Five New iPhone Features Rumored for iOS 27

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

what's sad about this, is that if i came after ios18, we would have gotten a truly optimized system. instead, we're getting an emergency repair for one of the worst ios iteration in history, and we'll be lucky if optimizations get it back to ios18 level in terms of power consumption and smoothness.

it's truly horrible how bad it is. running repeated actions such as pulling down control center, notification pane, home gesture, after a few minutes there's a MAJOR difference between ios18 and 26, where the latter is MUCH MUCH hotter, starts dropping frames, drains a lot more battery, and is overall a baffling downgrade.

I suspect HDR UI doesnt help. I find it absolutely horrible from an accessibility standpoint anyway

so, instead of getting a proper system that's beautifully optimized, what we'll likely get, at best, is something that's similar to what we had 2 years prior.

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

Those square corners look so beautiful. The search bars without anything underneath half showing through look awesome

I hope the remove all traces of Dye's graphical disaster from the current mess.

this is very unlikely unfortunately...it's here to stay for a while. it may get toned down slightly

 

[citysnaps]

I found the exact opposite true. Looked like garbage in all the photos and videos I watched, but a fantastic user experience actually using it.

Same here. I waited weeks before updating my iPhone based on all of the negative comments. I finally did it and it works and looks great.

 

[Kylo83]

iOS 26 was a minor update with no new features just Liquid Glass

 

[Brother Cavil]

I'm all in favor of a "Snow Leopard" cycle for all Apple OSes but I don't think that will help with the UI/UX decline we've been witnessing for quite some time now. Liquid Glass is Apple's and, more specifically Tim Cook's "Emperor's New Clothes" moment. Pretending like Liquid Glass is an improvement, much less a revolution, is just embarrassing. It's awful.

Everything about the Apple UI experience feels disjointed and inconsistent at this point. Tahoe is just hideous. I've completely given up on Apple being able to deliver a consistent, thoughtful user experience. Every year they shuffle all the UI elements and move everything around, hiding random things behind yet another unnecessary click or two. It's exhausting and pointless.

When it comes to UI/UX, Apple is failing wildly. We don't need constant UI changes. Everyone I know who uses Apple's products complains bitterly about the UI changes with each major OS update. And now the Cupertino hive mind wants us to fawn over the Emperor's latest outfit, Liquid Glass. Revolutionary! Amazing! You're going to love it!

By all means, fix the bugs. More importantly, hire some smart, thoughtful UI/UX designers and engineers ASAP. Apple's current team is churning out absolute trash at this point. I'm in my fifth decade as an Apple customer and there's a lot to love about Apple today, but the UI is an embarrassment, especially given Apple's history. There's no consistency, no guiding principles, and major visual changes seem designed to slavishly refresh the look year after year, not deliver a better user experience.

 

[Sami13496]

iOS 27 will likely include refinements for the Liquid Glass design that Apple introduced with iOS 26. There have already been some changes in the iOS 26.1 and iOS 26.2 updates, but iOS 27 will provide Apple with the opportunity to make larger adjustments to respond to customer feedback.

I hope this means they redesign it back to normal. Less “Liquid Glass”.

 

[BillyJoeJimBob]

They say something like this every year, but it's never been true.
"Your call is important to us..."

 

[Vahn21]

what's sad about this, is that if i came after ios18, we would have gotten a truly optimized system. instead, we're getting an emergency repair for one of the worst ios iteration in history, and we'll be lucky if optimizations get it back to ios18 level in terms of power consumption and smoothness.

it's truly horrible how bad it is. running repeated actions such as pulling down control center, notification pane, home gesture, after a few minutes there's a MAJOR difference between ios18 and 26, where the latter is MUCH MUCH hotter, starts dropping frames, drains a lot more battery, and is overall a baffling downgrade.

I suspect HDR UI doesnt help. I find it absolutely horrible from an accessibility standpoint anyway

so, instead of getting a proper system that's beautifully optimized, what we'll likely get, at best, is something that's similar to what we had 2 years prior.

People keep saying this about IOS26 but it’s been smooth on my old 14 pro max even with its degraded battery if I picked something not a fan of would be the control center doesn’t slide down now it just pops down. Id still say there are a few older iOS so much worse then this like iOS 5 I remember not even getting 1.5-2 hrs of use with brand new phone it was terrible

 

[capamac]

Stallman is making more and more sense to me.

 

[jeffhayford]

While we’re removing Liquid Glass can we also reduce the corner radius on everything? Things have gotten far too round and disjointed.

 

[ThomasJL]

Also, Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard" would be a great goal for Apple's software team in more ways than one: Not only was Snow Leopard a powerful and useful Operating System, but it was also one of the prettiest Operating Systems Apple has ever designed.

View attachment 2593955

Oh wow, just look at that gorgeous skeuomorphism! That's what UI design looks like under the leadership of Scott Forstall. Tim Cook was a colossal idiot for firing him.

