iOS 27: Release date expectations, new features, and compatible iPhones
Siri AI is here with iOS 27. | Image by Apple
What's changing vs iOS 26:
- Siri AI: a rebuilt, context-aware Siri with its own standalone app
- A system-wide Liquid Glass transparency slider, from fully clear to fully tinted
- Liquid Glass elements within app icons for a more cohesive home screen look
- Performance improvements and bug fixes
- Deeper Apple Intelligence integration across system apps
- Major Camera app update with a dedicated Siri mode
- Expanded Image Playground with photorealistic generation
- Upgrades to Safari, Messages, Phone, Shortcuts, and Home
- New Child Safety features with expanded parental control options
- iOS 27 was announced at WWDC 2026 on June 8. The public release is tied to the iPhone 18 Pro lineup this fall. Siri AI will not be available in the EU at launch.
iOS 27 release date
Apple announced iOS 27 during WWDC 2026's keynote on June 8, 2026. WWDC 2026 ran from June 8 through June 22. The public release is tied to the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, expected this fall.
| iOS version | Announcement | Market release |
|---|---|---|
| iOS 27 | June 8, 2026 | September 2026* |
| iOS 26 | June 9, 2025 | September 2025 |
| iOS 18 | June 10, 2024 | September 2024 |
* - probable dates
iOS 27 supported iPhones
iOS 27 will be available from the iPhone 11 and later, so every iPhone that supports iOS 26 will also support iOS 27.
| iPhone generation | Market release date | iOS 27 support |
|---|---|---|
| First foldable iPhone | September 2026, expected | Yes |
| iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone 18 Pro | September 2026, expected | Yes |
| iPhone 18, iPhone Air 2, iPhone 18e | Spring 2027, expected | Yes |
| iPhone 17e | March 2026 | Yes |
| iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 | September 2025 | Yes |
| iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 | September 2024 | Yes |
| iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 | September 22, 2023 | Yes |
| iPhone 14 Pro Max, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 | September 16, 2022 | Yes |
| iPhone SE 3rd Gen | March 18, 2022 | Yes |
| iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 mini | September 24, 2021 | Yes |
| iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini | October 23, 2020 | Yes |
| iPhone SE 2nd Gen | April 24, 2020 | Yes |
| iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 | September 20, 2019 | Yes |
| iPhone XS Max, XS, iPhone XR | September 21, 2018 | No |
| iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone X | September 22-November 3, 2017 | No |
iOS 27 will come pre-installed on the iPhone 18 Pro Max, iPhone 18 Pro, Apple's first foldable iPhone, and the iPhone 18.
One important regional note: Siri AI won't be available in the EU on iPhone or iPad at launch, due to regulatory constraints.
Apple Intelligence works on every compatible iPhone, though the more powerful AI model is gated to iPhone 17 Pro and newer.
iOS 27 design
iOS 27 isn't a visual reinvention – it's a refinement of the Liquid Glass design language Apple introduced with iOS 26. The aesthetic is here to stay; what's new is how much control you have over it.
The main design addition is a system-wide transparency slider that lets you dial the Liquid Glass effect anywhere from fully see-through to completely tinted – a degree of customization that the original implementation didn't offer. App icons are also receiving a subtle Liquid Glass treatment in iOS 27, giving the home screen a more unified and intentional look.
Liquid Glass was introduced with iOS 26. | Image by Apple
The lock screen is getting some meaningful updates too. The clock can now be repositioned to the top row of widgets, freeing up more of the wallpaper underneath. Image Playground is accessible directly from the wallpaper picker – letting you generate a custom wallpaper from a plain-language description or create a stylized version of a photo from your library.
And the Now Playing widget, which displays album art and playback controls, can now be swiped off the lock screen while your music keeps playing – a small but welcome fix for anyone who's accidentally hit skip or cranked the volume at the wrong moment.
iOS 27 top features
iOS 27 has one clear centerpiece: a ground-up rebuild of Siri.
The new Siri
Apple Intelligence features at a glance. | Image by Apple
Siri is finally getting the AI overhaul everyone's been waiting for.
