of adding a plethora of new visual changes, iOS 27 will focus primarily on stability and fixing the bugs that plagued iOS 26.

Siri in iOS 27: How Siri will improve in iOS 27?

Apple

Apple appears to have abandoned plans to deliver its long-promised Siri overhaul as part of iOS 26, and is instead reportedly targeting a bigger Siri overhaul for iOS 27.

According to reports, Siri will evolve into a full-fledged AI chatbot with a redesigned interface that more closely resembles ChatGPT or a messaging app. Users will reportedly be able to interact with Siri through a new Ask interface, reference previous conversations, and continue ongoing chats. Siri is also expected to integrate much more deeply with Apple’s own apps and services.

The revamped assistant is said to be built on a new foundation model reportedly based on Google’s Gemini technology, with Apple adding its own enhancements, privacy protections, and safeguards on top.

Siri should also appear as a standalone app, with a chat history that auto-deletes conversations more than 30 days old.

Apple is also expected to significantly expand Siri’s smart home capabilities. Rumored features include AI-powered vision recognition that would allow devices to identify users and understand what they are doing while maintaining privacy protections. These kinds of capabilities are expected to play a major role in future Apple products such as smart home cameras and smart glasses.

The Siri interface itself may also see a dramatic redesign. Reports suggest Siri’s activation animation will center around the Dynamic Island. Invoking Siri with the side button or wake phrase would trigger a large pill-shaped animation around the Dynamic Island, while swiping down from the top center of the display could open a new Search or Ask interface with both text and voice input options.

When Siri returns results, users may be able to swipe down to expand responses into a persistent chat interface similar to iMessage. Apple is also rumored to be developing a standalone Siri app where users can revisit, search through, and continue previous conversations.

Apple Intelligence in iOS 27: Major updates

• Wallet scanning tickets/cards
• Visual Intelligence (nutrition/object recognition)
• Contact info extraction from images
• Safari/app-level AI integrations
• AI photo editing features
• Improved writing tools with grammar check
• Shortcut generation
• New third-party AI model support

Apple Intelligence is Apple’s suite of generative AI tools integrated across its operating systems, designed to enhance productivity through writing assistance, image generation, and system-wide automation. While many features were introduced in 2024 and 2025, the upcoming iOS 27 update – set to be previewed at WWDC on June 8, 2026 – is expected to deliver a massive overhaul of these capabilities.

We don’t have much information about what specific AI advancements Apple is working on or how it will be used throughout the OS and Apple’s apps, yet. But Gurman reports iOS 27 will be heavy on new AI features.

In April 2026, some back-end code relating to Visual Intelligence suggested Apple is working on Apple Intelligence features like reading nutrition lables, adding phone numbers and addresses to contacts, adding physical tickets and passes to Wallet, and auto-generating names for tab groups in Safari.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claimed Apple is planning a trio of new AI-powered image editing tools. Extend, Enhance, and Reframe will join the existing Clean Up feature in a new “Apple Intelligence Tools” section within the Photos app.

In a May report, Gurman wrote that Writing Tools will get an AI-related update to be more capable, including checking grammar, and will be more easily discoverable in the operating system. He also indicates that there may be a “Write with Siri” button and a “Help Me Write” option.

AI-powered Shortcuts will be able to be created using plain language for the first time, too. You’ll just describe what you want the Shortcut to do, and your iPhone or iPad will create the automation for you.

As to how Apple will power the new Siri. Reports indicate Google Gemini and Anthropic models are being tested in addition to OpenAI/ChatGPT integration.

To find out more about Apple Intelligence, read: How to use Apple Intelligence on iPhone and What is Apple Intelligence.

iOS 27 Camera app changes

You’ll reportedly be able to fully customize the Camera app interface in iOS 27. According to a report from Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, users will be able to switch to a new Advanced mode or build their own layout using customizable widgets. These widgets will be organized into categories such as Basic, Manual, and Settings, allowing users to tailor the camera interface to their preferences.

