5+ New Features Coming in macOS 27

[noraa]

The best thing Apple can do in terms of GUI user-friendliness is to do a 100% purge of every last pixel of flat design and all flat design variants like neumorphism and glassmorphism, and then work with Scott Forstall in some capacity (even if limited) to bring back all of iOS 6's exact same skeuomorphism and Mac OS X Mountain Lion's exact same skeuomorphism. Forstall could help to update their resolutions for the higher-resolution displays of today, as well as to create new skeuomorphic graphics and icons for things that exist now that didn't exist when those two operating systems were originally released.

Oy, please no!

I don't hate skeuomorphism, but it got completely out of hand but the time iOS 6 and OS X Mavericks rolled around. I look back on screenshots from that era, and everything looks almost amateurish and toy-like.

That's not to say Apple couldn't add some skeuomorphism back into their designs, but Forstall is definitely not the person to help with that.

 

[Squidiey]

So loads of crappy ai "features". Hard pass.

You can disable them bro it’s not Google’s “AI” search

 

[transpo1]

The best thing Apple can do in terms of GUI user-friendliness is to do a 100% purge of every last pixel of flat design and all flat design variants like neumorphism and glassmorphism, and then work with Scott Forstall in some capacity (even if limited) to bring back all of iOS 6's exact same skeuomorphism and Mac OS X Mountain Lion's exact same skeuomorphism. Forstall could help to update their resolutions for the higher-resolution displays of today, as well as to create new skeuomorphic graphics and icons for things that exist now that didn't exist when those two operating systems were originally released.

Your post is a bit self-serving, no? 😄

 

[Squidiey]

Damn I feel sad for intel users who will stay with the macOS 26 bugs…

Couldn’t they can just roll back to macOS Sequoia?

 

[minik]

I may upgrade this on my production machine right after.

 

[triptolemus]

An AI based Siri which doesn't steal your data would make it better than the alternatives.

Everything steals your data.

Everything.

 

[Squidiey]

Everything steals your data.

Everything.

Except FOSS (Free Software) like Linux and GIMP

 

[StoneJack]

Siri is so far behind modern AIs in 2026 that the bar for it is basically at the floor. Apple slept through the AI boom for three years now and if this isn’t the WWDC to show they’ve realized their error and are making changes, I don’t know how they don’t get left behind and decline further. They’ve been coasting for some time on their scale and rent seeking behavior with services, hope this isn’t the future.

I have a feeling that even if Apple heavily invested in AI engine, it still would be below ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. So actually they might saved time and money by just licensing one of them (Gemini). Siri initially was not AI tool anyway, it was just a voice assistant so it is unfair to criticise it for what it is not.

 

[StoneJack]

Your post is a bit self-serving, no? 😄

I would like to know what Forstall is doing right now. He was serious competitor to Cook, but now its gone, hopefully feud is over.

 

[Squidiey]

I have a feeling that even if Apple heavily invested in AI engine, it still would be below ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. So actually they might saved time and money by just licensing one of them (Gemini). Siri initially was not AI tool anyway, it was just a voice assistant so it is unfair to criticise it for what it is not.

Yeah Siri is only designed for basic stuff like opening apps and telling jokes and not generating a paragraph

 

[PowerButton]

I wonder if the built in version of Siri will make the Gemini desktop app I use obsolete. If it's remotely good, don't we think Apple will fold it into the Apple1 subscription? I could see that.

God I hope not, especially considering they promising these features to the iPhone 16 users when it was released. Making Siri a subscription will be the end of Siri 🪦. Siri came as an OS utility and it should remain that way, regardless of how bad it is or how good it will/should become.

 

[PowerButton]

I honestly like the idea behind Liquid Glass - the idea of adding some fluidity and motion to the UI, layering with transparency and refraction, and icon refinement all sound good on paper. Unfortunately, the execution has been sorely lacking, especially when it comes to the transparency. One of the most egregious examples is Control Center: it's heavily translucent with some slight background blurring, making its visibility terrible.

I do think Apple has the capability to refine Liquid Glass into something really nice, but it's hard to get past bad first impressions (see Apple Maps - which has become really good, but people still refuse to use it since it was so bad at first), so even if Liquid Glass becomes an amazing UI, people are still going to hate it.

In any case, my hopes with macOS 27 and Liquid Glass is just refinements to the level of transparency and background blur to make everything more legible. That and decrease the roundness of window corners; those are completely out of hand (even though they actually look kinda nice, the cut way too much into the window, make the title bars unnecessarily tall).

I like UI as well, but at the price of performance and battery life 🤷‍♂️ at least have options.

 

[Elwe]

Rosetta 2 will mostly go away post this next release; but not fully. Apple stated that they will leave some compatibility bits in place for some games. I don’t know that they have communicated an exhaustive list.

There is speculation on some hackintosh threads that if they leave some bits, some clever people will be able to use such mechanisms to maybe get some non-approved apps to work. This would be highly speculative until much more is known about what Apple is technically doing and how.

 

[alfonsog]

Apple Intelligence (coming winter 2026) 🙄

 

[tkermit]

All I ask for is that it doesn't make anything worse.. would be happy with this:

 

[HBX]

Liquid Glass wasn't the reason I didn't upgrade to Tahoe, it was the hideous, atrocious PlaySkool rounded corners on all the windows, for the love of god, Apple, get rid of those rounded corners.

 

[dwhankner]

I like Liquid Glass look in macOS 26. Wish they would give us an option to not tone it down so much. More of it system wide and refine it in future versions of macOS

 

[dwhankner]

One thing I know. I bought a new m5 MacBook Air 15 inch as well as a m5 14 inch MacBook Pro. Love both but both Touch ID buttons refuse to work. Won’t log me in at macOS boot screen. Hard to believe both have a hardware problem being brand new. So I am thinking it’s a bug in macOS 26. Hope macOS 27 fixes both machines

 

[GoodTimeNotALongTime]

All three people who use Image Playground will be super-excited for this update.

 

[yabeweb]

Hope they fix finders windows corner radius….

 

[svish]

Waiting to see all the new Apple Intelligence and Siri features. Looks like changes to Photos app will be significant.

 

[ThailandToo]

So loads of crappy ai "features". Hard pass.

I doubt they can even ship them. They have proven they’re unreliable liars with the whole Apple Intelligence advertising and vaporware presentations at WWDC.

 

[Pedersenko]

glass effect “not as well as on IOS”.,,. What tha hck?.. it doesn’t work anywhere. It didn’t work on Windows Vista, it doesn’t work well on any system other than street lighting

 

[Pedersenko]

I honestly like the idea behind Liquid Glass - the idea of adding some fluidity and motion to the UI, layering with transparency and refraction, and icon refinement all sound good on paper. Unfortunately, the execution has been sorely lacking, especially when it comes to the transparency. One of the most egregious examples is Control Center: it's heavily translucent with some slight background blurring, making its visibility terrible.

I do think Apple has the capability to refine Liquid Glass into something really nice, but it's hard to get past bad first impressions (see Apple Maps - which has become really good, but people still refuse to use it since it was so bad at first), so even if Liquid Glass becomes an amazing UI, people are still going to hate it.

In any case, my hopes with macOS 27 and Liquid Glass is just refinements to the level of transparency and background blur to make everything more legible. That and decrease the roundness of window corners; those are completely out of hand (even though they actually look kinda nice, the cut way too much into the window, make the title bars unnecessarily tall).

Would you agree that that feature, despite your liking, should be optional? With toggle on and off?

 

[Pedersenko]

So basically nothing.

Yeah, they make it worse basically