At WWDC this year, we got a swarm of new improvements in iOS 27. Almost everything announced was previously leaked, largely by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
Two features that we were really looking forward to were leaked prior to the event, but were not part of Apple’s presentation or the iOS 27 betas: a customizable Camera app and AI extensions to use your preferred AI chatbot with Siri. Don’t worry, Mark Gurman says, those features are still in testing and will be coming. Apple just hasn’t announced them yet.
Customizable Camera app
We were supposed to get two big changes to the Camera app in iOS 27: A new Siri mode that brings Visual Intelligence inside the app, and a customizable interface where you would drag controls and settings from a drawer of features onto the camera mode of your choice.
The first was announced, the second is nowhere to be seen.
Bloomberg
Gurman says the feature is still in active testing in Apple’s internal builds, and it’s not clear why it wasn’t announced and isn’t in the iOS 27 beta. I have two theories.
One is that it’s simply not going to be ready for the first iOS 27 release. After getting embarrassed by a slew of iOS 18 features that didn’t arrive on time, Apple changed its strategy to announce only those features that are sure to arrive at launch in September. Features that weren’t ready are announced ahead of iOS updates that roll out later in the year, giving Apple flexibility to test and delay features if necessary. So, if a customizable Camera interface won’t be ready until iOS 27.2 or whatever, Apple wouldn’t have used the WWDC keynote to announce it.
However, the more likely reason is that Apple is saving it for the introduction of the iPhone 18 Pro this fall. That phone is supposed to introduce the biggest improvement in camera hardware in some time, with a variable aperture lens on the wide camera and improvements to telephoto, in addition to better camera sensors. Apple is probably just going to show off the new “pro-focused” customizable interface at that time. Whether the interface will be exclusive to the iPhone 18 Pro or not, we simply don’t know yet.
Siri AI extensions
For all the many Siri improvements in iOS 27, one anticipated rumored feature seemingly didn’t make the cut: AI extensions.
Apple was said to be building a system in which AI app developers could hook their apps into Siri, allowing users to use their LLMs with Siri requests. Users who install the Claude or Gemini or ChatGPT apps could hop into Settings and select those as their AI of choice. Apple was (and apparently still is) building a whole system to support this, including special entitlements that AI app developers could apply for and frameworks within Siri to support it.
So where is it? The first iOS 27 beta has an “Extension” section the Siri section of the Settings app, while allow you to choose ChatGPT per the company’s current arrangement. It’s easy to see how that section could be populated by other AI agents eventually.
It’s possible that Apple simply didn’t want to pull any attention away from the new Siri and its own AI work, but I think it’s more likely that the system just needs a little more time. During the WWDC keynote, Apple said, “Siri AI will not initially be available in the EU on iOS and iPadOS. We’re working hard to find a path forward that preserves our users’ privacy and security.”
I think this is what the missing Siri AI extensions are all about. Apple’s solution to the antitrust protections demanded by the EU’s Digital Markets Act is to make it easy for anyone to choose another leading AI provider, but it’s taking a lot of time to ensure the system is set up so that OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and others can’t just gobble up all the personal data stored on your iPhone.
If I had to guess, I would suspect the Siri AI extensions will be announced later this year after the iOS 27 launch, and ship to customers in iOS 27.3 or iOS 27.4 in the spring.
