5 best new features coming to iOS 27 – your iPhone is getting a bag of new tricks
I've had a look at some of the forthcoming new iPhone features while at WWDC 26 – here are my favourites
Quick Summary
During its WWDC keynote, Apple announced a swathe of new features that are coming to iPhone with iOS 27.
And as I've now managed to catch up with a few demos at the developer conference itself, here are my five favourites.
Several new features are coming to iPhone when iOS 27 launches later this year, from performance improvements like faster AirDrop transfers (not that I find it particularly slow now) to new child safety features.
The new (and very long-awaited) Siri AI is unsurprisingly a highlight of the upcoming software, along with a few new Apple Intelligence features. So, here are the top five iOS 27 features that really caught my attention during my in-person demos at WWDC 26. They are the ones I'm looking forward to most.
1. A more helpful assistant in Siri AI
We’ve been waiting a long time for the new contextually aware Siri – two years in fact – but from what I was shown, it looks like it might finally be ready to be a helpful personal assistant.
Siri AI is a redesigned assistant powered by Apple Intelligence and unlike the old Siri, it handles open-ended questions, brainstorms ideas, and holds natural back-and-forth conversations.
It understands personal context, surfacing buried emails, old photos, or saved notes with a simple request. It can also take actions across apps like Messages, Music, and Reminders, and tap into the web for up-to-date answers on pretty much any topic.
A new, dedicated Siri app keeps all your conversations synced across iPhone, iPad and Mac, and it can also write drafts and match your personal tone for each recipient you reply to, as long as you have at least two messages with them for context.
2. Clever new photo editing skills
The enhanced photo-editing skills were rumoured before WWDC kicked off, but I’ve now seen them in action, and they are impressive.
A new ‘Tools’ icon appears alongside Adjust, Filters and Crop when you tap to edit a photo. From here, there’s a Reframe feature that allows you to change the composition of a photo – perhaps you got the angle slightly wrong or didn’t notice the sign in the background, for example.
Clean Up, which lets you remove unwanted objects from a photo, has also been upgraded. In the demo I saw, Clean Up was able to remove a chair and large cuddly toy from an image, place a child’s leg in its place and even match the stripy sock from the child’s other leg.
There’s also Extend, which lets you expand a photo by 25% in any direction.
3. Context-aware suggestions
Siri Suggestions bring intelligent, context-aware actions into Apple’s native apps and this is one feature I am really looking forward to see expand.
To start with, in Messages and Mail, quick actions might be suggested based on your conversation, such as adding a calendar event or opening the Photos app to send a photo.
It can also proactively surface relevant information during phone calls, such as pulling up a confirmation code from your inbox while you're on the line with an airline.
It’s taken further with the Shortcuts app, where you can simply describe a task in plain language, and Siri can build a multi-step automation that connects actions across multiple apps. I can see plenty of potential here.
4. Fixing passwords without my input
This is not one to be underestimated. If you have compromised passwords in the passwords app, you’ll have no excuse for not sorting those out with iOS 27.
The Passwords app in the new software takes the hassle out of keeping your accounts secure. It automatically alerts you to any weak or compromised passwords and can update them on your behalf with no manual effort from you required except one quick tap.
5. Personalising Liquid Glass
This one might not seem that exciting, but for those who found the Liquid Glass design of iOS 26 a little hard to read, there’s a new slider in iOS 27 that will help.
The slider can be found in the Appearance section of Settings, and will allow you to personalise how Liquid Glass looks across your iPhone.
It can be dialled anywhere from ultra clear to fully tinted, with the latter making it a little easier to see. The new software also improves the underlying Liquid Glass design itself, with more uniform refraction and better contrast.
Apple has said iOS 27 will be available from this fall (autumn), though there should be a public beta available from July if you want to try some of the new features out beforehand.
It will be compatible on iPhones from the iPhone 11 and newer, but Siri AI and Apple Intelligence features require an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 model or iPhone 17 model.
