This week, iOS 27 is here (along with all the other OS27s) and it's officially New iPhone Day!
iOS 27 Is Here - Along With Everything You Need To Master It...
iOS 27 landed on Monday, and if you've been following this newsletter over the past few months, you'll know I've been living with it since the first developer beta back in June. Over that time, I've been building out a dedicated iOS 27 module inside iPhone Essentials Plus, and it's ready for you right now. Every major new feature, every settings change worth knowing about, every Siri AI capability, explained with a video walkthrough, a written step-by-step guide, and a downloadable PDF. If you own the course, log in and start exploring. If you don't, this is the moment it earns its keep.
The course also includes askPHT, the AI chatbot I launched a few weeks ago. Ask it anything about iOS 27 or Siri AI and it'll walk you through the answer and link you to the relevant lesson. It's educated from everything inside the course, so the answers are grounded in the actual content rather than pulled from the wider internet.
On the Mac side, macOS Golden Gate also landed on Monday, and I'll be adding corresponding content to Mac Essentials Plus over the next couple of weeks, alongside a full refresh of the portal to bring it in line with what iPhone Essentials Plus now looks like.
And iPhone Essentials, the structured beginner course, is still coming. It's taking a little longer than I'd hoped, but it'll be worth the wait. As a reminder, if you buy iPhone Essentials Plus before iPhone Essentials launches, you get the new course for free.
Purchase Links:
Right. Now let's talk about what's actually in iOS 27.
A year of fixing things
I called this the "Snow Leopard year" back in my WWDC predictions, and that's exactly what it turned out to be. iOS 27 isn't about dramatic new features or visual overhauls. It's about making the phone you already own work better. Apple lists over 250 changes across the operating system, and the vast majority of them are refinements: Liquid Glass readability tweaks, faster app launches, better battery management, smoother animations, and a long list of small quality-of-life improvements that you'll notice without being able to point to a single headline feature.
Some of the more notable additions: the Photos app gets new AI editing tools including Extend, Enhance, and Reframe, alongside an improved Clean Up. Safari now organises tabs into groups automatically. Screen Time and parental controls have been rebuilt from the ground up with a much more intuitive interface. The Phone app has smarter call screening. And there's a new Reading Mode in Safari that strips clutter from web pages into clean, adjustable text.
iOS 27 is compatible with the iPhone 11 and later, plus the second-generation iPhone SE onwards. If you're on an older iPhone, this is still worth installing purely for the stability improvements. Having run every beta since June, I can say these are the most stable builds I've ever used, and the public release carries that through.
The Siri AI situation
And then there's the headline act. Siri AI, the completely rebuilt assistant that Apple first promised at WWDC 2024, is finally available. Sort of.
Here's what you need to know. Siri AI is in beta. It's English-only at launch, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish following in October. It requires an iPhone 15 Pro or later, so if you're on an iPhone 15, 16e, or anything older, you'll get iOS 27 but not the new Siri. And even on a compatible device, you can't just switch it on. You need to join a waitlist through Settings and wait for Apple to grant access.
The waitlist has been the single biggest source of confusion this week. People are updating to iOS 27, looking for Siri AI, and finding either a waitlist button or nothing at all. If you're in that boat, here's what to do: go to Settings, then Apple Intelligence & Siri, and look for the option to join the waitlist. Tap it. Then wait. Based on my experience during the beta, the wait varied wildly. My main Apple ID got access within about 24 hours. My secondary Apple ID, the one I use for product demos, took eight days. There's no obvious logic to it, but the queue is moving, and it's absolutely worth the wait.
A couple of other things worth flagging. Apple has confirmed that server-based Siri AI requests are subject to daily usage limits that vary based on demand. I haven't hit any limits personally, though I'm not exactly a heavy user, so your experience may differ. Apple has also indicated that expanded access will eventually be available as a paid tier through iCloud+, which is a conversation we'll have when the details emerge.
And then there's the EU. If you live in an EU member state, Siri AI isn't available on iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch at all. This is the result of an ongoing standoff between Apple and the European Commission over the Digital Markets Act, which requires Apple to give rival AI assistants the same system-level access as Siri. Neither side has budged. Tim Cook's diplomatic efforts as executive chairman haven't broken the deadlock yet. If you're in the EU, you have iOS 27, you have all the stability improvements, but you're locked out of the biggest new feature. It's genuinely frustrating, and I don't have a good answer for when it'll change.
