Posts tagged with "iOS 27"

Apple’s Surprise and Shine Event: All the Small Things

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

An Apple event can only cover so much. Some of the most useful details turn up in the product pages, technical specifications, footnotes, and summary slides after the presentation ends. We’ve collected our favorite smaller changes from yesterday’s Surprise and Shine event below:

iPhone Duo

  • In the hands-on area after Apple’s event, Ben Bajarin reported that the Duo’s hinge crease is barely noticeable, except at specific angles.
  • David Imel was impressed by the matte finish on the Duo.
  • iJustine has an excellent video showing off multitasking using both the outer and inner screen of the Duo.
  • Apple has released a six-video playlist on YouTube and in the Apple Developer app called “Get ready for iPhone Duo” to help get designers up to speed with the phone’s new format. The Human Interface Guidelines have been updated too.
  • The vertical strip along the side of the Duo uses App Control icons for what would be tab bars and nav bars on other devices.
  • For developers, Apple has released five tech talk videos in the Apple Developer app, including “Raise the bar with iPhone Duo.” Additional materials, workshops, and the Xcode 27.1 beta are coming later this month.
  • Continuous Angle API lets developers receive ongoing updates about the Duo’s hinge angle to power interactive effects.
  • Developers who don’t update for the iPhone Duo may have their apps letterboxed.

iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max

Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4

  • Apple published a study that compares its new Apple Watch Series 12 to other wearables, and the results are impressive.
  • Your Readiness score changes during the day, adjusting based on workouts and changes in your daytime vitals.
  • Audio Intelligence requires more than just a new Apple Watch. Features like Live Rewind and Siri Recap won’t work with the iPhone 16e or iPhone 15 Pro models even though those iPhones support Apple Intelligence.
  • Unsaved Siri Recaps are automatically deleted after seven days, and unless saved, Live Rewind transcripts disappear around 30 seconds after your Watch’s screen dims. Siri Recaps can be edited and exported to other apps like Notes.

You can follow all of our September 2026 Apple event coverage through our September 2026 Apple Event hub or subscribe to the dedicated September 2026 Apple event RSS feed.

Lock Launcher Introduces “No Redirect” Launchers, XL Widgets for iOS 27

My Home Screen setup with Liquid Glass widgets powered by Lock Launcher.

My Home Screen setup with Liquid Glass widgets powered by Lock Launcher.

I don’t think I ever mentioned it on MacStories (although I probably did at some point on AppStories or Unwind), but my favorite “launcher” app for iOS is a utility called Lock Launcher, which I’ve been using on and off for the last couple of years. Lock Launcher started as an app for adding URL schemes to the Lock Screen a few years back, and it gradually evolved into a comprehensive “widget studio” app to design launcher widgets of all kinds for the Home Screen, Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, Live Activities, and more.

Anyway, I’m covering the app on the site today because it was updated with two features that I didn’t think were possible or allowed on the App Store, and I want to highlight them for our readers. I’m not really sure how the developers were able to add these features to the app; you may want to download it from the App Store quickly, just in case.

For starters, Lock Launcher now lets you create launcher shortcuts that open apps directly and immediately, rather than redirecting you to the Lock Launcher app first.

For years now, launcher apps on the iPhone have had to employ this workaround: you’d tap on a shortcut that opened, say, Ivory, but you would see the launcher app flash onscreen briefly before redirecting you to the actual destination app you selected. Somehow, Lock Launcher is now circumventing this limitation with a ‘Direct Open’ mode that I haven’t seen in other launcher apps for iOS. That sequence of widget, host app, and destination app was, ultimately, the reason why I always stopped using third-party launcher apps, and I love that it’s been removed by Lock Launcher.

Launching apps without redirects via Lock Launcher.Replay

At long last, I’ve been able to create a dense Home Screen with 40 icons (36 in the widget plus 4 in the dock), and they all launch directly when tapped.

My new Home Screen powered by Lock Launcher.

My new Home Screen powered by Lock Launcher.

The screenshot above brings me to the second feature added in the version of Lock Launcher currently available on the App Store: XL widgets on iPhone in iOS 27.

Now, as far as I know, if an app wants to adopt an API exclusive to a future version of iOS, it typically needs to be built against that version’s SDK using the corresponding Xcode beta. However, the App Store isn’t currently accepting apps built with the iOS 27 SDK. And yet, the Lock Launcher developers must have figured out a way to support the new systemExtraLargePortrait widget size and make it work on devices running iOS 27 even though the app was built with the iOS 26 SDK. My best guess: they’re using a workaround that involves visionOS 26 APIs, since the Vision Pro received support for that family of widgets last year. (I’d love to know more about this.)

