iOS 27: Everything We Know So Far — Features, Release Date & What to Expect

For two straight years, Apple has been swinging for the fences. iOS 25 brought Apple Intelligence to the iPhone. iOS 26 overhauled the entire visual language with Liquid Glass. Both were ambitious — and both left behind a trail of bugs, battery complaints, and frustrated users who just wanted their phones to work properly.

With iOS 27, Apple appears to be taking a step back. Not in ambition, but in approach. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, this year's WWDC will be "a fairly muted affair" compared to recent years. The headline priorities? Bug fixes, performance optimization, and a long-overdue Siri overhaul. Think less fireworks, more foundation work.

But don't let the "muted" framing fool you. Underneath that stability-first surface, there's plenty happening — a rebuilt Siri, secret iPhone Fold software, Liquid Glass refinements under new design leadership, and AI features powered partly by Google's Gemini. This is Apple playing the long game.

Here's every single thing we know about iOS 27 so far, pulled from credible sources and updated as new information drops.

Apple's "Snow Leopard" Moment

Long-time Apple fans will remember Mac OS X Snow Leopard from 2009. It followed the feature-packed Leopard release with something radical: almost no new features at all. Instead, Apple spent the entire development cycle on performance, stability, and cleaning up the codebase. It became one of the most beloved Mac releases ever.

That's the playbook for iOS 27. Multiple reports, including Gurman's Power On newsletter from early February, describe it as Apple's chance to polish the foundation after two years of major overhauls. The internal focus is reportedly on eliminating bugs that have lingered since the Liquid Glass rollout, optimizing memory management, and shaving milliseconds off everyday interactions.

This doesn't mean there's nothing new — far from it. But the mentality has shifted. Every new feature in iOS 27 is apparently being evaluated through the lens of "does this make the phone more reliable?" rather than "does this look good in a keynote demo?"

iOS 27 Release Timeline

Apple follows a predictable annual schedule, and iOS 27 should be no different. Here's what we're expecting based on the established pattern and current reporting:

Liquid Glass 2.0 & New Design Leadership

The Liquid Glass design language divided Apple users right down the middle last year. Some loved the translucent, depth-rich aesthetic. Others found it distracting, hard to read, or just unnecessary. Tab bars disappeared on scroll. Playback controls in Music and Podcasts hid behind glass layers. The design looked beautiful in screenshots but sometimes got in the way of actually using the phone.

iOS 27 won't abandon Liquid Glass — it's going to refine it. Gurman reported in mid-February that Apple is "planning some tweaks to the interface, though nothing as extensive as last year's Liquid Glass introduction."

What makes this particularly interesting is the timing. In December 2025, Apple's VP of Human Interface Design, Alan Dye, left the company for Meta. He'd been one of the key architects behind iOS 26's visual direction. His replacement? Steve Lemay, a 26-year Apple veteran who has been involved in virtually every major Apple interface since 1999.

Tim Cook himself endorsed the transition, and reports from inside Apple suggest employees were genuinely excited about the change. iOS 27 will be the first major release shaped by Lemay's expanded influence, and the design choices Apple makes here will tell us a lot about where the iPhone's visual identity is heading.

One rumor that keeps circulating: a systemwide slider that would let users adjust the intensity of the Liquid Glass effect. Dial it up for full translucency, dial it down for something closer to the classic iOS look. If real, this would be a smart move — giving users control rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all aesthetic.

The Siri Chatbot — Apple's Biggest Bet

Let's be honest: Siri has been falling behind for years. While ChatGPT and Google Gemini handle complex, multi-turn conversations with ease, Siri still struggles with basic follow-up questions. Apple knows this, and iOS 27 is where they're finally doing something serious about it.

According to multiple sources including MacRumors and Bloomberg, iOS 27 will introduce a full chatbot-style Siri interface. This isn't a minor tweak — it's a fundamental reimagining of how Siri works. Instead of the quick-command model Siri has used since 2011, the new version will support genuine back-and-forth conversations. Ask a question, get an answer, follow up with context, and Siri will actually remember what you were talking about.

The visual interface is changing too. Reports describe something closer to a chat window than the current floating orb, making it easier to read responses and interact with longer outputs. Siri will also gain the ability to perform web searches and deliver results directly — a feature Apple is reportedly calling "World Knowledge Answers," positioned as a competitor to Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews.

There's a catch, though. Some of the personalized Siri features Apple first announced back at WWDC 2024 — features that were supposed to ship with iOS 25 — have been repeatedly delayed. Multiple reports suggest these will finally arrive with iOS 27, including on-device learning from your habits, proactive suggestions, and deeper integration with third-party apps.

iPhone Fold: The Secret iOS 27 Feature

Here's where things get really interesting. Apple's first foldable iPhone is widely expected to launch in September 2026, and iOS 27 is being built with that hardware in mind.

