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.

Siri AI in iOS 27

Apple

Siri AI is the new name for Apple’s Apple Intelligence-powered assistant. Apple says Siri AI is more personal and conversational than the current version of Siri, with the ability to answer open-ended questions, understand personal context from messages, emails, photos and notes, recognise what’s on screen and draw on information from the web to provide up-to-date answers.

Siri AI will also gain a dedicated app that lets users revisit previous conversations, pin important chats and continue conversations across all Apple devices via iCloud syncing. Apple says all cloud processing is designed with privacy and security in mind.

There will also be a new, more natural and expressive Siri voice, alongside controls that allow users to adjust pace and expressiveness to their preferences. The voice customisation feature will require iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air, or newer.

New Siri features include:

Personal context and app actions: Siri AI will be able to draw on personal context to help users find information stored across their devices, including old photos, emails, notes and messages. Apple says Siri AI will also be capable of taking actions within apps such as Messages, Music and Reminders, allowing users to do things like edit a recently sent message or add a song to a playlist using natural language.

Onscreen and visual intelligence: On iPhone, Siri AI’s capabilities will extend to the Camera app through a new Siri mode. Users will be able to show Siri what they see through the camera and ask questions or perform actions based on what’s in front of them.

Siri voice, dictation and writing: Apple says Siri AI will feature more natural and expressive voices, with compatible devices offering controls to adjust pace and expressiveness. Dictation will also get a major upgrade, with improved speech recognition, automatic punctuation, capitalisation and formatting, allowing users to speak more naturally while Siri converts their words into text.

Apple Intelligence across apps

As well as Siri AI, the enhanced Apple Intelligence will also power new AI-powered features in Apple’s core apps throughout iOS 27. Safari will organise tabs into topics, monitor webpages for changes and even build extensions from natural-language descriptions. Photos is set to gain a new Spatial Reframing edit tools including and an upgraded Clean Up feature. Messages, Mail and Calendar will be able to understand context, suggest actions and create events from simple descriptions.

New Apple Intelligence features coming in iOS 27 include:

Safari: Apple says Safari will automatically group tabs into topics to make related pages easier to find. Safari will also be able to monitor webpages with a Notify Me feature being alerting users to changes such as price drops or restocks. A Describe an Extension feature lets users create custom Safari extensions by describing what they want.

Apple

Photos: Apple says the the Photos app in iOS 27 will allow users to improve compositions, expand images, straighten horizons and remove larger distractions while preserving the original scene where possible. The Photos app will gain Spatial Reframing, a tool that can improve composition after a photo is taken. An Extend option will fill missing areas when straightening a horizon or changing aspect ratio. And an improved Clean Up will more effectively remove elements from photos.

Apple

Phone: The Phone app will gain Call Context, which will surface relevant information when calling a business. For example, Call Context could surface a flight confirmation code from Mail when the user calls an airline. Apple stated this ability is based on who the user is calling, not what they are saying.

Image Playground: Image Playground will be able to create photorealistic images, according to Apple. Apple says users will be able to modify images by describing changes or by selecting objects to move or resize. Generated images will include a SynthID watermark to identify them as AI-generated.

Passwords: The Passwords app will alert users to weak, duplicated or compromised passwords and offer to update them automatically.

Shortcuts: The Shortcuts app will gain a new ability to ‘Describe a Shortcut’, so users can easily create automations by explaining what they want in natural language. Apple says Shortcuts will then assemble the necessary actions across apps.

Messages and Mail: Messages will be able to suggest useful actions based on conversation context, such as creating a reminder, making a note or finding relevant photos. Mail and Messages will gain smarter replies that can mimic a user’s writing style.

Calendar: In iOS 27 the Calendar app will be able to create or modify events based on a natural-language description. Apple says it will be able to identify contacts, locations and event details as users type.

Home: The Home app will gain Apple Intelligence features for supported HomeKit Secure Video cameras. Apple says it will be able to group related notifications, generate video descriptions and highlight noteworthy clips.

