iOS 27 may be largely focused on performance improvements and refinements, but there are so many cool hidden features scattered throughout the OS and apps.
As part of my annual iOS review on MacStories, I’ve collected all of these. The full review (with my thoughts, videos, more images, and interactive widgets) is on MacStories here. (You can also read it as an EPUB!
Here, I’ll just focus on summarizing 50+ great hidden features and tips for iOS and iPadOS 27.
Photos
1. The Camera Roll is back. Well, sort of.
If you want to see only the photos and videos you've taken and nothing else (no screenshots, no images saved from the web), press the filter button at the top of the Library and choose 'Captured by Me'. You get what Photos used to be: a beautiful grid of just your photos and videos. It's awesome, but I'm bummed that it can't be made the default view of the app: quit Photos, reopen it, and you'll have to re-apply the filter.
2. Save a video frame as a photo
How many times have you had to take a screenshot of a video to freeze an exact frame from it? No more. Pause a video, press the '…' button in the top-right corner, and choose 'Save Video Frame as Photo'. Unlike a screenshot, the resulting image is saved at full resolution with the metadata of the original video.
3. Identity Documents
And how often have you ended up taking a picture of your passport again because you knew you had one in Photos but couldn't find it? The new 'Identity Documents' collection aggregates all the pictures of IDs you've taken over the years.
4. Add keywords to photos
You can now add custom keywords to photos and videos. Swipe up on a photo to open the inspector, scroll to the bottom, and you'll find a text field that lets you enter multi-word keywords. They show up in search results immediately, which is a nice way to find items with specific words that Apple's search engine doesn't support by default.
5. Sync to iCloud immediately
Speaking of photos showing up immediately: iOS 27 has a new option to prioritize iCloud sync for the rest of the day. Go to Collections, tap your profile picture at the top, then choose 'Sync Immediately' and set it to 'For Today'. It's automatically disabled when Low Power Mode or Low Data Mode is on. In my experience, it's been a great time-saver while working on the review, since screenshots would sync across my devices as soon as I took them.
6. Star ratings
I've never been into star ratings, but they've found their way to Photos for iPhone and iPad. Enable them in Settings → Apps → Photos → View Options → Rating Controls, and a star badge appears in the top-right corner when viewing a photo full screen. Ratings can then be used as a filter in the Library tab. Since I'd give all photos of my dogs five stars anyway, I wouldn't know how to properly take advantage of this.
7. Clean Up, high quality
Clean Up has been improved with a 'High Quality' mode for detailed edits. Open the Tools menu (the one with the Apple Intelligence logo) and pick Clean Up; it defaults to an auto mode that decides between a fast version for quick touch-ups and a high-quality one for detailed work. When I brushed over a flower vase behind my dog, iOS 26 removed the entire dresser and left a smudgy mess. In iOS 27, only the vase was removed.
Home Screen, Lock Screen, and Liquid Glass
8. Customize Liquid Glass
In iOS 26, Liquid Glass could only be 'Clear' or 'Tinted'. In iOS 27, there's a slider in Settings → Appearance → Liquid Glass that lets you choose any level between three default styles: More Clear, Default, and More Tinted. The screen lets you preview real UI elements on top of photos of Apple Park, the Rainbow, and the dogcow.
9. Extra large widgets
It's quite funny that one of my favorite "small" additions to iOS 27 is called "extra large" widgets. The new size class takes up an entire Home Screen page, and Apple ships XL widgets for Calendar, Home, Mail, Music, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Shortcuts, Stocks, and Weather. The Shortcuts one lets you run up to 16 shortcuts without launching the app; the Home one controls up to 14 accessories or scenes. I know what you're thinking: these were designed for the inner display of the iPhone Duo, and you wouldn't be wrong.
10. The small Lock Screen clock
The complete opposite of extra large widgets is a minimized clock that puts the time next to the date. To enable it, customize the Lock Screen, tap the clock to enter the 'Font & Color' panel, then tap the new symbol in the top-right corner of the panel to toggle between large and small clocks.
