Apple is preparing another round of artificial intelligence features for the iPhone and iPad, with a Grammarly-style grammar checker, a natural-language builder for the Shortcuts app, and AI-generated wallpapers all reportedly set to ship with iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 later this year. The plans were first reported by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Apple is expected to unveil the new software at its Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off with a keynote on 8 June, before a public release in September alongside the next iPhone.
The new features come as Apple tries to close a clear gap with rivals. Google previewed Android 17 last week at The Android Show I/O Edition, rebranding its on-device assistant suite as Gemini Intelligence. That update includes Rambler, a Gboard dictation mode that strips filler words and handles mid-sentence language switching, and Create My Widget, which builds home-screen widgets from a plain-English prompt. Samsung’s Galaxy AI has had AI wallpaper generation, generative photo editing and live translation features for two product cycles already.
What Apple is reportedly adding
The grammar checker is the most visible piece. According to Bloomberg, it appears as a translucent panel that slides up from the bottom of the screen, showing the original text next to suggested revisions. Users can accept changes one at a time, approve everything, or dismiss the suggestions. There are also controls to pause checking and skip between flagged passages.
It plugs into the Writing Tools suite Apple first introduced in 2024, which already does proofreading and summarisation. To make these features easier to find, Apple is testing a “Write With Siri” toggle on the keyboard and a “Help Me Write” option that surfaces when Siri is invoked inside a text field.
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The Shortcuts update is the most consequential change for power users. Right now, building a shortcut means dragging actions together in the Shortcuts app, or downloading one from Apple’s gallery. The new version reportedly opens with a single prompt: “What do you want your shortcut to do?” A user types in a description, and the system builds and installs the shortcut automatically. This mirrors how Google’s Create My Widget works on Android 17.
Wallpapers are the smallest of the three. Apple is adding an Image Playground option inside the wallpaper picker, letting users generate lock-screen and home-screen backgrounds with AI prompts. Google’s Pixels and Samsung’s Galaxy phones have shipped this since 2024.
Where this fits in Apple’s larger AI plan
These additions sit alongside features Bloomberg has reported on previously, including a Siri camera mode powered by Visual Intelligence, an overhauled Photos editor with generative tools, and a redesigned Siri interface with deeper system-level app control. As we already reported in April, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian confirmed at Cloud Next 2026 that the Gemini-powered Siri rebuild remains on track for a 2026 release, with the heaviest reasoning tasks routed to a custom Gemini model running on infrastructure Apple controls.
The iOS 27 features described by Bloomberg are not the Siri overhaul itself. They are the practical, ship-now layer of AI improvements sitting on top of it: features Apple can build without waiting for the full chatbot-style Siri to be ready. This matters because Apple has missed deadlines on the bigger Siri promises before. The personalised Siri announced at WWDC 2024 still has not shipped in full, and parts of it are now expected with iOS 27 rather than the iOS 26 cycle. We covered the full WWDC 2025 Apple Intelligence announcement here, including Apple’s acknowledgement of the Siri delay.
What this means for users in Kenya
Two things to watch.
First, hardware. Apple Intelligence still requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, or an iPad with an M1 chip or later. The local secondhand market is dominated by iPhone 13, 14 and base-model 15 units, none of which qualify. A buyer looking at a refurbished iPhone 15 Pro for around KES 110,000 to KES 140,000 in Nairobi gets access. A buyer at the more common KES 60,000 to KES 90,000 secondhand price band does not.
Second, language. Apple Intelligence rolled out in English first and has since added several European and Asian languages, but Swahili is not on the list. A grammar checker that does not understand Swahili or Sheng is of limited use to a large share of Kenyan iPhone owners. Google has gone further on multilingual support, including handling code-switching mid-sentence in Rambler, which is closer to how people actually type on local phones.
The Bloomberg report is a leak ahead of WWDC, not an Apple announcement. Final naming, feature scope, and the list of supported regions and languages will only be confirmed when Tim Cook/John Ternus takes the stage on 8 June. Until then, treat the grammar checker, the prompt-driven Shortcuts builder and AI wallpapers as well-sourced expectations rather than firm product commitments.
