Most of what has been written about iOS 27 describes Siri AI. These are the iOS 27 tips that are easy to miss. Settings buried two panes deep, a gesture Apple removed quietly, and features with a catch worth knowing first.
Every tip here is new in iOS 27 release, and comes from my own testing rather than from Apple’s feature list.
1. Where Siri went
You can bring up Siri (by default), as in previous releases, by saying “Siri” or “Hey Siri,” or by pressing and holding the side button. However, the change introduced in iOS 26 that let you double-tap the bottom of the screen is gone. In iOS 27, you can swipe down on a Home screen to reveal the new combination of Spotlight and Siri: a field labeled Search or Ask. You can type into that field, or tap the Dictation icon and talk to Siri that way.
2. Set the Liquid Glass level
When you upgrade to iOS 27 or iPadOS 27, the last stages of the installation present a new screen that lets you choose to adjust Liquid Glass using a slider. If you don’t make the adjustment at that moment, you can do so later, or change your initial choice. Go to Settings > Appearance > Liquid Glass.
This new screen offers a slider you can drag from the left edge, which Apple describes as “More Clear” (most Liquid Glass effect) across a range to the right: “More Tinted” (most opaque). Apple makes it easy to visualize by providing a scrollable preview that shows Liquid Glass elements overlaid on a webpage with images and text.
3. Flatten Liquid Glass completely
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and enable Reduce Transparency. This flattens Liquid Glass, removing transparency and providing an almost identical look to iOS 18/iPadOS 18. The level of Liquid Glass you have enabled doesn’t have an effect.
Use Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Increase Contrast to bump up the difference in tones. In iOS 27/iPadOS 27, the difference appears slight, where it was sharply distinct in the previous releases.
4. Why the slider is locked
You can’t change the Liquid Glass intensity when either of those two options is enabled. When you attempt to change the Liquid Glass setting, you’re told that Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast must be disabled. You can tap Turn Off.
5. Give alarms their own volume
It took this long for Apple to let you set the volume of alarms and timers hitting zero seconds separately from your ringtone volume. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics and, under Alarms and Timers, disable Match Ringtone Volume.
6. Stop clinging to dead Wi-Fi
In iOS 27, Apple rebranded the Wi-Fi Assist feature as Connectivity Assist, and if you had Wi-Fi Assist enabled—it was by default—you’ll find the new feature already turned on in Settings > Wi-Fi.
7. Use both FaceTime cameras
After many, many years of FaceTime supporting a single camera view on iPhone, you can now use the front and back cameras simultaneously. The proviso? You need an iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, or iPhone Air and iOS 27. The other person or people can see your dual-camera feed only if they have iOS 27, iPadOS 27, or macOS 27. (This builds off the dual-capture mode in the Camera app on those models introduced in iOS 26.)
To use the dual-camera mode, in an active FaceTime session (or before someone has joined), tap the Flip Camera button in the inset selfie view. This shows both cameras by default.
8. Share location for any period
Previously, you could share your location for an hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely. Now you can set a custom period of time.
9. Hide your location silently
If you’re sharing your location with someone, you can hide your location from your end until the next morning (at 4 a.m.), and they’re not notified. They’re also not told when you resume sharing, or “unhide” your location. They simply see you with a “location unavailable” label.
10. Photo keywords, at last
It took many years, but you can finally apply keywords to media in the Photos app on an iPhone and iPad. Huzzah? (Keywords are a useful way to link images for searching and organization.) However, you can still only apply keywords to items one at a time, as opposed to singly or in selections of two or more on a Mac. To add keywords, tap the info button, then tap Add Keywords.
11. See only what you selected
When you make a selection by tapping the Select button in the upper-right corner of any multiple-item view in Photos, a new Show Selected button appears at the bottom. Tap it, and it reveals just the items you chose. You can adjust the selection or view the images and videos in a carousel. Tap Deselect All to remove the current selection.
12. Two albums appear by themselves
Apple adds two new albums in Collections > Utilities. Captured by Me contains images or videos you created using any iPhone or iPad, such as via the Camera app or by taking a screenshot. The Identity Documents album uses machine learning (not Apple Intelligence) to collect scans or photos of personally identifying documents. (Identity Documents hasn’t yet appeared for me in iOS.)
13. Upgrade a Shared Album first
In iOS 27/iPadOS 27 (and on macOS 27 and at iCloud.com), you have access to several new features. However, you must first upgrade an album: select the album in Collections > Shared Albums, tap the More button, then tap Upgrade Shared Album. This may take some time—minutes or longer—depending on the size of the items in the library and your internet connection.
After upgrading, you have access to the following:
- Full-resolution photos and videos are now supported across all common formats.
- You can filter by photos or videos. Tap the Filter button, then tap Media Types.
- There’s a Create Shared Album option for any existing album. Tap the More button, then tap Create Shared Album.
