Apple Ships iOS 27 With Rebuilt Siri AI, but the New Assistant Stays Out of Mainland China

The new Siri runs on an underlying foundation model and is built to parse complex, conversational requests and answer in fluent natural language instead of returning raw web results. ifanr said the assistant handled tasks such as summarizing a week of appointments and pulling key points out of subscription emails. It can also read on-screen context and chain commands across apps: in an example from the review, a friend texts a meeting address, and telling Siri to navigate to that address by walking makes it extract the location from Messages and open Maps with walking directions. A separate Siri entry in the camera bar lets users point the phone at an object and ask about it.

Apple Intelligence's imaging tools also changed. The AI erase feature introduced in iOS 26 now produces cleaner results with fewer visible artifacts, ifanr said, and the Photos editing menu adds Extend, which fills in stretched canvas edges such as cut-off rooftops or side streets, and Reframe, which generates an on-device preview for re-cropping and slight viewpoint shifts before a cloud model fills in the missing detail.

The review also found an on-device video subtitle feature Apple had not promoted heavily. When a video in Photos contains clear speech, a subtitle button appears next to the progress bar, and captions can be generated locally without a network connection, with adjustable styling. Image Playground, previously limited to cartoon illustrations and stickers, now supports photorealistic images.

None of the new Siri features are available to iPhone users in mainland China. Although filing records show Apple Intelligence has passed China's on-device large-model approval process, Apple had not opened the full new Siri experience in the mainland when the release went out, ifanr said.

On the non-AI side, iOS 27 restores user control over the Liquid Glass interface introduced in iOS 26. A continuous slider in Display & Appearance settings lets users keep the translucent look by pulling left or shift toward a frosted-glass appearance closer to iOS 18 by pulling right, addressing complaints about readability against busy wallpapers.

Apple's published benchmarks for iOS 27 cite up to 30 percent faster cold launches of mainstream apps, up to 70 percent faster loading of newly shot high-resolution photos, and up to 80 percent faster AirDrop transfers and handshakes. The company included the iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone 15 among its test devices alongside current flagships.

The alarm app adds a workday option that includes China's adjusted holiday schedule, skipping statutory holidays and ringing on weekend days designated as workdays. The camera gains a customizable interface: long-pressing the top button opens an edit mode where exposure, Live Photo, styles, depth, night mode and format can be pinned to the top bar. Photos adds separate views for shots taken by the user and for identity documents such as ID cards and driver's licenses, and video playback adds a frame export option that saves the paused frame at original resolution from the top-right menu. Shared albums no longer compress images.

For AirPods with H2 chips, including AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2, iOS 27 adds a custom EQ with low, mid and high sliders, and AirPods Pro adds an adaptive audio strength adjustment. The Weather app now leads with an hourly precipitation chart, the home screen supports full-page widgets and a more compact lock screen clock, alarm and timer volume is separated from media volume, and Messages adds a queue that lets text pass ahead of large photos or videos on weak networks and retries failed sends.

On upgrade advice, ifanr recommends updating devices from the iPhone 14 onward. For iPhone 11 through iPhone 13, it recommends upgrading only if the device already runs iOS 26, since that release's frame drops, stutter and washed-out Liquid Glass text were addressed; users still on iOS 18 or earlier are advised against upgrading if they care most about smoothness and battery life. Apple notes that the first 24 to 48 hours after a major upgrade involve background reindexing, with higher heat and battery drain.