When iOS 27 first came out back in June, we started working on a series of in-depth feature guides and how tos that go through all of the updates in Apple's new software. Our ultimate guide aggregates all of our ‌iOS 27‌ coverage, and it is useful for iPhone and iPad users new to ‌iOS 27‌ or those who might want a recap on what's included. We've organized it by feature to make it easy to find what you're looking for. Liquid Glass Here's How Liquid Glass Is Changing in iOS 27 iOS 27: Tone Down Liquid Glass Transparency Get Clear App Icons on Your iPhone Home Screen Siri and Apple Intelligence Siri AI in iOS 27: Features, Requirements, and How It Works Here's What's New With Visual Intelligence in iOS 27 Messages iOS 27: 13 Ways the Messages App is Smarter and Less Annoying iOS 27 Adds New Drawing Tool to Your iPhone's Messages App iOS 27 Lets You Hide the Messages Button Everyone Hits by Mistake Phone and FaceTime iOS 27: All the New Phone and FaceTime Features AirPods Every New AirPods Feature in iOS 27 Set a Custom EQ for Your AirPods in iOS 27 Safari iOS 27: All the New Safari Features Apple Maps iOS 27: All the New Apple Maps Features Mail iOS 27: What's New With the Mail App Calendar, Reminders, and Notes Everything New in Calendar and Reminders in iOS 27 iOS 27 Adds Four New Features to Notes App, Including Markdown Copy-and-Paste Photos What's New in the iOS 27 Photos App Wallet iOS 27 Wallet App Gets 7 New Features Health iOS 27 Apple Health App Redesign: Every New Feature Coming in 2026 iOS 27: All the New Health and Fitness Features Weather iOS 27 Weather App: All the New Features Home and HomePod iOS 27 Home App: 10+ New HomeKit Features Apple Intelligence Home Features Require 2TB iCloud+ Plan in iOS 27 iOS 27 Brings New Functionality to HomePod Shortcuts iOS 27 Makes the Shortcuts App Much Less Intimidating Lock Screen iOS 27 Brings These Five New Features to Your iPhone Lock Screen iOS 27's New Compact Clock Gives Your Wallpaper Room to Breathe Add a Volume Slider to Your iPhone Lock Screen iOS 27 Lets You Dismiss the 'Now Playing' Lock Screen Widget Control Center and Settings Open the Current App's Settings From Control Center iOS 27 Finally Unlinks Alarm Volume From Your iPhone Ringer iOS 27 Adds a Useful New Copy-and-Paste Feature to Your iPhone CarPlay iOS 27: 8+ New CarPlay Features Find My iOS 27 Adds These New Features to Find My, Including 'Hide Location' Apple TV iOS 27 Lets You Update Your Apple TV Using Your iPhone iOS 27 Lets You Add Apple TV Remote to Your iPhone's Home Screen iCloud iOS 27: All the New iCloud Features Screen Time and Parental Controls iOS 27 Adds New Parental Controls: Ask to Browse, Time Allowances, and a Redesigned Screen Time Performance and Recovery 10 iOS 27 Performance Improvements You'll Actually Notice iOS 27 Adds Mac-Like Recovery Mode for iPhone and iPad iOS 27: Access the New iPhone Recovery Screen Limited and Delayed Features Two iOS 27 Features Won't Be Ready Launch Two iOS 27 Features Are Only Available on iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air iOS 27 Features You Can't Use in the EU Read More We have a complete overview of all of the new features in ‌iOS 27‌ in one place in our iOS 27 roundup , which is also well worth checking out for all of the smaller details that didn't make it into our guides and how tos. Related Roundups: iOS 27 , iPadOS 27 Related Forum: iOS 27 This article, " iOS 27 Features: The Ultimate Mega Guide " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums
Apple released macOS Golden Gate to the public today, which means anyone with a compatible Mac can download it. The new version of macOS requires an Apple chip, so if you have a Mac with an M1 or later or a MacBook Neo , you can upgrade. ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ includes Siri AI, and the Mac is the only device that people in the EU can try ‌Siri‌ AI with. It also brings a long list of performance improvements, updates to Liquid Glass, and new Apple Intelligence features for apps like Photos , Calendar, Reminders, Home, and Safari. Liquid Glass Apple added a Liquid Glass slider in macOS 27, which means you can adjust the transparency level. You can select a clearer version of Liquid Glass that lets some of the background show through, or a more opaque version for improved legibility. Since it's a slider, you can also pick something in between. Apple tweaked the overall opacity of Liquid Glass, and it better diffuses complex content behind navigation bars and buttons. Darkened edges and brighter specular highlights add more depth and separation for different UI elements. Toolbars, Sidebars, and Windows Uniform toolbars in apps make text headings and groups of controls more legible, and Apple has cut back on the number of icons that are used in menu interfaces. Windows have the same corner radius for more consistency, and you'll notice that app corners are not as dramatically rounded. Changes to window shadows and the Liquid Glass updates make it a lot easier to tell which window is active when you have several apps open. Sidebars no longer float and are edge-to-edge, which is a less distracting design. Sidebar icons once again use color, too. Siri AI ‌Siri‌ AI is the biggest change in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌. ‌Siri‌ is smarter, more capable, and functions like a chatbot. On the Mac, you can ask ‌Siri‌ anything using the Spotlight interface that comes up with Command + Space. Spotlight is now a unified "Search or Ask" bar where you can search for files, apps, and other content, or ask ‌Siri‌ to complete tasks or answer queries. You can also interact with ‌Siri‌ using the dedicated ‌Siri‌ app, which is where you can view past conversations and start new conversations. ‌Siri‌ conversations sync across all of your devices, and the ‌Siri‌ app is cross-platform. ‌Siri‌ can see what's on your screen and access your personal information like emails, messages, and photos to answer questions. ‌Siri‌ can also