11. Clear Now Playing from the Lock Screen
You can now swipe away the Now Playing control on the Lock Screen when something is playing: swiping reveals a 'Clear' button that removes it. Notably, this also removes the activity from the Dynamic Island, but it does not pause playback. It's just a nice way to clear out the Lock Screen.
Siri AI
Before we start, two things worth noting: Siri AI is launching in English only and in select regions (not the EU), and it needs to index your device before it works properly. You can speed up the indexing by keeping your phone on Wi-Fi and connected to a charger, and you can monitor its progress in Settings.
12. Search or Ask from anywhere
Siri and Spotlight have been merged into the same UI: a floating search field that you can activate from anywhere by swiping down on the Dynamic Island. If the system detects a request rather than a search, Spotlight results collapse and 'Ask Siri' appears next to your query. iPhone users never had the ability to invoke Spotlight outside the Home Screen when using apps; in the three months I've spent with iOS 27, I can't tell you how accustomed I've become to jumping between apps without leaving the app I'm in.
13. Type to Siri
At any point during a conversation with Siri, you can switch to text input by swiping down on the response and start typing. You can also expand any Siri snippet to go full screen and continue typing, chatbot-style. Your Siri sessions are no longer ephemeral: they end up in the Siri app, where you can resume them later.
14. Talk to what's on screen
On-screen awareness is the feature that made Siri AI stand out the most for me. In Music, say "play the third one," and Siri knows which one you mean. Looking at a page that mentions an event, you can say "add this to my calendar." In Messages, "love that last message" adds a heart Tapback. In Reminders, say something like "mark the second one as done." Looking at a calendar event, "email the participants that I'll be 10 minutes late" prepares a draft in Mail.
15. Siri's new voice
On supported devices, head over to Settings → Siri → Voice, and you'll find a new voice preview and personalization screen with a selection of voices across six English accents: American, Australian, British, Indian, Irish, and South African. You can tap the colored dots to preview each voice, but only American and British voices support Pace and Expressivity sliders. (Amusingly, part of the demo sentence is about the fact that otters hold hands so they don't drift apart.)
16. Siri in the Camera
Visual Intelligence has been rebranded as just "Siri" and put front and center in the Camera app: open the camera, swipe from Photo to Siri (it's been placed before Portrait), and you can freeze-frame and start asking questions. Long-pressing the Camera Control button still works too.
When our building manager posted a notice with this summer's mosquito spraying dates, I opened the Siri camera and asked it to add them to our Family calendar. Siri froze the frame, found the dates, and created about a dozen events with the right times. You can test all kinds of integrations with this camera mode, including third-party apps.
17. Continue Camera answers in the Siri app
Earlier this summer in Gaeta, as we were walking to dinner, we spotted a huge vessel docked in front of the restaurant. Typically, I would have taken a picture, started a new ChatGPT thread, uploaded the image, and asked about it. This time, I held down Camera Control, and a few seconds later Siri told me I was looking at the Palinuro, a three-masted training vessel of the Italian Navy. A 20-30 second interaction with ChatGPT became a five-second affair with Siri. Better still, I found the chat in the Siri app later and kept asking questions about the ship's history.
18. Ask Siri from any context menu
'Ask Siri' is a permanent fixture of every context menu in iOS and iPadOS 27. Long-press a file, some text, a note, or a link, and whatever you selected is passed to Siri as input. It isn't a particularly special feature, but it shows the kind of pervasive integration Siri AI now has at a system level.
19. Write with Siri
Writing Tools has been replaced by 'Write with Siri', which you can access via the Siri button above the keyboard on the left, or by selecting the Siri icon in the action menu when some text is selected. 'Proofread' and 'Rewrite' also appear in the QuickType bar. There's no longer a static menu of three writing styles: you ask Siri for whatever you want, then compare before and after with swipeable cards at the bottom.
