iOS 27: Everything New in Apple’s Latest iPhone Update

Apple has officially released iOS 27, bringing one of the more substantial collections of improvements to the iPhone in recent years. While Apple Intelligence continues to play an increasingly important role, iOS 27 is not simply an AI update. Apple has also concentrated on performance, Safari, Photos, passwords, parental controls, accessibility, networking and numerous smaller improvements throughout the operating system.

There is, however, one particularly important caveat for European users: Apple's headline new Siri AI experience is currently unavailable on iPhone and iPad in the European Union.

So what do you actually get when installing iOS 27? Here are the biggest changes.

iOS 27 is available now

Apple released iOS 27 on September 14, 2026.

The update supports an impressively long list of devices, stretching all the way back to the iPhone 11 series and the second-generation iPhone SE.

Supported models include:

• iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max

• iPhone 12 series

• iPhone 13 series, including iPhone 13 mini

• iPhone 14 series

• iPhone 15 series

• iPhone 16 series

• iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air

• iPhone 18 series

• iPhone Duo

• iPhone SE, second generation and newer

That means Apple is once again maintaining support for phones that are now several generations old.

Not every iOS 27 feature is available on every device, however. Apple Intelligence continues to have considerably higher hardware requirements.

Apple Intelligence becomes much more useful

Apple Intelligence has expanded throughout iOS 27 and is increasingly becoming part of ordinary apps rather than feeling like a separate collection of AI features.

One of the biggest areas of improvement is Photos.

New AI editing tools allow users to change the framing of images after they have been taken. Apple's new spatial reframing feature can intelligently adjust perspective, while an Expand tool can generate additional image content around the original photograph.

Clean Up has also been improved and can now remove larger objects from photographs.

Image Playground has received another major upgrade as well. Apple says it can generate higher-quality images across considerably more styles, including photorealistic imagery.

Apple Intelligence supports Swedish, alongside languages including Danish, Norwegian, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and several others.

Hardware support remains more limited than iOS itself. Apple Intelligence requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer compatible model.

The big Siri AI upgrade is missing in the EU

The most heavily promoted part of iOS 27 internationally is Siri AI.

Apple has rebuilt Siri around its latest generation of Apple Intelligence, allowing users to have much more natural conversations, ask complicated questions and request help completing multi-step tasks.

Siri AI is also designed to understand information across apps and personal context.

There is even a dedicated Siri AI application for returning to previous conversations.

But there is a substantial catch.

Siri AI is not currently available in iOS 27 or iPadOS 27 within the European Union.

Apple says the delay is related to requirements under the EU's Digital Markets Act and claims it has not yet reached an acceptable implementation with European regulators.

There is currently no announced release date for Siri AI on iPhone in the EU.

This means users in countries such as Sweden receive iOS 27 without what Apple markets internationally as one of the operating system's flagship features.

Interestingly, Siri AI is available to European users on macOS 27 and visionOS 27, making the situation particularly unusual.

Photos gets powerful new AI editing tools

For users with supported hardware, the improvements to Photos may be among the most noticeable additions.

Spatial Reframing allows the composition of a photograph to be adjusted after it has already been taken.

The new Expand feature can effectively extend the borders of an image by generating appropriate surrounding content.

Clean Up has also become more capable and can remove larger unwanted objects from a photograph.

These tools push Apple's Photos app closer to the generative editing capabilities that have increasingly appeared in competing photo applications.

Liquid Glass gets refined

Apple isn't abandoning the Liquid Glass design language introduced in its previous generation of operating systems.

Instead, iOS 27 refines it.

Apple says the updated implementation improves readability through more consistent light refraction and greater contrast.

Icons have also been sharpened and contain additional detail.

Perhaps more importantly, Apple has added greater control over how Liquid Glass actually looks.

A new adjustment lets users change the appearance from highly transparent to considerably more tinted.

It is a relatively small addition, but it addresses one of the most common problems with heavily transparent interfaces: readability.

Apps can launch up to 30 percent faster

Some of the most interesting iOS 27 improvements aren't visible at all.

Apple has spent considerable effort optimizing the underlying operating system.

According to Apple, apps can launch up to 30 percent faster under certain conditions.

New photographs added to the photo library can appear up to 70 percent faster, while AirDrop transfers can be up to 80 percent faster.

Apple has also made lower-level changes to areas such as CPU scheduling and memory usage.

Individual results will naturally vary depending on the iPhone, app and workload, but these optimizations could make iOS 27 particularly interesting for owners of older supported devices.

AirDrop gets significantly faster

AirDrop has become one of those Apple features that quietly turns into something you miss the moment you use a non-Apple device.

In iOS 27, Apple says AirDrop transfers can be as much as 80 percent faster.

For users regularly transferring large videos, RAW photographs or other sizeable files between an iPhone, iPad and Mac, that could be a substantial improvement.

Smarter switching between Wi-Fi and mobile networks

iOS 27 also improves the way an iPhone transitions between Wi-Fi and cellular connections.

The system now attempts to select the best available connection more smoothly.

That sounds mundane, but it should help prevent those annoying moments where an iPhone stubbornly remains attached to a weak Wi-Fi signal while you are leaving a building.

It should also make transitions less disruptive during things such as FaceTime calls, navigation and streaming.

Safari can automatically organise your tabs

Safari receives several interesting improvements.

Tabs can now be automatically grouped according to their subject, helping users who routinely accumulate dozens of open pages.

Apple is also introducing a new Notify Me feature.

Safari can monitor a webpage and notify you when something changes, such as:

• A product returning to stock

• A price changing

• Information on a webpage being updated

Instead of repeatedly refreshing a store page waiting for a product to become available, Safari can effectively watch it for you.