Last summer, Gurman reported that iOS 27 would "prioritize software features tailored specifically to this new form factor." But here's the thing — Apple almost certainly won't show any of these features at WWDC in June. The iPhone Fold hasn't been announced yet, and Apple wouldn't tip its hand four months early.

That means some of iOS 27's most significant capabilities will remain hidden until the September hardware event. Based on the rumored specs — a 7.8-inch inner display and a 5.5-inch outer screen — the unfolded iPhone would be roughly the size of an iPad mini. And since iPadOS 26 just got a powerful new windowing system, it's reasonable to expect similar multitasking features coming to iOS 27 for the foldable model exclusively.

Think split-view, side-by-side apps, maybe even some form of freeform windowing. These features would likely be restricted to the iPhone Fold — regular iPhones wouldn't get them.

Apple Intelligence Gets Smarter — With Help From Google

Here's a sentence nobody expected to write a few years ago: Google's Gemini will help power Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27.

Apple and Google announced a partnership that brings Gemini into select Apple Intelligence capabilities. The specifics are still unclear, but reports suggest Gemini could power more complex AI tasks that Apple's on-device models can't handle alone — things like multi-step reasoning, advanced document analysis, and richer contextual understanding.

Beyond the Gemini collaboration, iOS 27 is expected to bring Apple Intelligence deeper into built-in apps. The Calendar app reportedly gets AI-powered scheduling suggestions based on your habits. Mail could gain smarter categorization. And there's talk of a new web-search tool built into the system that competes directly with standalone AI search products.

Battery Life & Performance: The Changes That Actually Matter

For most people, this is the section that counts. You can have the fanciest AI features in the world, but if your phone dies by 3 PM, none of it matters.

iOS 27's code cleanup initiative goes beyond surface-level optimization. Apple is reportedly auditing legacy code across the entire operating system, removing deprecated frameworks, and rewriting performance-critical paths. The goal is twofold: faster app launch times and significantly better battery efficiency, especially on devices that are a few years old.

There's also a practical new addition: an automation shortcut that lets you set battery charge limits. Instead of charging to 100% every time (which degrades long-term battery health), you'll be able to cap charging at 80% or 85% automatically. This feature already exists on MacBooks and has been requested by iPhone users for years.

For anyone running an iPhone 14 or iPhone 15 that's been feeling sluggish on iOS 26, these under-the-hood changes could make a bigger difference than any headline feature.

Health App: Free AI Upgrades (No Subscription Required)

This one almost went in a very different direction. Apple had been developing a paid service called "Health+" — an AI-powered health coaching subscription with personalized recommendations, nutrition insights, and fitness planning. Think Apple Fitness+, but for your overall wellness.

Then Eddy Cue stepped in. After recently taking leadership of the Health division, Cue reportedly killed the subscription model. Instead, the AI health features will ship for free as part of the standard Health app in iOS 27.

What survived the pivot? Two things stand out. First, Apple-produced video content designed to explain medical conditions and guide users through training plans. Second, personalized AI-generated health recommendations based on data from your Apple Watch and Health app — things like sleep pattern analysis, activity suggestions, and trend warnings.

Additional features from the original Health+ plan will reportedly roll out gradually in future iOS updates rather than being locked behind a paywall. For the subscription-fatigued, this is genuinely good news.

Satellite Connectivity Expands

Apple introduced satellite emergency SOS back in 2022 with the iPhone 14, and each year the capability has grown. iOS 27 takes another leap forward.

The headline addition is 5G satellite internet connectivity, though this will likely be limited to iPhone 18 Pro models equipped with Apple's next-generation C2 modem. For everyone else, there are still meaningful upgrades: Apple Maps will reportedly work over satellite connections for basic navigation in areas without cell service, and emergency messaging gains the ability to send photos via satellite — a major improvement for search-and-rescue scenarios.

Perhaps most importantly, third-party apps will gain access to satellite APIs for the first time. This opens the door for hiking apps, travel tools, and safety applications to build satellite-based features that work completely off-grid.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Comes Next

We're still roughly four months away from WWDC, and the iOS 27 picture will only get clearer between now and June. Apple tends to keep its cards close, but the leaks have been unusually specific this year — suggesting the broad strokes are already locked in.

The real question isn't whether iOS 27 will be good. A stability-focused release, by definition, should make your phone better. The real question is whether Apple can deliver on the Siri chatbot without the delays that plagued their last two AI rollouts. And whether the iPhone Fold software will be polished enough by September to justify a brand-new product category.

We'll be updating this page as new information comes in. Bookmark it, check back often, and if you want to be ready for day one, keep an eye on our iPSW Beta Download page — it'll have the iOS 27 beta firmware the moment Apple publishes it.

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