Apple at WWDC 26 Presents iOS 27: Customizable Liquid Glass with Slider, AirDrop 80% Faster, and Shared iCloud with Android
On stage at WWDC, Apple announced iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate, introducing a series of innovations focused on three areas: increased platform responsiveness, updates on child safety security, and a significant leap forward for Apple Intelligence with a new architecture for Siri. The updates cover the entire family of operating systems, from iOS and iPadOS to watchOS, tvOS, visionOS, and macOS.
The name of the new macOS was revealed with the usual performance dedicated to the corporate marketing team: the next version is called macOS Golden Gate.
Refined and Customizable Liquid Glass
Changes to the Liquid Glass design system introduced last year aim for better readability: the glass now effectively diffuses complex content against the background, increasing depth and visual separation. The most tangible novelty for users is a new slider in the settings that allows adjustment of the effect along a continuous spectrum, from ultra-transparent to more opaque, and customization automatically applies to apps that have already adopted Liquid Glass.
Further tweaks arrive on macOS: a more uniform toolbar at the top of apps, sidebars extended to the edges of the window, sidebar icons regaining color to help recognize the active window in the foreground, and a tighter and consistent corner radius across all windows, even those not updated. App icons now integrate additional layers of Liquid Glass directly into the artwork, with refractions between layers making them more defined in the dock and home screen.
Performance: Numbers from the Stage
Apps launch up to 30% faster on iPhone and iPad, thanks to preloading the data necessary for opening, and this benefit extends to third-party apps as well. New photos appear in the library up to 70% faster, AirDrop transfers are up to 80% faster, and navigation and transferring files from the iPad to an external drive is up to five times faster, reaching speeds comparable to Finder on Mac.
On the CPU front, the scheduler has been optimized for the latest iPhones and brought to earlier models up to iPhone 11. iOS 27 is supported on the same models as iOS 26, making it, according to Apple, the most widely available version in the history of iOS.
Network transitions have also improved: the iPhone smarter handles the switch between Wi-Fi and cellular network, reducing the cases where manual intervention is needed from Control Center. In Messages, sending large photos or videos no longer slows down the conversation: an indicator for each message signals the delivery status in real-time.
New Architecture for Search and Other Functions
The search engine behind Spotlight, Photos, and Mail has been rebuilt from the ground up: the content index is more stable, efficient, and updates almost in real-time for new items. In Mail, a new ranking system brings the most relevant results to the top, regardless of when the email was sent.
Among the additional features presented: iCloud shared albums now accept contributions from Android and Windows users with full-resolution sharing; the Health app integrates cycle tracking for perimenopause and menopause, with notifications, symptom recording, and informative content; AirPods gain a customizable equalizer; on Apple Vision Pro, landscapes become spatial scenes usable as immersive environments; Maps enhances Flyover by combining aerial images with AI vision models for sharper details of cities and architectures.