iOS 27: Everything we know about the fall 2026 iPhone update

Macworld

Apple is still wrapping up iOS 26, but has already been hard at work for many months on the next major release: iOS 27.

With an unveiling coming in early June at WWDC, we’ve already heard a few rumors about what the next OS will have in store for our iPhones when it is released in September of 2026.

Plans change of course, and you shouldn’t consider anything to be set in stone until Apple makes a formal announcement. Here’s what we think we know so far.

iOS 27: Performance over features

Our most reliable intel about iOS 27 comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who reports that Apple intends to treat iOS 27 similarly to Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6). After the major overhaul of Mac OS X Leopard (10.5), Apple spent the next year removing cruft, fixing bugs, streamlining, optimizing, and improving performance. There were new features, of course, but not as many relative to a normal OS X release.

The result was one of the most popular and well-loved OS X versions of all time. Apparently, iOS 27 is going to follow the same route: there will be some new features, but much time and effort is being spent on cleaning up the code and improving performance.

iOS 27: Apple Intelligence

While the focus of iOS 27 may be on performance, efficiency, and reliability rather than new features, there is reportedly one major exception: Apple Intelligence.

Apple has given up trying to get its new Siri update out as part of iOS 26, and is instead is working on an even bigger Siri overhaul for iOS 27. It will turn Siri into a full chatbot, with an interface similar to text messaging and the ability to reference past interactions. It will also integrate more fully with Apple’s apps. The new Siri will be built on an entirely new foundation model that uses Google’s Gemini as its base, with Apple modifications, enhancements, and guardrails on top.

We don’t have much information about what specific AI advancements Apple is working on or how it will be used throughout the OS and Apple’s apps, yet. But Gurman reports iOS 27 will be heavy on new AI features.

Recently, some back-end code suggested Apple is working on Apple Intelligence features like reading nutrition lables, adding phone numbers and addresses to contacts, adding physical tickets and passes to Wallet, and auto-generating names for tab groups in Safari.

iOS 27: Folding phone features

We’ve heard of the imminent release of a folding iPhone for more than five years now, but it looks it could actually happen in 2026. The iPhone Fold, as some are calling it, is expected to be an ultra-premium device with a sky-high price tag—some rumors say as much as $2,400.

Naturally, an iPhone that has a 5.5-inch screen on the outside but then opens to reveal a 7.8-inch display on the inside is going to need some specific iOS changes to make use of it. Not only will the operating system itself need an overhaul to deal with this screen-switching and new aspect ratios, but all of Apple’s built-in apps will need to take advantage of the iPhone Fold’s unique geometry.

We haven’t gotten any rumors about how iOS 27 will adapt to the folding phone, and Apple is unlikely to unveil any new features until the phone arrives in September, but we’ll be looking for clues at WWDC.

iOS 27: Release date

Apple will almost certainly take the wraps off iOS 27 at WWDC, which is held in the first or second week of June. So we’ll hear all about it, and the first developer-only betas will ship on Monday, June 1 or June 8, 2026.

Then, after several months of beta updates, the latest version of iOS always arrives in September, typically around the second week. Monday, September 14, is the most likely date, based on past history.

iOS 27: Compatibility

We don’t yet know which phones will be compatible with iOS 27, but we can make an educated guess based on past releases and what we know of the upcoming features.

Apple cut off support for iPhone with the A12 processor with iOS 26, but we don’t foresee any reason to eliminate support for devices with an A13 (which has 4GB of RAM) for iOS 27. That leaves us with a compatibility list that looks very much like that for iOS 26:

• iPhone 17, 17 Pro / 17 Pro Max (launched in 2025)
• iPhone Air (launched in 2025)
• iPhone 16e (launched in 2025)
• iPhone 16 / 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro / 16 Pro Max (launched in 2024)
• iPhone 15 / 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro / 15 Pro Max (launched in 2023)
• iPhone 14 / 14 Plus / 14 Pro / 14 Pro Max (launched in 2022)
• iPhone SE 3 (launched in 2022)
• iPhone 13 / 13 mini / 13 Pro / 13 Pro Max (launched in 2021)
• iPhone 12 / 12 mini / 12 Pro / 12 Pro Max (launched in 2020)
• iPhone SE 2 (launched in 2020)
• iPhone 11 / 11 Pro / 11 Pro Max (launched in 2019)

Based solely on its age, it’s possible that the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro could get dropped from the compatibility list. If so, it would have enjoyed six years of new OS updates, which is on the high end for Apple devices.