WWDC 2026 is just a month away, and that’s the countdown to our first official look at iOS 27 — the new software for iPhones set to arrive with the iPhone 18 later this year.
But while the World Wide Developers’ Conference will be the first official peek at the software, we already have an idea of some of the changes Apple has penciled in. With the iPhone Fold expected to make its long-awaited debut this year, there’s a focus on making the software foldable-friendly, but even those with more traditional handsets should benefit from some of the changes, too.
Here are the seven biggest rumored upgrades coming to your iPhone this fall (or earlier if you’re brave enough to try potentially buggy developer code).
Siri getting smarter
Despite being first out of the gate with digital assistants, Apple’s Siri has struggled to keep up with its traditional rivals of Alexa and Google Assistant, and that gap has grown even larger in the age of generative AI.
That could finally change with iOS 27. The much-delayed Siri 2.0 is set to be a part of it, introducing a “fresh look” and a “chatbot-like experience”.
For the latter, Apple is reportedly testing glowing borders introduced in iOS 18 for when Siri is listening, paired with a Dynamic Island-style indicator that will expand into a Liquid Glass panel when it has an answer.
But the main meat of the upgrade is within Siri’s general intelligence and usefulness. In particular, the upgrade is set to include personalized context (e.g: “what movie did John recommend last week?”), awareness of what’s on screen (e.g: “Siri, send this photo to Sue”) and better app integration (e.g: “Siri, send my journey ETA to Paul”).
Pick your favorite AI model
At the moment, iPhone AI is integrated with ChatGPT due to an exclusive partnership between Apple and OpenAI. But with iOS 27, Apple will reportedly let users jettison ChatGPT if they prefer a different model.
This is set to work via an ‘Extension’ tool that will let iPhone owners install the chatbot of their choice via the App Store.
This will let owners “access generative AI capabilities from installed apps on demand, through Apple Intelligence features such as Siri, Writing Tools, Image Playground and more” reads a message reportedly spotted in test versions.
In other words, if you have always found Claude or Gemini to be more useful for your needs, you’ll soon be able to bake it more deeply into your handset.
Better AI photo editing
With iOS 18, Apple took its first step into AI photo editing with Clean Up. Two years later, the company looks set to expand the feature set with iOS 27.
According to Bloomberg, Apple will be introducing three new AI tools as well as performance improvements to Clean Up.
‘Enhance’ will let users improve color and lighting, while ‘Extend’ will attempt to generate convincing looking additional images beyond the photograph’s original frame. ‘Reframe’, meanwhile, is aimed specifically at spatial photos seen in 3D on Vision Pro, letting users change the perspective from which the photo was taken.
Make your own Apple Wallet passes
Apple Wallet is a handy way of keeping tickets and passes easily accessible for when you need them, saving you the hassle of diving through your emails. But not every pass is compatible, making it an inconsistent solution.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, it will soon become more useful. An option called “Create a Pass” will let users add tickets, memberships and gift cards, each color coded for different pass types. “Users can create a pass from scratch or rely on the iPhone’s camera to take a QR code and turn it into a digital ticket,” Gurman writes.
There are already plenty of third-party tools that do this, of course, but if confirmed, this will certainly be more convenient for iPhone users.
Autocorrect becomes a subeditor
At the moment, autocorrect simply fixes spelling errors (or, occasionally, introduces them when it gets overzealous). With iOS 27, autocorrect could take the next step to become an automated Grammarly-style subeditor, with suggestions of synonyms or alternate words.
That’s according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, again. “It suggests alternative words in addition to word fixes like today’s autocorrect,” he wrote in a follow-up post on X. Though he added that there had been “no final decision on releasing it,” so put this one in the ‘maybe’ pile.
Apple Health enhancements
While Apple has reportedly backtracked some way from its original vision for Health Plus, we are still expecting to see some elements “repurposed and introduced” with iOS 27.
It’s not clear how much of it will survive, but the original plan was for Apple to generate health reports for users based on surveys, health assessments and data taken from the Apple Watch. The idea was that this could then lead to personalized recommendations via Apple Intelligence, supplemented by appropriate videos explaining medical conditions, outlining wellness routines and providing training plan guides.
User-friendly shortcuts
Shortcuts can supercharge your iPhone experience, allowing users to create automated routines for all kinds of things. However, it does require a certain amount of patience and know-how to get good results, so it remains a niche feature.
With iOS 27, Apple is set to add some much-needed user friendliness, once again based on Apple Intelligence. It sounds like you’ll be able to create complex routines based on a simple description of what you’re looking for, saving you the effort of deep diving through submenus.
iOS 27: Outlook
For an update that was originally expected to be smaller in scope than iOS 26, it looks like there will be plenty to get our teeth into with the release of iOS 27.
However, the highlights — from Siri 2.0 to the enhanced photo editing options — are all underpinned by Apple Intelligence. So it’s possible that the update may be minor to those with pre-2023 handsets, depending on what is manageable on-device, and what is outsourced to the cloud.
We shall find out soon, with the developer version of iOS 27 likely to be unveiled at WWDC 26 on June 8.
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