search the web and complete tasks in apps for you. It's a huge change from the prior version of ‌Siri‌, and ‌Siri‌ can handle far more than it could before. We have more on some of the tasks you can complete with ‌Siri‌ in our Siri AI guide . Visual Intelligence Apple brought the iPhone's Visual Intelligence feature to the Mac in macOS 27. You can ask ‌Siri‌ questions about what's on your screen with ‌Visual Intelligence‌, choosing the entire screen or just a portion. ‌Visual Intelligence‌ on the Mac works when you press Command + Shift + Space or Command + Shift + 6 to capture one area of the display. If you press Command + Shift + 5 (also used for recording your display and capturing screenshots), you can click on the ‌Visual Intelligence‌ icon to get an adjustable selection square for selecting an area of the screen. ‌Siri‌ can search for images, summarize, translate, identify objects, add information from the screen to apps like Calendar or Reminders, answer questions about what you're looking at, and more. ‌Visual Intelligence‌ on Mac has all of the same features as Visual Intelligence on iPhone , and it includes the new ‌Visual Intelligence‌ features like telling you nutritional information for food or splitting out a bill. Write with Siri There is a system-wide Write with ‌Siri‌ feature that goes beyond the ‌Apple Intelligence‌ Writing Tools available in macOS Tahoe . ‌Siri‌ can compose entire emails or messages for you, give you feedback on your writing, change out words, and complete other editing tasks. To use Write with ‌Siri‌ on Mac, right-click in an app and choose the Ask ‌Siri‌ option. If you select text before the right-click, you can ask ‌Siri‌ for editing help. If you have a blank document, you can ask ‌Siri‌ to generate something for you. When drafting emails or messages, ‌Siri‌ can analyze your past communications and generate something in your own writing style. Apple also expanded spell correction in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌, and your Mac will give you grammar suggestions and fixes. iPhone Mirroring You can resize the iPhone Mirroring window in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌, dragging at the corner to make a window larger or smaller. Depending on the app, you may be limited to a portrait iPhone aspect ratio, but other apps support iPad or landscape layouts. It's a feature Apple likely added for the iPhone Duo , but it's nice to have for any iPhone. Shortcuts It's easier for anyone to create a Shortcut in just a few minutes in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌. The Shortcuts app on Mac opens to an interface that lets you describe what you want a shortcut to do using natural language. AI creates the shortcut for you, and you can refine it with further natural language commands or manually edit it. You can activate your shortcuts through the app or with ‌Siri‌ commands. Safari Extensions Safari has a customizable extension feature in ‌macOS Golden Gate‌, and you can use the Describe Extension option to type in what you want an extension to do. The extension is created using AI and is available to use right away. To use it, click on the settings icon on the right side of the URL bar and choose the Describe Extension option. Some Apple examples: Display a reading time estimate as a badge on the extension Close duplicate tabs pointing to the same URL when I click the extension Highlight this word Create a 3-minute focus timer for the page Set the minimum font size to 14pt Every time I open a new tab, draw me a flower Highlight and show the dimensions of webpage elements when I click them Enter design mode for a website so that I can edit the contents Save this recipe Safari Tab Grouping and Notifications Safari also has an intelligent tab grouping feature. Tabs in related categories are automatically grouped together in the tab view. You can also set Safari to monitor a webpage for updates, with Hourly, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly checks available. When you set this feature up, you'll get a notification when the content on the webpage changes. Performance Improvements In addition to introducing ‌Siri‌ and new ‌Apple Intelligence‌ features, ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ cleans up underlying code. Apple made multiple refinements to speed up performance. Animations and interactions are faster and smoother, and you'll notice a difference when scrolling Safari and other apps, opening Mission Control and Spaces, and using other Mac interface elements. AirDrop transfers complete more quickly, browsing through files on attached network devices is faster, and window positioning is more stable when using external displays. Messages also sync faster and more reliably across devices. Apple rebuilt its search foundation for Spotlight, ‌Photos‌, Mail, and Messages, and indexing is quicker. When you search for something recent, it's more likely to come up right away than before, and in Mail, there's a ranking system that surfaces the emails you're most likely looking for. Mail search indexing is more reliable than before, and Spotlight search suggestions are more relevant. How to Install ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ can be installed through the System Settings app on your Mac. Just go to General > Software Update. Full System Requirements ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ runs on Macs with an ‌M1‌ chip or later, plus the A18 Pro ‌MacBook Neo‌. Intel Macs do not support ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ and won't get the new features. Every Mac that runs ‌macOS Golden Gate‌ supports ‌Apple Intelligence‌ and ‌Siri‌ AI, but some on-device ‌Siri‌ processing features for selecting a natural voice and getting upgraded dictation require an M3 or later. Related Roundup: macOS Golden Gate Related Forum: macOS Golden Gate This article, " macOS Golden Gate: 10 Features to Try First " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums
