Apple unveiled iOS 27 at WWDC this week, and while the headline-grabbing Siri overhaul has received the most attention, the Lock Screen has picked up several refinements that you may have missed.


Some are brand-new additions, while others are tweaks to features Apple introduced in iOS 26, but together they give you more control over how your Lock Screen looks and behaves.

Here are five to try if you plan to install the public beta next month, or when iOS 27 becomes generally available in the fall.

Extend Your Wallpaper

A new wallpaper extension feature in iOS 27 uses Apple Intelligence to automatically expand a photo beyond its original boundaries so it fills the entire Lock Screen more naturally. If a photo is cropped too tightly, doesn't match your iPhone's aspect ratio, or it leaves empty space when positioned on the Lock Screen, iOS 27 can generate additional image content around the edges with the "Extend" option. It will analyze the existing image and create matching background details that blend with the original photo, so there's no need for aggressive cropping. The Extend option can also be found in the Photos app.

Make the Clock Tiny

A new compact clock mode is available as a new Lock Screen layout option in iOS 27. Found in the top-right corner of the Font & Color panel, the option moves the time from its traditional large, centered position to a much smaller format alongside the date and widgets at the top of the screen. It's a nice option to have if you like a cleaner Lock Screen look that shows off your wallpaper more fully, and it's the complete opposite effect introduced in iOS 26 that stretches the clock down the screen.

Generate Wallpapers With AI

iOS 27 also expands Image Playground with support for AI-generated Lock Screen wallpapers. You can create custom backgrounds using text descriptions, and the app will generate entirely new images tailored to your preferred style, subject matter, or aesthetic, allowing you to set it directly as your Lock Screen wallpaper.

Change Liquid Glass Opacity

In iOS 27, Apple added a full Liquid Glass slider under Settings ➝ Appearance ➝ Liquid Glass. It changes the translucency of Liquid Glass elements, and you can choose a clear version of Liquid Glass that allows some of the background to show through, select a more opaque, tinted version that improves the legibility of text, or choose something in between. Granted, it's more of a system-wide customization feature than a Lock Screen-exclusive feature, but it directly impacts the look of your clock setup, buttons, widgets, and notifications.

New Siri Interface

To go with Apple's tentpole "Siri AI" chatbot-style overhaul, iOS 27 introduces a redesigned Siri experience. Instead of the glowing light effect that previously traced the edges of the display, a swirling Siri orb now expands and animates within the Dynamic Island. Siri requests and responses are also now presented in a more compact interface surrounding the Dynamic Island, so interactions should feel more focused rather than completely taking over your Lock Screen.
This article, "iOS 27 Brings These Five New Features to Your iPhone Lock Screen" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple at this year's WWDC emphasized that its approach to iOS 27 development was to add fewer newer features and instead make existing features better. Examples of that approach can be seen across the operating system, but it is arguably most obvious in the changes coming to Messages.


That's not to say there's nothing original coming to Messages in iOS 27. For instance, one new Apple Intelligence feature brings content-aware suggestions directly into conversations. If someone asks for photos, for example, Messages can recognize what's being discussed and suggest searching your photo library, using details like people, places, and keywords to surface relevant images.

The app can also detect when a conversation would benefit from creating a reminder or note and offer a shortcut to do so without leaving the thread. Apple is also bringing drawing tools directly into Messages, allowing users to create and share hand-drawn sketches within conversations.

Otherwise, Apple's focus has been on making the following enhancements and improvements to its broader Messages platform:

• Faster message loading: Large conversations, especially those containing years of history and thousands of attachments, should load and scroll more quickly.


• Improved syncing across devices: Apple says Messages, read states, reactions, and attachments sync more reliably and quickly between iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro.


• Find offloaded media in Messages: Search can surface photos and videos that have been offloaded from local storage and stored in iCloud.


• Thumbnails for offloaded media: Offloaded photos and videos now get visible preview thumbnails instead of generic placeholders, making older media easier to identify.


• Personalized Smart Reply suggestions: Apple Intelligence-generated Smart Reply suggestions can now reflect a user's own writing style, making suggested responses feel more natural and personal.


• Consolidated notifications for multiple Tapbacks: Multiple reactions to a message are grouped into a single notification rather than generating separate alerts.


• Continuous sending of photos, videos, and text: Messages continue sending in the background and automatically resume when connectivity returns, reducing interrupted sends.


• Search conversations by phone number or nickname: Conversation search now works with saved nicknames and phone numbers, not just contact names.


• Faster access to recent camera captures: Newly captured photos and videos appear more quickly in the Messages media picker.


• Failed messages automatically retry sending: Messages that fail because of temporary network issues will automatically attempt to resend without the user's intervention.

Early adopters of iOS 27 will receive access to the public beta next month, when they can try out the new features and improvements themselves. Apple is expected to make a general release available in the fall.
This article, "14 Ways Apple Is Improving Messages in iOS 27" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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With the launch of iOS 27 and HomePod Software 27, Apple is adding support for AutoMix, Apple's AI-powered Apple Music feature that blends songs using matching key and tempo.


Apple says it has improved AutoMix's underlying algorithms to generate new transition types, making for more seamless blends between tracks, so this should also benefit the newly introduced feature for HomePod.

Running Apple's current HomePod Software 26, the AutoMix feature in Apple Music is not available on HomePod. Users running the existing software only have access to the crossfade feature that improves transitions between songs.

If users AirPlay to HomePod and the device they are using to AirPlay supports AutoMix (and it is turned on), then it will play on the AirPlay stream to HomePod, but that's the only workaround.

OG HomePod Support

In case anyone was wondering, the new HomePod Software 27 beta does support the original HomePod. There was some confusion about this earlier in the week, but MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris was able to independently confirm support for Apple's first smart speaker, which launched in 2018 and was discontinued in 2021.

HomePod Software 27 will come out of beta when iOS 27 becomes generally available in the fall.
This article, "iOS 27 Brings New Functionality to HomePod" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple this week revealed what its most advanced on-device AI model does, and the feature list is shorter than the hardware requirements might suggest.


In its Siri AI announcement during WWDC 2026, Apple confirmed that the model powers two things: more expressive Siri voices and a major accuracy gain for systemwide dictation.

Both require 12GB of unified memory. Among current iPhones, that limits the more powerful AI model to the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, alongside iPad models with the M4 chip or later, Macs with M3 or later, and Apple Vision Pro with M5.

That's right, the standard iPhone 17 misses out. Having only 8GB to its name – the minimum Apple Intelligence has required since launch – the base flagship model falls short of the new threshold. This is the first time Apple has raised that bar, given that Apple Intelligence has required 8GB since its introduction two years ago.

So What Does 12GB Get You That 8GB Doesn't?

On the voice side, users can adjust the expressiveness and pace of Siri's speech so that the assistant sounds the way they want it. However, it's the dictation feature that includes the more substantial change. Apple's most advanced on-device AI model is said to be able to turn speech into polished text on the fly, handling capitalization, punctuation, and formatting automatically, with improved speech understanding that's meant to cut down on errors.


Everything else in the Siri AI rollout – personal context, onscreen awareness, web answers, the dedicated Siri app, Visual Intelligence, and Writing Tools – runs on the broader Apple Intelligence device list. That list still includes iPhone 15 Pro, the iPhone 16 series, and iPhone 17.

The 12GB requirement, in other words, does not refer to Siri AI wholesale; it improves how Siri sounds and how well it transcribes. Base iPhone 17 owners will still get the new chatbot-style assistant with iOS 27, they'll just get the older voices and a less precise dictation engine.

Whether that matters will vary from user to user, but for anyone who dictates messages and notes all day, the better transcription is the kind of thing you will likely notice immediately. For everyone else, the difference may be something they can quite happily live with.

iOS 27 is currently in developer beta, with a public beta launching next month and a general release arriving in the fall.
This article, "iPhone 17's 8GB Limit Costs It These Two Siri AI Features in iOS 27" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple Music is bringing Hi-Res Lossless Audio to tvOS 27, in addition to standard Lossless Audio.


Apple says subscribers with compatible external speaker outputs will be able to enjoy their favorite songs in the highest audio quality and experience studio-quality sound directly through their Apple TV 4K.

As of tvOS 26, Apple TV 4K supports Apple Music Lossless audio up to 24-bit/48 kHz, but does not support Hi-Res Lossless playback (above 48 kHz, or up to 24-bit/192 kHz).

Lossless audio refers to a form of compression that preserves all of the original data, which can result in an improved listening experience, although to what extent is debated.

The tvOS 27 developer beta is already out, and registered developers can install it through Settings ➝ System ➝ Software Update ➝ Beta Updates on a supported Apple TV. tvOS 27 will go on general release in the fall.
This article, "tvOS 27: Apple Music Gains Hi-Res Lossless Audio on Apple TV 4K" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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