Three rumored features that Apple didn’t mention at WWDC26 last week — a customizable Camera app, Siri support for third-party AI chatbots, and a Modular watch face that works on regular Apple Watches — might arrive this fall.
These features all bubbled up in the rumor mill before Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, but it looks like we won’t see them until September.
Forget what you know about Apple’s Image Playground — the app is no longer terrible. There’s a new version on the way, and it finally fulfills the promise Apple made two years ago.
Later this year, your iPhone is getting an AI tool that’s truly capable of generating images based on your descriptions. And the software can avoid many of the usual problems that cause some people to reject artificial intelligence tools.
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: For once, Siri doesn’t leave us exasperated! After a week of WWDC26 surprises, we’re genuinely stoked about the promise of Siri AI.
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:
Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
Apple Mail’s search has been broken for years, and everyone knows it. But iOS 27 should fix that.
When it arrives later this year, it will bring a completely rebuilt Mail search with features such as a new on-device index, relevance ranking and the ability to reindex old emails. The emails you know exist but can never find? Your iPhone will finally be able to surface them.
Apple spent the majority of WWDC26’s opening keynote talking about Siri AI, Apple Intelligence upgrades, Liquid Glass refinements and performance enhancements. But iOS 27 packs much more than that. There are several smaller changes that Apple did not talk about onstage.
Here are some of the best hidden iOS 27 features you might have missed.
If you ever accidentally hit the microphone button in the Message app and started recording your voice, Apple finally fixed that problem in iOS 27. Justin Bieber publicly complained about it last year, and as it turns out, Apple was paying attention.
With iOS 27, Apple is not only ending the dictation button problem but also adding some new features to the Messages app. You’ll also get AI-powered smart suggestions, a new drawing tool, improved child safety features and performance fixes.
iOS 27 is coming to iPhone 11 and all models released after that. And while it sounds impressive that Apple’s new operating systems will support devices released in 2019, it does not mean that your old iPhone will get every new iOS 27 feature. In fact, even the iPhone 17 will not get the full suite of AI features in iOS 27.
The same holds true for iPadOS 27 and macOS 27. Many of the headline features require newer hardware, meaning some compatible iPads and Macs will miss out on parts of the update.
Apple’s Calendar app is just fine — good enough to use, but never good enough to love — but iOS 27 finally changes that. The update brings natural-language event creation to Apple’s stock app, a feature that third-party solutions have made possible for years.
In iOS 27, you can just type in simple English what you want to do, and your iPhone will take care of the rest. No more hopping between date pickers, fiddling with time selectors, and entering a location. The app will understand and build an event for you.
Apple’s new Siri AI chatbot might know when you’ve been bending its ear — and encourage you to take a break. A hidden piece of code in iOS 27 reveals that Siri AI could remind you to chill out if a conversation runs too long.
It’s a small detail, but it suggests Apple is clearly thinking about what happens when you don’t stop talking to Siri.
Apple Music will receive one of its biggest overhauls in years with iOS 27, and the changes go deeper than you might expect.
The update covers almost all aspects of the Apple Music app: interface changes, expanded lyrics tools, improved AI-powered mixing, and quality-of-life changes that make the app feel faster. It sounds like a big update for anyone who uses the app daily.
Apple’s WWDC26 keynote brought a wave of updates to Apple Wallet well beyond cosmetic tweaks. From AI-assisted bill splitting to richer hotel stays, iOS 27 turns Wallet into a more capable everyday tool. Here’s what’s coming.
WWDC26 drew plenty of attention for the rebuilt Siri and the relatively substantial iOS 27 overhaul. But buried beneath those headlines lies Apple’s biggest push yet to turn the Home app into a genuinely capable smart home platform. iOS 27 and tvOS 27 updates make your home smarter, from AI-powered security cameras to a more reliable wireless backbone.
The Reframe and Extend tools Apple added to the Photos app in iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 are excellent examples of how AI can be used to improve our lives. With these AI-powered editing options, a picture that’s almost amazing can be noticeably improved.
Plus, they don’t have the drawbacks of artificial intelligence that make so many people uncomfortable.
Refinements to Apple’s divisive Liquid Glass user interface in iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 address many of the quirks that made some people despise the glossy new UI over the past year.
Apple straightforwardly addressed users’ concerns during Monday’s WWDC26 keynote. And Shubham Kedia, Apple’s human interface design director, said Apple updated “the foundations of how Liquid Glass is built” for this year’s new operating systems.
“Last year, we introduced our most ambitious cross-platform design update ever with Liquid Glass, which made apps and experiences even more expressive and delightful,” said Kedia. “Like with all major design updates, there’s a natural process where we take a bold leap forward and then we continue to iterate.”
Will the changes to Liquid Glass satisfy users who dislike the current state of affairs? The first developer betas are out, and early reactions seem mostly positive. Here are the biggest changes coming to Apple’s design language this year.
