iOS 27 speeds up iPhones in more than 30 ways, Apple says

Apple has released iOS 27 for all compatible iPhone models. The company says the update improves performance in more than 30 situations, including photos, messaging and search.

In Apple’s testing, apps launched up to 30% faster on an iPhone 11 Pro Max than on a device running iOS 26.4.2. Loading new captures in Photos was measured at up to 70% faster.

More than 30 system optimizations

Apple’s list also includes faster full-screen opening from the Photos widget, quicker rendering of the Collections tab and faster addition of recent captures in Messages. The company cites faster AirPlay connections to Apple TV and HomePod, along with quicker entry to and exit from Assistive Access and Guided Access.

Other changes cover Text Recognition in photos and documents, emoji and sticker keyboard loading, Spotlight indexing for shortcuts and actions, multilingual handwriting processing and access to shared content on iCloud.com.

Compatibility and battery reports

iOS 27 supports iPhone models dating back to the iPhone 11. Apple said some of its performance figures came from testing the iPhone 11 lineup.

One iPhone 16 user, however, reported substantially worse battery life after moving from iOS 18 through iOS 26 to iOS 27 and said the speed increase was not noticeable. That is an individual report, not an independent test result.