The assistant has a new name – Siri AI – and a new foundation. Apple built it in collaboration with Google, running on the next generation of Apple Foundation Models alongside Gemini. The result puts Siri on level footing with other leading generative AI chatbots for the first time.
You can reach it by saying "Hey Siri" or by swiping down from the center of the top part of your screen. It lives in the Dynamic Island. When you trigger it, the pill-shaped cutout expands into a "Search or Ask" prompt with a glowing cursor.
Siri in the Dynamic Island. | Image by Apple
The Dynamic Island gains a thin glow in Siri's signature colors whenever the assistant is active. For longer or more involved requests, Siri AI is also accessible through the side button.
Siri AI draws on your personal context, reads what's currently on your screen, understands natural language, and has live internet access – allowing it to answer questions and take actions across your apps without requiring you to explain yourself from scratch each time.
Personal context understanding. | Image by Apple
It also gets its own dedicated standalone app – essentially a conversation history for your assistant, similar to how Messages stores your texts. You can browse past sessions and pick up any of them right where you left off.
Siri AI in-depth conversation. | Image by Apple
From within the app, Siri can take direct actions – searching your phone and pulling data into the conversation without requiring you to switch between apps.
Siri's dedicated app's home screen. | Image by Apple
Screen awareness is one of the most practical new capabilities. Siri AI can see what's on your display as you use it – so you can ask where a photo was taken, have Siri pull a related address from a message, and get directions in Apple Maps, all within the same back-and-forth conversation.
Personal Context takes this further. Siri AI can search across your native apps – Messages, Mail, Notes, Photos, and Calendar – to find answers to conversational queries. Ask Siri for the name of the restaurant a friend recommended, and it will go through your relevant conversations to find the answer, rather than asking you to clarify or search manually.
Voice customization is new too, with a slider to adjust Siri's speaking pace and expressiveness to your preference.
Siri voice customizations. | Image by Apple
System-wide dictation is also being upgraded with better accuracy and automatic punctuation built in.
Siri AI is fully cross-device – start a conversation on your iPhone and pick it up on your iPad or MacBook without losing any context.
The Camera app is getting a dedicated Siri mode built around what the lens is seeing. Tap the shutter button and Siri can interpret what's in frame, answer questions about it, and log the exchange in the Siri app for later.
Write with Siri is available across the entire operating system in iOS 27, with built-in automatic proofreading.
With iOS 27 Developer Beta 4, released on July 26, 2026, Siri AI has expanded to the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 series, and the iPhone 17 line. Each beta has brought measurable improvements – Siri AI responds noticeably faster to both verbal and written prompts compared to the first beta, and is increasingly competitive with other AI assistants like Gemini.
iOS 27 Beta 6 continues that trend. The gap between Siri AI and Gemini has narrowed considerably since the first beta in June – one persistent issue remains, where Siri AI cuts off longer verbal prompts before the user finishes speaking, though shorter prompts process immediately.
The beta also brings a UI fix for Pinned Messages, a new notification animation, and a refreshed Siri app icon that now more closely reflects how Siri AI looks when it expands out of the Dynamic Island. With stable iOS 27 expected around mid-September, Siri AI is tracking toward being the assistant iPhone users have been waiting years for.
Apple Intelligence in apps
Apple Intelligence in iOS 27. | Image by Apple
Safari
In Safari, Apple Intelligence can now sort your open tabs by topic, automatically clustering related pages and letting you lock those groupings in as tab groups.
A new Notify Me option lets you mark any tab for passive monitoring – Apple Intelligence will flag it when the content changes, so you don't have to keep revisiting pages manually.
Custom extensions for any webpage are also now buildable through plain-language descriptions, without any coding required.
Passwords
The Passwords app can now work with Apple Intelligence and Safari to automatically upgrade eligible accounts to stronger passwords, handling the login and change process entirely on your behalf.
Messages, Mail, Calendar, Phone app
In Messages, Apple Intelligence can surface suggested actions from your conversations and help you locate specific photos someone sent you.