What people are saying
The broad reaction to iOS 27 has been positive, with the caveats you'd expect. The stability improvements are being widely praised. The parental controls redesign has landed particularly well with families. And Siri AI, for those who've managed to get access, is impressing people in exactly the way it impressed me during the beta: it understands context, it remembers conversations, it does things across apps that the old Siri couldn't dream of. The complaints centre on the waitlist confusion, the EU exclusion, and the usual post-update grumbles about battery life that follow every major iOS release and typically settle down within a week or two.
My advice is the same as it's been since the public beta: update to iOS 27, join the Siri AI waitlist immediately if you have a compatible device, and give yourself a few days for the system to settle. And if you want a proper guided walkthrough of everything that's changed, you know where to find it.
iPhone 18 Pro - First Thoughts & Early Reviews
I collected my iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max from the Apple Store this morning. First time in years I've done that instead of waiting for a courier, and honestly, I'm not sure why I ever stopped. Reserve in the app, get a Wallet pass, turn up with your ID, and you're in and out in about 20 minutes. No waiting in all day for a delivery window. No worrying about a £1,200 phone being left on the doorstep, and the folks at Apple Southampton were all genuinely lovely.
So, a few hours in, here's where I'm at.
I went for the black 18 Pro and the burgundy Pro Max. The black is gorgeous. Apple has colour-matched the aluminium and the glass this year so it's one uniform finish, and after last year's two-tone look, that's a welcome change. It's also going to be a fingerprint magnet, and I've made peace with that. The burgundy I'm less sure about. MKBHD called it ugly in his review. I don't think it's ugly, but I don't necessarily like it either. It's a deep wine colour that shifts between red and purple depending on the light, and it's very clearly this year's Cosmic Orange: the bold shade Apple wants you to notice. I didn't love Cosmic Orange either, for what it's worth. Plenty of reviewers disagree with me on burgundy, so maybe it'll grow on me.
Both phones are heavier than last year's. The footprint is identical, but you feel the extra weight from the bigger batteries and new camera system the moment you pick them up, especially the Pro Max. There's a growing feeling among reviewers that the Pro Max has hit the ceiling of how heavy a phone can be while still being comfortable to hold, and after a morning with it in my pocket, I get where they're coming from.
The variable aperture camera
This is the headline feature and it's genuinely fun to look at. Open the Camera app, switch to manual controls, and you can watch the aperture blades physically open and close inside the lens. That's a mechanism I associate with a proper camera, and seeing it in an iPhone is a little bit thrilling in a nerdy sort of way.
Whether it makes a meaningful difference to your photos is harder to say, and I'm not alone in wondering. The Verge put out a really good video this week explaining why variable aperture on a sensor this small has a limited effect on depth of field. On a full-frame camera, going from f/1.4 to f/4 completely changes how much of the image is in focus. On a phone sensor, the depth of field is so deep to begin with that the difference is much more subtle. I'm tempted to agree, but I'll keep testing.
Where it does seem to help is in low light, where opening to f/1.48 lets in more light than last year's fixed f/1.78, and when shooting close subjects, where stopping down to f/4 keeps more of the frame sharp. A few reviewers who went in sceptical came out the other side saying the overall photographic experience felt noticeably improved after a week of shooting. I'm not there yet, but I've only had the phone for a few hours.
I've got the perfect test lined up. The twins turn three this weekend, which means a room full of fast-moving small people, mixed indoor lighting, and hundreds of opportunities to see whether this camera can earn its place. I'll report back.
The "S" year
MKBHD described this as the iPhone "S" year, and that's exactly right. If Apple still used that naming convention, this would be the iPhone 17S. Same design, faster chip, better camera, longer battery life. The A20 Pro is the first 2nm chip in a phone and it outperforms every Android flagship in benchmarks. The Pro Max battery is setting new records. The vapour chamber keeps things cooler under load. These are real improvements. They just don't add up to a phone that feels different from the one you already own.
If you want a sense of just how unchanged the design is, here's a telling detail. dbrand, who sponsor the channel, sent me a batch of cases this week, and not only do they fit both the 18 Pro and the 17 Pro perfectly, the packaging actually advertises them as compatible with both. When the case manufacturers don't need a new mould, that tells you everything about how much the hardware has moved. To be clear, that's a compliment to dbrand, not a dig. Their cases are excellent and I've been using them for years. If you're picking up an 18 Pro this weekend and want something that'll actually protect it, they're well worth a look.
The consensus from every review I've read this week is the same: excellent, but iterative. If you're on a 17 Pro, keep it. If you're on a 15 Pro or older, this is an easy upgrade. If you're somewhere in between, it comes down to how much you care about the camera and battery.
For me personally, there's not a huge amount to get excited about, and I say that while fully acknowledging that the 18 Pro is an incredible phone. It's the best iPhone Apple has ever made. It just isn't a leap from the one before it.