20. Fix the Siri app
By default, the Siri app opens with a "cascading" grid layout that looks great in screenshots but is the most uncomfortable layout I've ever used if you want to find a specific chat. Thankfully, you can revert to a classic list by tapping a button in the top-right corner.
21. ChatGPT is still in there
In what has to be one of the best-hidden features of iOS 27, you can still summon ChatGPT by manually tapping into the Siri search field, selecting 'Ask', and picking 'ChatGPT' as a provider. It's the same extension that launched with iOS 18.2, and Apple really wants you to ignore it. Interestingly, if you ask ChatGPT something Siri AI can do, the orchestrator routes the request back to Siri anyway.
22. Siri and Mail
A few days ago, I asked Siri to find all emails from Google Search Console in my inbox and archive them. In less than 10 seconds, Siri AI asked me to confirm that I wanted to archive 40 messages. That was it. This kind of request would have taken at least a minute with a frontier model pinging a Gmail connector; Apple's system did it in under 10 seconds because the data had already been indexed on-device. Mail’s integration with Siri AI is surprisingly great.
23. Two things at once (but not three)
I've discovered that I can ask Siri to perform two things at the same time – such as setting a timer and turning on a light – but not three. If I ask for three things in the same question, the third one is silently dropped.
Keyboard
24. Paste suggestions
When you copy something to the clipboard – whether it's some text, a link, or an image – the next time you select a text field, you'll see a suggestion above the keyboard to instantly paste what you just copied.
25. Automatic proofreading
This is not autocorrect. System-wide proofreading checks for correctly typed words that don't fit the context of a sentence – such as "this is a tests", where "tests" gets underlined in blue – and you accept a suggestion by tapping on it.
26. Better dictation
The new and larger AFM 3 Core Advanced on-device model (which is only supported on modern devices) enables a faster, more reliable dictation experience. You probably won't notice at first since the UI looks the same, but as someone who uses an iPhone in English with an Italian accent, I can tell you that iOS 27 transcribes certain words more accurately than before.
Notes
27. Insert Divider Line
In Notes' action menu (open the copy and paste menu, then swipe left), you'll find a new 'Insert Divider Line' option that inserts a line in the current note. If you've ever worked on longer notes with multiple sections, you know this is a nice thing to have.
28. Link to a section of a note
Note links, introduced in iOS 17, now support linking to specific sections of a note. Type >> to bring up the inline note-linking tool, select a note, and if it contains headings, hit / to drill down and pick the section you want. The full 'Add Link' menu has a dedicated 'Link to Section' page as well. When you tap one of these links, you're taken directly to the linked section, which is briefly highlighted on screen. Rich "table of contents" notes and Notion-like dashboards that cross-link into other notes are now possible. I love this.
29. Export Markdown
This is the feature I did not expect to see in the Notes app, ever: Markdown. You can export an entire note as Markdown from the share sheet, and every element gets converted, including tables and colored text. Even more interesting, attachments are stored in an /Attachments subfolder and referenced within the text as inline links, which means you can grab the resulting folder, load it up in a Markdown editor like Obsidian, and every attachment will load correctly. Even Apple Pencil drawings survive the export as high-fidelity PNGs.
30. Import Markdown with Shortcuts
But there's more. You can also import Markdown into Notes using Shortcuts: both the 'Create Note' and 'Append to Note' actions have an 'Interpret as Markdown' toggle that renders the text passed as input as rich text. In my tests, the only unsupported elements were footnotes and inline HTTPS images. 'Append to Note' has also gained a 'Section' parameter to choose where in the note the text should go.
Mail, Messages, and Everything Else
31. Mail search (finally) works
I can't believe I'm typing this, but Apple fixed Mail search in iOS 27 thanks to the new indexing behind Siri AI. I've found messages from 11 years ago in a few seconds, and you don't have to phrase queries precisely: "Email from Myke in 2013" returned nothing in iOS 26; iOS 27 immediately found my first email conversation with my friend Myke.