- Albums can be set to expire after 30 days, but only when created. After creating a Shared Album from an existing album or by tapping the Add button in the Collections > Shared Albums view, enable Make Album Temporary.
- You can create an upload link that allows anyone—not just people with access to the album—to upload images. With the album selected, tap the Share button, tap “Only invited people can join,” and choose Anyone with the Link. (This is similar to other kinds of sharing across iOS 27/iPadOS 27.)
- A recent activity log lets you see changes made to the album, including emoji reactions. (This doesn’t yet appear to be in place.)
14. Save a video still
You can extract a frame from a paused video to save as an image. Tap the More button and choose Save Video Frame.
15. Make Photos sync now
Photos often decides to pause syncing to iCloud to avoid draining the battery, even when the battery is quite full. You can now go to Settings > Apps > Photos > Sync Immediately and choose For Today. This prioritizes syncing instead of preserving battery life for the remainder of the calendar day. If Low Power Mode or Low Data Mode are enabled, Photos will still pause until those modes are turned off, such as by recharging the phone for the former.
16. Slideshows without Memories
Slideshows can now be built from any album or even a selection of media, rather than relying on memories.
17. Search a podcast’s episode notes
If you navigate to a podcast’s view of all of its episodes by tapping the podcast and then tapping Episodes, you can now search against the title and show notes of all listed episodes.
This doesn’t search transcripts, which Podcasts generates for some shows. It searches only the per-episode notes published in the podcast feed.
18. Watch a page for changes
On any page, tap the Page Info button and choose Notify Me. Here’s the interesting part: You write in plain language what you want Safari to check for, then tap Next. Safari will check daily by default. You can tap Edit while creating the notification or afterward to switch to hourly, weekly, or monthly, and set the time of day.
19. Scan a card into Wallet
You can create entries for cards, membership cards, and other kinds of barcode/QR code-related proofs of entry or membership from scratch, a task formerly available only for third-party apps and websites.
Tap the Add button in Wallet, then tap Create a Pass. You’re guided through a few steps, one of which lets you scan the existing card, so that Wallet can pull in its number, barcode, or QR code. You can fill out details that aren’t present on the card or captured by Wallet.
20. Share details at the till
Entirely new is Tap to Share with merchants at the point of sale, such as in a store or at a fair. This makes in-person Apple Pay more akin to Apple Pay in Safari. Tap to Share lets an entire set of interactions occur before you pay. You start by approving a connection with a merchant’s iPhone that has a supported payment app. (Ostensibly, this may encompass not just companies like Square and Stripe, but in-house developer apps for retailers like Old Navy or Lowe’s.)
Once you begin, you can choose what you share with the business—like contact details, a shipping address, or your email. This also means you don’t have to state this information aloud or rely on the merchant typing it in correctly! A merchant can offer to sign you up for a membership or loyalty program. You can use a pass from the merchant, or they can issue one, related to discounts, credits, or other transaction-related purposes. Finally, you see the full cart as a digital receipt before completing payment with Apple Pay.
21. Read anything in Accessibility Reader
Accessibility Reader used to require a shortcut trigger. Now, you can use the share menu in any app to open content in the reader.
22. Captions for any video
Your iPhone and iPad now generate captions from any uncaptioned video you’re watching in Photos and other supported apps. (This isn’t related to tvOS or TV app captioning.) If captions already exist, you can have them automatically translated between supported languages.
23. iPad tips: the menu bar
In iPadOS 26, the menu bar had to be triggered either by swiping down from the top of the display or by hovering with a pointing device, at which point it would appear. It then hid, after a short delay, when it wasn’t in use or being hovered over.
In iPadOS 27, the default behavior appears similar, but there are two significant changes:
- The app name always appears on the far-left side of the menu bar, at the upper-left corner of the screen.
- To unfurl the menu bar, tap or drag over the app name.
Along with that new behavior, you can also opt to have the menu bar remain in place, persistent at all times. Go to Settings > Multitasking & Gestures, then disable Automatically Show and Hide Menu Bar.
24. React to a keyboard connecting
Apple previously didn’t offer a way to trigger an automation when a keyboard was connected to or removed from an iPad. This frustrated some users, who interact with their iPad differently when a keyboard is connected—such as in a dock-style environment—and when they are using only the touch screen or an Apple Pencil.
Now, you can use Shortcuts to create automations based on whether a keyboard was connected, disconnected, or the keyboard connection state changed. This includes the “Set multitasking mode to” item. You might want to switch between Full Screen Apps and Windowed Apps when using your iPad without a keyboard. You’d have to set up two shortcuts: one would trigger when the keyboard was attached; the other when detached.
For more iOS 27 tips and tricks, see the complete guide to every iOS 27 feature. There are also 36 changes that owe nothing to AI that I recommend you to check out.