Anyone interested can download the iOS 27 developer beta for free — right now.
You’ll be among the first to try the exciting new Siri AI, which really does work as promised. It can answer complex questions about your digital life, understand what you’re asking for and look things up online with broad world knowledge. You’ll also get the other new Apple Intelligence features, a tweaked Liquid Glass design, improved speed and performance, and much more.
Of course, there are a few things you should look out for. Beta software is buggy and can lead to data loss. That being said, iOS 26 has been buggy since September. iOS 27 promises broader system stability — unlike most early betas, in my testing, the system runs smoother than before. But it comes at the expense of odd behavior you may find in third-party apps, since they haven’t been updated to support the new changes to Liquid Glass.
If you want to try it out, you should make sure you have a backup of your most important data with two copies of your photo library before you try installing. I’ll show you how.
At the WWDC26 keynote, Apple announced the next versions of all its operating systems with a swath of AI features. There are tweaks to the Liquid Glass design, a wide array of tiny quality-of-life and performance improvements, draconian parental controls and limits, and AI in every corner of the operating system.
It was an unusual WWDC keynote that disposed of the typical platform-by-platform format, and a relatively brisk runtime. But if you don’t have 76 minutes to spare, you can get the gist in just 90 seconds.
The first iOS 27 beta contains multiple references to Apple’s rumored foldable iPhone. Hidden within the operating system are strings and other code pointing to features designed specifically for a foldable device.
At this point, it’s no secret that Apple is working on a foldable iPhone. The company itself is now just indirectly confirming it.
With iOS 27, Apple finally brings independent volume controls for alarms and timers on the iPhone. This means adjusting your phone’s ringtone volume will no longer affect how loud your alarms, timers and other system sounds are.
It’s a small quality-of-life improvement, but one that iPhone users have been requesting for years.
Before Apple even started talking about new features, it devoted a significant chunk of Monday’s WWDC26 keynote to talking up improvements to performance and stability coming to all its operating systems this fall, including macOS 27, iOS 27 and iPadOS 27.
It’s surely welcome news to Apple users that their devices with run faster, with fewer bugs. And that’s includes a significant performance improvement especially for older iPhone models.
The headlining new feature of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 — new Siri AI — will not come to the EU.
“We’re deeply disappointed that our EU users won’t have Siri AI on iPhone or iPad when we share our new software releases later this year,” said Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi.
While Siri got a complete redesign to include a dedicated chatbot app, on-screen awareness and deeper integration with third-party tools, that’s not the only AI upgrade cited by Apple in Monday’s WWDC26 keynote. A bunch of new Apple Intelligence features are set to upgrade your life, too.
“Truly helpful AI must be centered on our users’ needs, deeply integrated into the products they rely on every day, grounded in personal context, and built with privacy at every step. That is our vision for Apple Intelligence,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.
“With useful features for browsing the web, expressing creativity, editing photos and so much more, today marks a big step forward on our journey to integrate powerful AI into the core of our platforms and make our products even more personal and useful,” he added.
The new features will become available with the release of iOS 27 and other OS updates coming in September 2026.
Apple showcased iOS 27, iPadOS 27, watchOS 27 and macOS 27 at WWDC26’s opening keynote Monday. The updates refine last year’s Liquid Glass redesign, add several new Apple Intelligence features, and introduce a host of quality-of-life improvements across the company’s devices.
Before you get excited about trying the new features, you’ll want to make sure your device is supported. Below, we rounded up the full compatibility lists for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, watchOS 27 and macOS 27.
The much-anticipated iOS 27 update for iPhone showcased at the Worldwide Developers Conference rebuilds the Siri voice assistant from the ground up as Siri AI, improves Apple Visual Intelligence, offers an improved Camera app, fixes myriad bugs and more, Apple said Monday. It turned out to be quite the consequential update.
“We’re excited to bring a wide range of improvements to each of our platforms, making them even more useful and delightful,” said CEO Tim Cook as he began to close out the keynote presentation. It’s expected to be his last before he steps down from the role on September 1.
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: As per tradition, we match wits with our predictions about what we’ll see at Apple’s WWDC26 keynote. Griffin and I are joined by two special guests, Charlie Sorrel and Graham Bower, for this year’s installment of the WWDC prediction game.
What will the new Siri do? Will Apple unveil new hardware? And who, exactly, will get how much screen time?
We chisel our answers into digital stone on 10 tricky questions (which also serve as a jumping-off point to discuss Apple’s future and strategies). And, as always, you can play along! Just be sure to submit your answers (via this Google Docs form) before Monday’s WWDC26 keynote.
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:
Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
Apple is reportedly working on new multitasking features in iOS 27 that would automatically adapt any iPhone app for landscape and split-screen layouts.
With the rumored folding iPhone on the horizon, a lack of multitasking would translate to a waste of screen real estate. But this rumored capability could mean your entire app collection would work instantly, without Apple waiting for developers to redesign their apps.