If you haven't played with Apple's Mail app in a while, now's the time to take it for a spin again. Just let it index for a few days first.
32. Hide the dictation button in Messages
You now have the option to hide the dictation button from the Messages text field so you won't accidentally press it anymore. Head over to Settings → Messages → Show in Text Field, and you'll get options to show a button to record an audio message, start dictation, or – finally – 'None'.
33. A separate alarm volume
Morning alarm people, rejoice: you can now set an independent volume level for alarms that is different from your ringtone volume. In Settings → Sounds & Haptics, 'Alarms and Timers' and 'Alerts and System Sounds' have been spun off into their own categories; turn off 'Match Ringtone Volume' in either one to unlock a separate slider.
34. Customize Camera controls
As happens every September, Apple saved a Camera surprise for the iOS 27 release candidate: customizable controls. Tap the grid button on the right side of the shutter, then tap 'Edit' in the top-left corner of the viewfinder. A Liquid Glass panel lets you add controls to the strip at the top, remove existing ones, or reset everything. Control customization is available for all Camera modes except Siri and Panorama.
35. AI file renaming
Files now supports AI-powered renaming of files and folders. Press 'Rename' on a file or folder, wait a couple of seconds, and naming suggestions appear above the keyboard. It reads PDFs, looks inside folders, and even inspects images with vision. It also works in the Files picker when saving.
36. Custom location sharingWhen sharing your location in Find My, you can now choose a 'Custom' option that brings up a date and time picker, so you can share for an exact amount of time or until a specific date and time. The minimum duration is 15 minutes, and it's great for conferences or vacations where you want sharing to expire on its own.
37. Now Playing in landscape
There's landscape support in Music's Now Playing screen on iPhone, and it's so good on a MagSafe charger. While you're in the app, take a tour of the redesigned artist pages, with extended artwork whose color bleeds through the entire page.
38. Call Context
The one addition to the Phone app this year is Call Context, which surfaces relevant information about a contact or business while you're on the phone with them. Apple says it'll bring up reservation codes and confirmation numbers when you're on a call with a business; in my case, it worked when I was on the phone with a contact whose birthday it was.
39. Adaptive AirPods
The AirPods page in Settings has been completely revamped, and it hides a nice new option: when you select 'Adaptive' mode, iOS 27 reveals a slider to make its intensity lighter (leaning toward Transparency) or stronger (toward Noise Cancellation).
40. Journal prompts
If you get stuck while journaling, tap the new 'Text' icon above the keyboard and Apple Intelligence will suggest questions related to what you've written so far. Some are pretty good: when I journaled about trying to finish my review in time, it asked if I felt stressed. Others are not.
Safari
41. Where's the share button?
Apple tweaked Safari's compact tab bar mode with a subtle change: the bottom-right button is no longer a generic ellipsis menu and it opens your tabs instead. I can't tell you how happy this change alone makes me; part of the reason I stopped using compact mode was that getting back to my open tabs was too cumbersome. This change, however, raises the question: where's the share button? It's exactly where you'd expect on modern, post-Liquid Glass iOS: hidden behind a long-press on the address bar.
42. Organize Safari tabs with AI
You have to go hunt for this one: in Safari's tab overview, tap the filter button (the three horizontal lines), and you'll see an option to 'Organize Tabs'. Once enabled, Safari starts organizing related tabs into topics. It's…passable. The topics can be very generic, and there's no way to refine them with instructions. Topic-based organization also works for bookmarks.
Shortcuts
43. Describe a shortcut
You can now describe a shortcut with natural language, and AI will make it for you, in seconds, right inside the Shortcuts app. It's the new default screen when you create a shortcut, and it can one-shot all kinds of shortcuts in 15 seconds or so, with parameters pre-filled and toggles configured; you can also keep editing by describing further changes. It can't make shortcuts for third-party apps or generate highly complex shortcuts that span hundreds of actions, but it's a marvel of engineering and, possibly, the most impressive demo of Apple Foundation models to date. If you prefer the classic editor, you can make it the default again in Settings.