Maps: Flyover will offer sharper detail using aerial imagery and Visual Intelligence models, including improved rendering of architectural details and individual trees.

Podcasts: Video podcasts are to get an update that will make it easier to switch between watching and listening.

Performance and system changes in iOS 27

Alongside the headline AI features, Apple says iOS 27 will include a wide range of under-the-hood improvements designed to make iPhones faster and more responsive.

The company has updated core technologies including display performance, processing efficiency and wireless connectivity.

According to Apple, apps will launch faster in iOS 27, AirDrop and external drive transfers will be quicker, and photos will be added to users’ libraries more rapidly. Apple has also improved network performance and introduced a more powerful system-wide search index to help users find information more quickly.

The company says it has addressed dozens of common user frustrations across iOS, focusing on refinements that improve everyday performance and responsiveness throughout the operating system.

Design and interface changes in iOS 27

Apple

There are also improvements to the iPhone interface coming in iOS 27.

Liquid Glass refinements: Apple says Liquid Glass has been refined for better readability, more uniform refraction and improved contrast. A new slider lets users adjust the look from ultraclear to fully tinted, while updated icons, toolbars, sidebars and window shapes add polish.

Child safety and parental controls

Apple

There are lots of improvements coming to 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.

Ask to Browse: Ask to Browse will expand the current Ask to Buy fetaure to the web. Apple says children will need to request permission before visiting new websites, and parents can review requests in Messages before approving.

Communication Safety: Communication Safety will continue to help protect children from viewing or sharing nudity in Messages, FaceTime and other apps. Apple says it will also intervene before children see gore or violent content in shared images and videos.

Time Allowances and schedules: Parents will be able to set Time Allowances across categories such as Entertainment, Games and Social Media. Recommendations are based on a child’s age combined with guidance from clinical and child development experts. Schedules let parents choose which apps are available at different times or on different days.

Redesigned Screen Time: Screen Time will get a redesigned interface with an at-a-glance view of average device usage and most-used apps. Apple says parents can quickly limit or extend access in the moment.

Child accounts and family safety: Apple says child accounts remain central to age-appropriate protections. Parents can manage app access, web access, communication permissions and Screen Time settings.

Apple says it is working with the American Academy of Pediatrics to adapt its Family Media Plan.

Accessibility changes coming in iOS 27

Accessibility features will be smarter and more intuitive in iOS 27:

• VoiceOver will get richer image descriptions and better understanding of onscreen content.
• Live Recognition will let users press the Action button to ask questions about their surroundings and receive detailed responses.
• Voice Control will become more intuitive, allowing users to describe onscreen buttons and controls rather than remembering exact labels or numbers.
• Accessibility Reader will be able to handle more complex source material and provide summaries and translation.

iOS 27 compatibility

Roman Loyola/IDG

According to Apple, iOS 27 will support iPhones back to iPhone 11, though some Apple Intelligence and Siri AI features will require newer Apple Intelligence-enabled devices.

There was an expectation that the iPhone 11 would miss out on iOS 27 after leaker ‘Instant Digital’, claimed in 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) would not be able to run iOS 27. Lucky for those iPhone users, that is not the case and the iPhone 11 gets coverage for a while longer.

However, the lifespan of the iPhone 11 is limited, as we explain in our guide to how long Apple supports iPhones, the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Max have already been relegated to the Vintage iPhone list by Apple.

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)
• iPhone SE 2 (launched in 20120)
• iPhone 11 / 11 mini / 11 Pro / 11 Pro Max (launched in 2019)

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

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

• First developer beta: June 8, 2026
• First public beta: July 13, 2026
• Final version: September 2026

Apple showcased iOS 27 during its WWDC keynote on June 8, 2026.

The official version of iOS 27 will not be available to install on compatible iPhones until later in 2026. Apple usually releases the iOS update during the second week of September, so Monday, September 14, is our guess as to when iOS 27 becomes available to everyone.