Apple has pushed the iOS 27 release candidate to developers and public beta testers. This comes a few hours after its iPhone 18 Pro event, and it showed up on our iPhone 17 Pro Max as a 9.53GB download just after midnight. The build number is 24A435. Apple’s press release for the iPhone 18 Pro confirms the finished version will reach every compatible iPhone as a free update on Monday, 14 September.
A release candidate is the build Apple intends to ship. If nobody finds a serious bug in the next four days, the software on beta phones tonight is the same software everyone else downloads on Monday. Apple can issue a second candidate if something breaks, but adds no features at this stage. This is the end of a cycle that began at WWDC on 8 June, ran through eight developer betas (we have been on it since the first one), and went public on 13 July.
What’s new?
Siri AI
The headline is Siri AI, the rebuilt assistant Apple first promised in 2024 and then delayed. The RC notes describe a conversational Siri that draws on personal context, app actions, onscreen awareness and web knowledge. It gets its own Siri app, with conversations synced across Apple devices through iCloud. A Siri mode in the Camera app folds in Visual Intelligence, so you can point the camera at something and ask about it. Write with Siri drafts, edits or critiques text almost anywhere you can type, and in Messages and Mail it copies the phrasing and punctuation you already use with each contact.
Siri AI ships as a beta on 14 September, in English only, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish following in October. It is not available to anyone under 13.
Photos:
Photos gets Spatial Reframing, which alters the apparent camera position after a shot is taken, an Extend tool that fills in space beyond the frame, and a Clean Up that removes larger objects in a Fast or a High Quality mode.
Safari
Safari can group open tabs by topic, notify you when a page’s price or stock status changes, and build a small extension from a written description.
Apple Intelligence
Image Playground gets a model that produces photorealistic images. Calendar creates events from a sentence, and Call Context in the Phone app surfaces a booking reference when it recognises you are on the line to a business.
Smart Home
Home app features, including written summaries of HomeKit Secure Video clips, are tied to what Apple calls “an eligible iCloud+ plan”. Apple’s beta release notes in July put that floor at the 2TB tier, which costs $9.99 a month, about KES 1,290.
Child safety
Child safety got its own press release in June.
Setting up a child’s iPhone now lets parents pick exactly which apps are installed. Ask to Browse makes a child request approval for each new website. Communication Safety, which already blurs nudity for under-18s, now intervenes on gore and violence in shared images and video. Time Allowances set daily limits across Entertainment, Games and Social Media, with a suggested figure Apple says is based on clinical guidance, and Schedules control which apps open at which times of day.
The speed claims
Under System Improvements, the Liquid Glass design from iOS 26 gets a slider in Settings that runs from ultra-clear to fully tinted.
Apple claim apps launch up to 30 percent faster, new photos appear in the library up to 70 percent faster, and AirDrop moves files up to 80 percent faster. (Apple measured the app launch figure on an iPhone 11 Pro Max, the oldest phone on the support list.)
Search is rebuilt in Spotlight, Photos and Mail, Connectivity Assist handles the handover between Wi-Fi and mobile data, and smaller additions include a custom EQ for AirPods, perimenopause tracking in Health, and separate volumes for alarms and timers.
Which iPhone gets what
From the iPhone 11 onwards, plus the second- and third-generation iPhone SE, everyone is eligible for this update.
However, for AI, that’s Siri AI and the Apple Intelligence features, you require an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any iPhone 16 or later.
But, for the new expressive Siri voices and the more accurate on-device dictation, one needs an iPhone Air or an iPhone 17 Pro or newer.
The RC download on our phone was 9.53GB. Expect Monday’s update to run to several gigabytes too. So when downloading, do it on Wi-Fi. We recommend downloading it as soon as it arrives. This year, the Beta program has been very bug free and the new OS is very smooth.
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