Jacob Woolcock
iOS 27 Revealed at WWDC26: The Features That Actually Matter
Every year, WWDC feels a little bit like Christmas morning to me. I know that sounds dramatic, but I genuinely mean it. Most people see their iPhone as something they carry in their pocket to make calls and scroll through Instagram. I see it as something that’s constantly becoming more capable, and WWDC is the moment Apple pulls back the curtain on what it’s going to become next.
This year I was on my sofa watching the keynote like everyone else, and what Apple announced for iOS 27 kept me leaning forward the whole way through. Here’s what I think actually matters, and why.
Your iPhone is getting Faster and Faster
Speed improvements aren’t exactly thrilling, I know. But stick with me, because these numbers are actually significant. Apps opening 30% quicker. Photos appearing in your camera roll 70% faster after you’ve taken them. And AirDrop, finally, 80% faster.
That last one made me genuinely happy. If you’ve ever been stood next to someone, bags on your shoulder, trying to send them a photo before you have to leave, watching that little spinner go round and round… you’ll know exactly what I mean.
What I really liked is that Apple confirmed these improvements apply to iPhone 11 and later. This isn’t one of those announcements that only benefits people who bought a phone last month. If you’ve been holding on to an older device, iOS 27 should feel like a real difference in your pocket.
Your iPhone is getting lots more Parental Controls
I want to spend a moment on this one, because I feel strongly about it. I work with young people, and I think about the responsibility the tech industry has towards them quite a lot. So when Apple walked through the new child safety features in iOS 27, I was paying close attention.
You can now convert an existing Apple account into a child account and set your child’s age, which unlocks a whole layer of age-appropriate filters and controls. There’s a new Ask to Browse feature, where your child has to request your permission before visiting any website they haven’t used before. You get a notification, you can browse it yourself, and then you decide.
Children can also only add new contacts with your approval, which I think is quietly one of the most important features here. It creates a natural conversation – is this someone you know? Someone from school? – rather than just letting things happen unchecked.
Screen Time gets a meaningful upgrade too. Apple are now providing recommended time limits based on expert guidance, adjusted for your child’s age. And a Screen Time Schedule means you can automatically restrict certain apps during school hours, then have them available again at 3:15 when the school day ends. I think this is genuinely good. A real step in the right direction.
Your iPhone is getting a much more Intelligent Siri
For years, Siri has been the punchline to a joke that stopped being funny a long time ago. We all knew it. Apple knew it. And I think, if we’re honest, we’d all started to wonder if they’d ever really fix it.
iOS 27 is where they try. Meet Siri AI.
What makes it different isn’t just that it’s smarter – it’s that it’s actually conversational. Not in the way Siri has always claimed to be conversational, where you ask something and it either answers or pretends it didn’t understand and sends you to Google. I mean genuinely conversational, where you can go back and forth, build on what you’ve already asked, and pick up a thread from days ago. All of your conversations live in a dedicated app that syncs across your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
The part that really stuck with me is Personal Context. Siri AI can now search across your entire digital life – messages, emails, photos, notes, browsing history – to find what you need, without you having to know which app it’s even in. During the keynote, they demonstrated someone pointing their camera at a rucksack in a shop and asking whether it would work as carry-on luggage for their next flight. Siri looked up the bag, found the flight in the calendar, checked the airline’s baggage policy, and came back with an answer.
That’s the moment that made me sit up. That’s not a demo trick. That’s actually useful.
On privacy: Apple are doing as much as possible on-device, and anything that goes to the cloud sits on private servers where it’s not stored or used for training. You’re not handing your life over to an AI. You’re using your own data more intelligently, on your own terms.
Your iPhone is getting Lots of Little Improvements
The camera now has a dedicated Siri mode. Point it at a receipt and Siri AI can break it down item by item and split the bill between a group. You can add multiple calendar events from a single photo rather than one by one.
In Safari, there’s a new Notify Me feature that monitors websites and alerts you to changes – price drops, things coming back into stock, ticket sales. That one’s going to be genuinely handy.
Photos gets a more powerful cleanup tool, a new Extend feature for stretching the edges of an image (really useful for turning a landscape photo into a portrait wallpaper), and something called Reframe, which lets you change the composition of a photo after you’ve taken it. I have slightly complicated feelings about that last one, but I’ll give it a proper try before I form a view.
Shortcuts can now be created just by describing what you want in plain English. No logic chains, no dragging things around. Just tell it what you want. And Writing Tools now has a proofreading feature built in — a lighter version of Grammarly, attached to your keyboard as you type.
In the Home app, cameras can now use Apple Intelligence to describe what’s happening in footage, so you can search instead of scrubbing. When was my parcel delivered? It’ll find it. Plus 4K video in HomeKit on supported cameras, which I’ve been waiting a long time for.
And these are just a few of the smaller updates coming to iOS 27.
Your iPhone is going to have to Wait a Little Bit
Everything announced at WWDC is really just the start. What happens next is that developers go away with all these new tools and start building them into their apps. Your fitness app knowing your context and adjusting your plan automatically. Your travel app, your notes app, your shopping app, all tapping into the same intelligence. That’s where iOS 27 gets really interesting.
iOS 27 ships in September, with a public beta in July. Over the summer I’ll be making a series of quick tips covering all of these features – short, practical videos that help you get the most out of your iPhone. Subscribe here so you don’t miss them.
Siri AI feels, finally, like what Siri was always supposed to be. I can’t wait to dig in.