It is one of those deceptively simple iOS 27 features that could become extremely useful.

Passwords can help change compromised passwords

Apple's Passwords app also becomes more proactive.

It can already warn users when passwords appear in known data breaches or when weak passwords are being reused.

In iOS 27, Passwords will eventually be able to help change eligible compromised passwords automatically.

Rather than simply telling you that a password should be replaced, the system can navigate the relevant account pages and assist with updating it.

Apple says this functionality will arrive in a later software update, so it is not part of the initial iOS 27 release.

Mail search gets smarter

Anyone who has tried finding a specific email from several years ago knows that searching an inbox can occasionally become digital archaeology.

Apple says iOS 27 introduces a new ranking system for Mail search.

Instead of primarily relying on chronology or exact keyword matches, Mail attempts to identify which messages are most relevant to your search.

The idea is to surface the email you're probably looking for even when it is buried deep inside your inbox.

Shared iCloud albums get better support for Android and Windows

Apple is also making shared photo albums friendlier to people who aren't completely embedded inside the Apple ecosystem.

Friends and family using Android or Windows can participate more easily through iCloud.com and contribute their own photographs.

Shared albums now support full-resolution sharing as well.

Apple has also added new filtering tools, reactions and additional ways of inviting people to an album.

For families where not everyone uses an iPhone, this could be one of the more welcome changes.

AirPods finally get a proper equalizer

iOS 27 adds more control over how compatible AirPods sound.

Users can adjust:

• Bass

• Midrange

• Treble

The controls appear directly inside AirPods settings.

Apple has historically preferred automatic audio processing rather than giving users extensive manual EQ controls, so this represents a welcome change for people who want to tune their listening experience.

Major new parental controls

Some of Apple's largest iOS 27 changes concern children and family accounts.

Screen Time has been redesigned to provide parents with a clearer overview of how children use their devices.

Parents can establish time limits covering categories such as:

• Games

• Social media

• Entertainment

• Other applications

Apple also provides age-based recommendations developed with guidance from child-development and health experts.

Schedules can determine which applications are available at particular times or on particular days.

Children can request access to websites

A particularly interesting addition is Ask to Browse.

Parents can restrict web access for a child's account while still allowing the child to request access to individual websites.

The request appears in Messages, where the parent can review the site before approving or rejecting access.

This provides something more flexible than simply choosing between unrestricted browsing and a heavily restricted whitelist.

Communication Safety expands beyond nudity

Apple's Communication Safety technology already attempted to protect children from receiving or sharing explicit imagery.

iOS 27 expands the system.

Communication Safety can now also detect shared photographs and videos containing graphic violence or blood.

The protection extends to services including Messages and FaceTime.

Apple's processing is designed around maintaining the child's privacy while providing warnings and protective measures when potentially harmful content is detected.

Accessibility receives major improvements

Accessibility continues to be an area where Apple makes substantial yearly improvements.

VoiceOver can provide more detailed descriptions of images and surroundings.

The Magnifier app receives additional visual assistance tools.

iOS 27 can also automatically generate synchronized captions for videos and, in some circumstances, translate existing subtitles into other languages.

These features can obviously be essential accessibility tools, but automatic caption generation and translation may also prove useful to a much wider audience.

HomeKit Secure Video moves to 4K

Apple's Home app receives several Apple Intelligence improvements.

Related smart-home notifications can be grouped together, reducing notification overload.

Apple Intelligence can also describe activity captured by supported HomeKit Secure Video cameras before you watch the recording.

Users can search recordings based on what happened in a clip rather than manually scrubbing through hours of footage.

Perhaps most importantly for security-camera owners, compatible HomeKit Secure Video cameras can now stream and record in 4K.

Health adds perimenopause support

Cycle Tracking inside the Health app gains additional functionality aimed at perimenopause and menopause.

The app can notify users when logged cycle patterns potentially indicate perimenopause.

Users can also track related symptoms and access relevant educational material.

GymKit comes to the iPhone

GymKit is expanding beyond the Apple Watch ecosystem.

With iOS 27 and compatible hardware, an iPhone and AirPods Pro 3 can connect directly to supported gym equipment.

This includes equipment such as:

• Treadmills

• Exercise bikes

• Elliptical machines

• Stair machines

Heart-rate and workout information can then be synchronized to provide more accurate real-time exercise data.

Apple Maps improves Flyover

Apple has also upgraded the Flyover experience in Maps.

The feature now combines aerial photography with visual-intelligence models to generate more detailed views of cities and landscapes.

Apple says this allows smaller details such as architecture and individual trees to be represented more accurately.

As always with Maps features, availability depends heavily on location.

iOS 27 feels more like refinement than reinvention

At first glance, iOS 27 can look like another AI-focused update.

Dig deeper, however, and there is considerably more happening.

Faster AirDrop, quicker app launches, improved network switching, automatic Safari organisation, better Mail searches, improved shared albums, AirPods EQ controls, accessibility enhancements and dramatically expanded parental controls could affect everyday iPhone use more frequently than some of the headline AI features.

For European users, the story is slightly different.

The absence of Siri AI means one of Apple's most heavily promoted iOS 27 features simply isn't there. Apple Intelligence itself continues to work on compatible devices and supports Swedish, but Apple's next-generation Siri remains unavailable on iPhone in the EU with no confirmed launch date.

Even without Siri AI, however, iOS 27 is far from an empty update.

Instead of reinventing the iPhone interface again, Apple appears to have concentrated on polishing the foundations: making things faster, smarter and slightly less annoying.

And sometimes those are the updates that end up mattering the most.