The elephant in the room
The honest truth is that my excitement is sitting five weeks away, in a box marked iPhone Duo. That's the device I'm most excited about, which is a strange thing to admit the same day that I've just dropped a large amount of money on two other devices.
|
I released a video about it yesterday, and I've embedded it above if you'd rather watch than read. The short version: the Duo is the most exciting iPhone Apple has made since the original, I want one desperately, and for most people it's probably not the iPhone they should buy. Not because it's bad, but because you're paying an extra $800/£800 for a phone that's genuinely worse in several areas. No telephoto lens. A main camera closer to the 17e than the 18 Pro. Touch ID instead of Face ID. No Action button. A first-generation product in a completely new category. My conclusion was that if I could only buy one iPhone this year with my own money, it would be the 18 Pro, because I'd regret missing the telephoto more than I'd regret wondering what the Duo might have been like.
What I didn't expect was quite how much debate that would generate. The comments have been some of the most thoughtful I've had on any video, and they've genuinely shifted my thinking on a couple of points.
The camera argument split people almost exactly down the middle. Plenty agreed with me. "It's the telephoto lens for me," one commenter wrote. "I can even get past the no Face ID bit, but I can't replace a telephoto lens with nothing at all." Several people said they'd been trying to talk themselves out of the Duo purely because of the camera, and it's been hard. But just as many pushed back, and the pushback was fair. One commenter, who described himself as a photographer, said he'd never let a camera dictate a phone purchase and that if you're chasing the perfect camera, buy a camera. Another made the point that a high percentage of people simply point and shoot. They don't fiddle with lenses. They don't switch to 4x. They want a good camera, not the best camera, and the Duo has a good camera. I've spent this whole article being a pixel-peeping camera nerd, and it's worth acknowledging that most people aren't.
The comment that stopped me in my tracks came from someone who said his older eyes are having a harder time with his iPhone screen, and that being able to increase text size while still having usable screen space is a big deal. It was the most-liked comment on the video, and it's a use case I'd completely overlooked. For anyone whose eyesight isn't what it was, the ability to unfold your phone into something with a much larger display isn't a luxury. It's an accessibility feature, and a genuinely compelling one.
There were concerns I hadn't considered either. A couple of left-handed viewers pointed out that the Duo appears to be a very right-handed device. The Touch ID sensor sits on one side, and a one-handed hold seems designed around the right hand. That's the kind of thing that only becomes obvious when you've held one, and I haven't yet. Several people raised the folded thickness, with one describing it as likely to "feel like a brick in the pocket." And there was a healthy amount of scepticism about hinge durability, with more than one person saying they'd wait to see if there's a "foldgate" before committing.
The "just buy a phone and an iPad" argument came up repeatedly, and it's a reasonable one. An 18 Pro plus a refurbished iPad mini costs less than a Duo and gives you a better camera and a bigger screen, just not in a single device. Whether the convenience of one device that does both is worth the premium is really the whole question, and the answer is different for everyone.
And then there were the people who've already decided. A handful said they're waiting for the second generation, hoping for a Duo Pro with better cameras and Face ID. Some, coming from a 16 Pro Max or a 17 Pro Max, ordered the 18 Pro Max and said the Duo was a compromise too far. A few have gone the other way entirely. One person is planning to watch college football on the inner display while casting four other games to the TV, which is exactly the kind of use case that makes the Duo suddenly click. Another said they usually upgrade every two to three years, aren't fussed about phone photography, and don't mind paying the premium for something genuinely different.
One comment I found particularly interesting: someone noted it was the first time they'd seen me be "pretty heavily critical of Apple." I don't think I was critical of the Duo, exactly. I think I was honest about it. There's a difference between saying a product is bad and saying a product isn't right for everyone, and the Duo is very much the latter. It's a brilliant piece of engineering with real trade-offs, at a price that demands you think carefully.
I'll be in the pre-order queue on October 16th regardless. That hasn't changed. But the conversation in the comments has made me more certain than ever that this is the most interesting buying decision Apple has put in front of people in years, and that there's no single right answer.
More on the 18 Pro once I've had proper time with it. And after Saturday's birthday chaos, I'll have a much better sense of whether that variable aperture is a party trick or a proper upgrade.
Tip of the Week
To celebrate the release of iOS 27, I'm starting with an iOS 27 tip. And this isn't the standard 'optimise Liquid Glass' tip either, this one's a good one!
In Photos, you can now save a video frame as an image. This means you can extract a full resolution image, directly from a video. To do this, start in the video you'd like to do this for, tap the ellipsis menu in the upper right, and choose Save Video Frame as Photo. The image will show in your Photo Library.