These two features, combined with the ability to apply the Liquid Glass material to widgets for beautiful refractions of the system wallpaper, make Lock Launcher the most powerful and customizable launcher utility on iOS to date. I hope writing about it doesn’t get the developers in trouble.

Lock Launcher is available for free on the App Store, with advanced features available through an optional Pro in-app purchase.

Siri AI and Apple’s Trickle-Up Strategy

The new Siri AI in iOS 27.

The new Siri AI in iOS 27.

In the month that I’ve been using iOS 27 (launching in public beta today) and the new Siri AI, I’ve come to a few conclusions: Siri AI is a much better Siri and will (probably) be a massive success; the newfound chatbot capabilities of Siri will pose a serious threat to OpenAI and the vast majority of free ChatGPT users they have; and the new Siri is (again, probably) not for me at the moment. At the very least, it can’t be right now given its lack of support for third-party apps and technical issues I’ve encountered during beta testing.

It took me a while to accept the fact that Siri AI can’t be the kind of AI assistant I’d spend hours working with every day. But after testing iOS 27’s new Siri experience every day (and breaking it often in the process), I think that’s okay – and, arguably, what Apple is shooting for at the moment.

The new Siri AI is not designed for people who have grown accustomed to working with frontier models and agents such as Claude Code and Codex. The first version of Siri AI can’t be considered an “agent”, nor can it be compared to products from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google that are targeting power users living at the bleeding edge of AI. If you go into Siri AI thinking that it’s Apple’s answer to ChatGPT Work or Claude Cowork for long-running tasks or deep research queries, you’re going to be disappointed – like I initially was.

Instead, Siri AI carries all the typical traits of a new Apple product: it’s a user-friendly experience designed for the masses, without any of the complexities that define a power-user tool, for better or worse. This is how Apple rolls: they don’t start from a high power-user ceiling and let products trickle down to consumers; they always start from the consumer level and refine, iterate, and extend until products trickle up to power users. This perspective isn’t meant to excuse the (many) current flaws of Siri AI. (More on them below.) It’s just the necessary lens for understanding how Apple is addressing their AI shortcomings in a way that doesn’t betray the company’s soul and design ethos.

There will be plenty more to say about iOS 27, the improved Shortcuts app, Liquid Glass tweaks, and other system enhancements later this year. After all, I have a review to write. Today’s column is merely an opportunity for me to reason through the obstacles I’ve faced with Siri AI and the way I’ve had to re-learn how to think about Siri.

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Apple Improves Screen Time for Parents, but There’s Room to Grow→

One of Apple’s tentpole features at WWDC was a ground-up makeover to Screen Time that’s designed to give parents more granular and reliable control over their kids’ device use. I got a demo of the changes while I was at Apple Park, and they’re extensive. That’s good because Screen Time has been broken in a variety of ways for a while and isn’t very flexible.

My first impressions of the changes have been positive, but it’s worth noting that I don’t use Screen Time myself and my kids are grown. Screen Time wasn’t even available when it would have been useful to my family.

However, I do remember well the days when my kids were little, and so I sympathize with Patrick Klepek who wants more. Klepek gives Apple credit for improvements in Screen Time’s UI, but wants more:

But to crystalize my requests to Apple for the future:
- A dedicated Screen Time app
- The ability to invoke Siri or other shortcut-like features to lock devices
- Granular control over extending screen time to accommodate specific requests

I’d add another request that one of the journalists made during our demo that made a lot of sense. Like me, he has three kids and wondered if he could set up a baseline set of Screen Time rules and then copy them to his other kids, making age-appropriate tweaks for each kid. Apple said that isn’t currently possible, but it’s the sort of practical, reality-based suggestion that the company should prioritize. Being a parent means a lot of things, but it shouldn’t mean being an IT manager too. For tools like Screen Time to be adopted, they need to be easy, flexible, and powerful. That’s a tough combination, but I hope it’s been made a priority internally at Apple that will result in ongoing improvements to Screen Time during this OS cycle and beyond.

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iOS and iPadOS 27: The MacStories Overview

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

During today’s WWDC keynote, Apple unveiled updates across its family of OSes. The keynote itself was very different in structure from previous years, with a lot of the focus on Siri and Apple Intelligence, which, for the most part, are fully cross-platform. (For more on those announcements, check out Devon’s coverage.)

Nevertheless, there were plenty of new features announced for iOS and iPadOS, along with a slew of child safety tools. Let’s take a look.

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