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.
watchOS 27 will bring the new Siri AI, a smarter Workout Buddy and other useful new features to Apple Watch. While the wearable didn’t receive much attention during the WWDC26 keynote on Monday, Apple said watchOS will get AI-powered upgrades like the rest of its platforms.
“You can start chatting with Siri on your iPhone, pick up where you left off on your iPad, and wrap up on your Mac,” said Mike Rockwell, Apple’s VP of Siri engineering, during the keynote. “We’re also tailoring Siri AI for watchOS. So you can ask questions and take action right on your wrist. And you can also tap into the Siri app using the new app grid on Apple Watch.”
Apple began selling refurbished Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch SE 3 last week in its Certified Refurbished store, all of which debuted alongside the iPhone 17 last September. The GPS version of the 46 mm Apple Watch Series 11 starts at $369, while the Ultra 3 and 40mm SE 3 go for $699 and $209, respectively.
That’s good news if you want the peace of mind that comes when buying directly from Apple. Every refurbished Apple Watch goes through a thorough inspection and cleaning process, ships in new packaging, and comes with the same one-year limited warranty Apple offers with a new device. And they are eligible for AppleCare+ as well.
However, for some models, you can find much better deals elsewhere.
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.
At the Platforms State of the Union, Apple covered the nitty gritty on the new Siri AI and Apple Intelligence features, improved Liquid Glass design, Device Hub and more tools announced today.
Much nerdier than the morning keynote, this event covers the technical details of how developers are supposed to use and adopt the new features inside their apps with the latest developer tools.
You can watch the Platforms State of the Union on YouTube, in the Apple Developer app or on the web. Read on to see our live coverage of the event.
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.
At WWDC26, Apple previewed visionOS 27, the next major software update coming to its Vision Pro headset. The biggest new change is the introduction of Siri AI and the suite of new Apple Intelligence features, as is the case for all of Apple’s announcements today.
But there are other great quality of life features coming to the headset. You can turn your own panoramas into immersive environments, view 3D models from your Mac, and use apps with curved windows. visionOS 27 features another redesigned Control Center, a new virtual environment, improved notifications, faster Wi-Fi connectivity, faster Messages sync and much more.
visionOS 27 is available now as a developer beta, with a public release expected in September.
iPad users got their first look at iPadOS 27 on Monday, with Apple using the keynote address of WWDC26 to tout improvements to stability and performance before taking a deep dive into new AI-related features.
There are a great many enhancements for tablet users. Here are the standouts.
Apple reinvented its smart assistant Siri as “Siri AI,” with a new range of advanced capabilities and its own dedicated app, the company said Monday during its WWDC26 keynote.
Siri, Apple’s long-maligned smart assistant that was often not terribly smart, gets a new architecture that better understands personal context and can perform a wide range of actions across devices.
“We couldn’t be happier to bring you Siri AI, our new version of Siri, powered by Apple Intelligence,” said Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi during the keynote. “It’s more intelligent, knowledgeable and capable.”
Apple took the wraps off macOS 27 Golden Gate, the next major release of its Mac operating system, during the opening keynote of WWDC26 on Monday.
It brings Liquid Glass refinements and performance improvements along with an enhanced Siri and deeper Apple Intelligence integration.
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.
Apple CEO Tim Cook’s chipper “good morning!” from many, many events got the quasi-royal treatment Monday in a video he shared on X.com filled with celebrities saying the phrase just hours before WWDC26 kicks off.
For Cook, who remains CEO until John Ternus takes over September 1, today’s keynote might be the last opportunity to say it on such a big stage.
And it begs the question: What will be Ternus use as a catchphrase, anyway?
Looks like we’ll be able to get the folding iPhone Ultra and any color we want, as long as what we want is white.
A noted tipster says Apple’s upcoming handset with a flexible screen could come only in that single color option. It’s not a surprising move for a device expected to be a niche product because of its premium price.
Ugreen has emerged as a popular player in the NAS market. It’s continuing that trend with the launch of two new NAS models in its DXP range: the DXP4800 GT and DXP2800GT.
Both new NAS models use AMD’s Ryzen embedded processor and feature 10GbE Ethernet connectivity for super-fast data transfer.
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.
The UK government plans to compel Apple, Google and other technology companies to block children from encountering any nudity on their devices like iPhones and iPads — and to imprison executives who fail to act for up to 5 years, according to a new report Friday about policy changes in the works.
Seems like the sort of thing that could make incoming Apple CEO John Ternus a little nervous.
Everybody expects Apple’s Siri voice assistant to get a big AI-powered makeover Monday at WWDC26. But there’s more to the picture, in that Apple Intelligence and Visual Intelligence will see a bunch of separate new features, too, according to rumors rounded up in a new report Friday.
The interest rate earned by cash stored in Apple Card Savings accounts dropped on Thursday, the second time it’s been cut this year. Money in these accounts now earns 3.4% in annual interest.
The bank behind the savings account is responding to changes in the U.S. economy. Plus there’s another possible factor: less desire to bring in new customers.
Apple could soon do something it rarely does: Trust your data with someone else’s hardware. A new report says the Gemini-powered Siri might route some queries through Google Cloud, powered by Nvidia’s chips.
If you are wondering how Apple plans to keep its privacy promise, Nvidia’s Blackwell B200 chip encrypts your data while it processes it.
Apple’s long-anticipated high-end MacBook — the OLED-display machine, possibly with touchscreen, that many expect Apple to call the MacBook Ultra — could arrive a lot sooner than expected, according to a new report Thursday. As in, possibly as soon as 3Q 2026, which probably means September.
The App Store ecosystem generated more than $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales during 2025, Apple said Thursday. The figure nearly triples what the platform posted in 2019 and underscores how central the App Store has become to digital earnings. And artificial intelligence-boosted apps played a huge role.
Google’s new AI Edge Gallery app for macOS lets you run Gemma models locally on your Mac. Instead of relying on the cloud, the app taps into Apple Silicon’s power to process AI tasks directly on your machine.
The app is already available on Android and iOS, with the macOS release bringing the same on-device AI experience to Macs.
While the Apple Vision Pro is one of the best spatial computers money can buy, touch is one sense it can’t fake. But a newly granted Apple patent hints at a new stylus that can simulate the texture of virtual surfaces on your hand.
The Apple Vision Pro is capable of showing virtual surfaces with great clarity, but it lacks haptic feedback. But the new sort of Apple Pencil could close that gap and make the headset’s XR experiences physical for the first time.