Another new Apple iPhone launch, another new iOS update for iPhones everywhere. Headlining the launch of iOS 27 is Apple’s attempt at making Apple Intelligence smart enough to actually be useful. Again. Apple has struggled to keep up with Google’s Gemini AI, which is spreading across the best Android smartphones. If iOS 27 lives up to the hype, it could be the surge forward that Apple has been promising iPhone owners for years.

major new smarts

Apple has been lagging in the AI race. Google’s Pixel lineup of devices take advantage of the excellent Google Gemini AI, which closed the gap between it and Anthropic Claude and OpenAI ChatGPT last year. Samsung also began incorporating Gemini AI into its wildly popular Galaxy line of phones and tablets. Apple’s Siri, meanwhile, has been an also-ran.

You know the saying: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Apple struck a deal not long ago to begin incorporating Gemini AI into Apple Intelligence. The Apple faithful may groan, but I’m hopeful because I have more faith in Gemini’s ability to perform than for Apple to catch up, alone, in the ludicrously expensive field of AI development.

With iOS 27’s new smarts, iPhone users should expect the ability to pose follow-up questions after Siri responds to your initial request, a feature that should’ve been present a long time ago. Siri should also be more aware about what’s on your screen when you ask it questions and give it directions, and so it should ramp up the accuracy because it knows the context of your request. Web search should get a boost, too, allowing Siri to access more up-to-date information, rather than being stuck with an outdated bucket of knowledge.

Visual Intelligence is a big feature, one you may have seen Samsung or Google brag about in their ads. By pointing the iPhone’s camera at something, say a receipt, Siri will be able to figure out how to split the bill, with all the considerations taken into for tax and tip. Or you could point it at a plate of food and ask Siri to estimate the nutritional value. The new features in iOS 27 bring Siri a pair of eyes and away from being purely a voice-and-text-activated assistant.

You’ll notice a new standalone Siri app, too, which will sync your conversation history across all your Apple devices. You can pick up where you left off when you move from Mac to iPhone to Apple Watch to iPhone, and so on.

which iphones get ios 27

Every iPhone back through the iPhone 11 (released in September 2019), along with the second-generation iPhone SE (released in April 2020) gets iOS 27 as a free download. It should pop up in your settings menu as a downloadable update. If you have auto-updating toggled on, then your iPhone will download and install iOS 27 automatically.

Even though all those iPhones get iOS 27, the older phones still don’t support Apple Intelligence, and so iOS 27’s benefits in that regard (and including Siri AI) will be lost on iPhones that don’t support it. Apple Intelligence support began with the iPhone 15 Pro (released in September 2023), but not the plain Jane iPhone 15, and including the non-Pro models starting with the following year’s iPhone 16. Those are the phones that’ll be able to take full advantage of iOS 27’s new AI smarts.

If you’re ready to replace your phone with the latest iPhone 18 Pro, announced just last week and shipping to customers on September 18 (as well as being available in stores), here’s where to pre-order the new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.