In that screenshot, notice how the buttons are the controls are three-dimensional, and also so intitive. But ever since Forstall was fired, we've been stuck with ugly and unintuitive flat design and flat design variants like neumorphism and glassmorphism.

In that screenshot, notice how the back button looks like, well, an actual back button. Ever since Forstsall was fired, back buttons have looked like a two-dimentional text character of the less-than sign.

 

[Zenman12]

I fail to see why they can’t focus more on bugs now. I sent in a lot of feedback back. Here’s hoping they do that.

 

[Zenman12]

Yes, a Snow Leopard bug version. I’m so happy.

I can smell your enthusiasm John…

 

[capamac]

notice how the buttons are the controls are three-dimensional, and also so intitive. But ever since Forstall was fired, we've been stuck with ugly and unintuitive flat design and flat design variants like neumorphism and glassmorphism.

Flat is truthful. The screen _is_ flat. The screen is not 3D. Fake-3D buttons on a UI are not 3D, the are 2D.

 

[ThomasJL]

Flat is truthful. The screen _is_ flat. The screen is not 3D. Fake-3D buttons on a UI are not 3D, the are 2D.

If that's what you prefer, then stop using an operating system with a GUI and instead start using an operating system with a command prompt, like MS-DOS. MS-DOS is the ultimate in flat design.

 

[akbarali.ch]

Satellite over 5G ? - Isn't opting to use a satellite is to bypass (not need) the land network ?

 

[thelion7]

I’m all for a snow leopard style release. Apple have proven time and time again especially with Apple Intelligence that they can no longer deliver their commitments on time, let alone in a polished state.

I like iOS 26 but do feel like despite our iPhones getting more powerful the Liquid Glass design is still inconsistent in terms of fluidity around the OS.

This tells me the graphics/ animations are under optimised and I also agree there’s parts of the os where no there’s no Liquid Glass apart from sliders and buttons.

I feel like true Liquid Glass should mean any app that would have a blank white or dark background should be glass where you can see your wallpaper through it.

Mail and iOS settings demonstrates this well but eligibility reasons could hold this back.

I guess my point is Liquid Glass is there until you enter most apps and then it’s just buttons and sliders.

It’s heavily implemented on Home Screen and lock screen but not on apps.

But I’d happily take no no features to get a refined os next year.

 

[tothemoonsands]

If anyone from Apple is reading this, please finish the iTunes purchase migration feature. There’s still plenty of us who need to move iTunes purchases over to the main iCloud account. This wasn’t a problem of our doing, it was a limitation at the time of early MobileMe. It’s crazy they teased us with a half baked implementation then simply removed the migrate button for anyone who ever had Apple Music on both accounts, even if one was long forgotten and unused.

 

[Kylo83]

So 3 months of beta testing for a perfect os nah it will still have bugs all year so what’s the point, might as well have new features and exciting changes

 

[ItsASpider]

Don't we get the "Snow Leopard update" rumor practically every year? It feels more like wishful thinking.

 

[AppliedMicro]

SiriAI will probably need more resources than 11 can provide.

According Apple, it should also “require” more resources than a non-Pro iPhone 15 (which Apple AI is not compatible with). So should they deprecate iOS support for those two and a half year old phones too?

 

[AppliedMicro]

Oh wow, just look at that gorgeous skeuomorphism! That's what UI design looks like under the leadership of Scott Forstall. Tim Cook was a colossal idiot for firing him.

In that screenshot, notice how the buttons are the controls are three-dimensional, and also so intitive. But ever since Forstall was fired, we've been stuck with ugly and unintuitive flat design and flat design variants like neumorphism and glassmorphism.

These buttons merely continue the “pre-Forstall” lineage of the Aqua interface introduced in 2001 (under Avie Tevanian, I believe).

If you want a look Forstall’s skeuomorphism, look no further than the fake leather and fake pages they gave the address book in 10.7 Lion:

Betalogue » Dumbing down Mac OS X: Lion’s Address Book

👉 Firing your boy Forstall and stopping (t)his faux-leather tackiness was one of the best decisions Cook ever made from a software user interface perspective.

Although Forstall certainly deserves some credit from a software engineering perspective.

 

[Populus]

I'll settle for no new features but no more bugs and buttery smooth animations. I still haven't installed iOS 26.

Yeah, me too honestly. Buttery smooth animations, most bugs solved (there’s no software without bugs, but they can be greatly reduced), and no unexpected battery drain.

That being said, if I have to be honest, I’m experiencing less bugs on 26.2 than when I was on 18.7, or at least that’s my impression…

 

[svish]

Waiting to see how liquid glass will be refined further. Specific adjustments made for the fold might be shown only when the device is launched. Hopefully Siri/Apple Intelligence will improve.

 

[jdavid_rp]

You can’t say it’s going to be a snow leopard update and then list multiple big features like new interfaces