Mail is gaining suggested actions and third-party app integration. Calendar can generate and edit events from plain-language descriptions, or pull details straight from a screenshot of a schedule. When you call a business, the Phone app will surface relevant information from your other apps directly in the call view.
iOS 27 is also fixing one of the most complained-about annoyances in the Messages app. A new setting – found under Settings, Apps, Messages, Show in Text Field – lets you disable the voice message and dictation icon that sits next to the send button in the text field.
Accidentally tapping it mid-conversation, causing music to pause or unwanted recordings to start, has been a persistent frustration for iPhone users. With iOS 27, you can choose to show only the Record Audio button, only the Start Dictation button, or neither. Removing both icons doesn't eliminate the features themselves – voice messages remain accessible via the plus button on the left of the text field, and dictation can still be triggered from the keyboard microphone button, which appears system-wide once enabled in keyboard settings.
Home and Shortcuts
The Home app can now batch related accessory alerts into a single live-updating notification rather than firing them off one by one. It can also process footage from compatible cameras, describe what's happening in plain text, and let you search within that recorded video.
In Shortcuts, you can now describe what you want done in plain language rather than building automations manually – and you can edit existing shortcuts the same way.
New version of Image Playground
Image Playground photo modification. | Image by Apple
Image Playground has been substantially expanded. High-quality image generation in any style – including photorealistic – is now on the table, and existing photos can be restyled from a plain-language description.
You can target specific parts of an image by circling an object, choose your preferred output dimensions, and generate backgrounds for Messages, contact posters, and lock screen wallpapers. Daily usage limits apply to image generation.
Photos
New Apple Intelligence features in Photos. | Image by Apple
With iOS 27, Apple is adding new tools to Photos, accessible accessible from a "Tools" button in the bottom right.
- Clean Up gets an upgrade, removing distractions with more realistic fill-in, even in complex scenes.
- Extend: helps you expand images with generative AI. Extend is also now available directly from the lock screen. If a photo you've chosen as wallpaper doesn't match your iPhone's aspect ratio or isn't correctly cropped, iOS 27 will suggest using Extend to fix it – using AI to fill in additional content around the edges of the image.
- Spatial Reframing: lets you fix the composition of an older photo by shifting perspective. The feature runs on on-device spatial models and works even on older photos, including ones shot on other cameras.
Privacy and Child Safety
Apple Intelligence runs on-device or through Apple Private Cloud Compute – no data is shared with Apple or third parties, and Apple states it's used solely to fulfill your requests.
Screen Time is gaining age-based time limit suggestions, while still allowing parents to override them with custom settings.
iOS 27 is also reportedly adding a photo authentication feature called Reference Image, spotted in iOS 27 beta 5 code. With AI-generated and AI-edited photos increasingly common, Reference Image lets you verify that a photo genuinely came from an iPhone camera by tying it to unique hardware data from the specific sensor that captured it.
The feature is off by default and has to be enabled before you take a photo – it won't retroactively authenticate existing shots. When you want to authenticate an image, the original photo and its provenance data are sent to Apple's Private Cloud Compute for verification; if the check passes, the photo receives a unique ID.
Apple's approach keeps the process private: Apple can't see the original image itself, only certain sensor information and metadata. Someone else with an Apple device can also verify an authenticated photo locally, without Apple being informed which image is being checked. If a sensor is ever found to be compromised, Apple may void any prior authentications linked to it.
The feature is still in beta and hasn't been officially confirmed for the stable release, but the code is there.
iOS 27 general platform improvements
Under the hood, iOS 27 ships with a reworked CPU scheduler aimed at helping older iPhones manage demanding tasks more efficiently. Wi-Fi-to-cellular handoffs are smoother, and a new send indicator flags when an image is taking longer than expected to transmit on a weak connection.
Search has been rebuilt from the ground up and indexes new content nearly instantly. Mail's ranking system has been overhauled to surface more relevant results when you search your inbox.
Shared Albums in Photos now accept contributions from Android and Windows users – a long-overdue cross-platform addition. The Health app is expanding into perimenopause and menopause tracking.
AirPods get a new custom EQ, and Fly Over in Apple Maps is getting a boost with intelligence models for a more realistic look.
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