44. Stored content and global variables
Shortcuts finally has a way to save a value and get it back the next time a shortcut runs. 'Store Content' saves whatever you pass as input under a name you choose, 'Get Stored Content' retrieves it, and 'Delete Stored Content' removes it. Turn on 'Global Value', and the stored content is saved in a shared space in iCloud, so any shortcut on any of your devices can read from and write to it.
45. QR codes from screenshots
'Scan QR or Barcode' has two modes now: Scan opens the camera like before; Extract reads a code from an image you pass in as input. Yes, this means you no longer have to point your iPhone at your own screen to read a QR code in a screenshot.
46. Tables from images
'Extract Text from Image' has a new parameter with three options: Text, Lists, and Tables. The last two mean you can point the action at a photo of a list or a table and get structured output instead of a flat block of text.
47. Automations inside shortcuts
Automations are no longer a separate section of the app: they appear as special actions at the very top of a shortcut. Because triggers are actions, we can now stack multiple automations in the same shortcut, and – finally – share shortcuts that contain automations with other people. To avoid surprises, automations arrive disabled and grayed out on the receiver's end; you flip the main toggle at the top to turn them on.
48. Notification and keyboard triggers
There are new automation types, too. With the Notification trigger, a shortcut can run when you receive a notification from a specific app, optionally filtered by title, subtitle, or message, with a 'Notification' magic variable you can inspect in the editor. With the Keyboard trigger, a shortcut runs when any keyboard is connected to or disconnected from your device.
49. Get Selected Text and Get What's On Screen
'Get Selected Text' simply gets the text that is currently selected on screen. It has no parameters. That's it. I've wanted this for years, mostly because text-processing shortcuts no longer have to go through the clipboard or the share sheet; it's best experienced via Siri or the Action button. 'Get What's On Screen' has also been completely rebuilt to return typed items – contacts, files, images, mail, messages, notes, reminders, URLs, and more – so you can do the same things as Siri's on-screen awareness, but programmatically and with controls designed by you.
50. Otherwise If
Eight years after Apple relaunched Workflow as Shortcuts, If blocks support "else if" branches. Instead of nesting a separate 'If' inside an 'Otherwise' inside another 'If', you chain the conditions in a single block now, and this more elegant approach has also resulted in dramatically better performance for multi-condition flows in the editor.
51. Use Model: Cloud Pro and world knowledge
'Use Model' has gained Cloud Pro as a model option for tasks that require deeper reasoning, plus a 'Use Broad World Knowledge' toggle that lets the model answer by tapping into Apple's world knowledge database. In my tests, flipping that switch and combining it with Cloud Pro for web searches has produced some pretty good, up-to-date results.
iPad
52. An always-visible menu bar
The most relevant addition to iPadOS 27 is a menu bar that behaves more like its macOS counterpart. The name of the foreground app is now always shown in the top-left corner, next to the date and time, and hovering the pointer over that name reveals the full menu bar. Better yet, you can make the entire menu bar always visible: head over to Settings → Multitasking & Gestures and disable 'Automatically Show and Hide Menu Bar'.
53. Visual Intelligence with the Pencil
Visual Intelligence has expanded to the iPad, and it lets you circle elements in screenshots with the Apple Pencil to look them up using Siri AI.
54. Resizable iPhone apps
If you use an iPhone-only app on your iPad and that app updates for iOS 27, you'll be able to resize it, either on the iPad or in iPhone Mirroring on the Mac. As everyone guessed months ago, this was a prelude to the iPhone Duo.
Have fun playing around with iOS and iPadOS 27!
If you want to explore further, you can read my complete review here.