Potential widgets could include controls for depth of field, timers, photo styles, and exposure adjustments. The Camera app is also rumored to gain a new Siri mode – similar to existing modes like Slo-mo or Panorama – that would provide quick access to Visual Intelligence features.

A Siri mode in the camera app could offer live visual intelligence – answering spoken questions in real time.

iOS 27 performance: Stability improvements

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple intends to treat iOS 27 similarly to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, prioritising performance and stability over a long list of new features.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) followed the more feature-heavy Leopard (10.5) update, and focused on refining the system – removing unnecessary complexity, fixing bugs, and improving overall efficiency. While it didn’t introduce as many headline features, it became a popular version of macOS thanks to its speed and reliability.

If iOS 27 is going to follow a similar path as Snow Leopard, users can expect some new features, but a greater emphasis on optimisation, performance, and stability, with effort spent on cleaning up the code and improving performance.

Other new features coming in iOS 27

AirPods settings: Apple reportedly planning a redesign of AirPods settings in iOS 27. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is working on a more functional and streamlined interface that better highlights key features and makes AirPods easier to manage. AirPods settings currently only appear when the earbuds are connected, and the menu has become increasingly cluttered as Apple has added features like Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, and personalised controls. While Gurman did not mention a standalone app, the reported overhaul suggests Apple is responding to long-standing complaints about how difficult some AirPods features are to find and manage within the Settings app.

Satellite connectivity: It might be possible to use a Satellite connection to navigate Apple Maps and send photos via Messages. This could be made possible by Apple’s next-generation modem technology coming to future iPhones.

AI Vision Recognition: iOS 27 is expected to introduce AI vision features that allow devices to recognize users and their activities while maintaining privacy, which will be critical for upcoming smart home products.

Personalized Intelligence: Siri is expected to use on-device data from mail, messages, and web history to build a private profile, allowing it to provide answers specific to the user.

Wallet Enhancements: A new “Create a Pass” feature is tipped for the Wallet app.

Image Playground updates: Image generation should get a boost.

AirPlay: Users in the EU may be able to choose between AirPlay and an alternative streaming default.

Safari: Tab grouping is said to be getting more intelligent.

Accessibility features in iOS 27

In May 2026, Apple previewed some new accessibility features coming in iOS 27. These lean heavily on Apple Intelligence, with updates coming to VoiceOver, Magnifier, Voice Control, Accessibility Reader, on-device subtitles, and Vision Pro.

Magnifier and VoiceOver: Major Visual Intelligence upgrades, enabling more detailed descriptions of images and what’s in the viewfinder. These improvements also reflect Apple’s broader AI efforts, since the same systems power object and text recognition across the OS.

Voice Control: Evolving from fixed commands to natural language interactions. Users will be able to describe what they want to tap, zoom, or scroll to using context like color or content, showing how Apple’s AI is becoming more capable of understanding on-screen information.

Accessibility Reader: Expanding support for more complex layouts, including tables, images, and multi-column content, using AI to better interpret and present information on screen.

iOS 27 interface changes: Folding phone specific features

We’ve heard of the imminent release of a folding iPhone for more than five years now, but it looks it could actually happen in 2026. The iPhone Fold, or iPhone Ultra, as some are calling it, is expected to be an ultra-premium device with a sky-high price tag—some rumors say as much as $2,400.

Naturally, an iPhone that has a 5.5-inch screen on the outside but then opens to reveal a 7.8-inch display on the inside is going to need some specific iOS changes to make use of it. Not only will the operating system itself need an overhaul to deal with this screen-switching and new aspect ratios, but all of Apple’s built-in apps will need to take advantage of the iPhone Fold’s unique geometry.

We haven’t gotten any rumors about how iOS 27 will adapt to the folding phone, and Apple is unlikely to unveil any new features until the phone arrives in September, but we’ll be looking for clues at WWDC.