iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate Arrive Tomorrow. Here's How to Get Ready

Tomorrow is the day. iOS 27, iPadOS 27, watchOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate all arrive on Monday 14 September, and between them they touch just about every Apple device in the house. I've been looking forward to this one for a long time, because it's the update that finally concentrates on making things faster and more reliable rather than piling on features, and I wrote about why after WWDC in June.

That said, update day is also the day my phone rings most, so here's everything I'd want you to know before you tap Install: when to expect it, how to get ready, which of your devices will get it, and what's actually new.

When it will arrive

Apple doesn't publish a time, but its big updates almost always appear at 10am California time, which is 6pm here in the UK, and sometimes a little later as the servers catch up. So if you go looking at lunchtime tomorrow and there's nothing there, that's normal. Give it until the evening.

When it does appear, everyone in the world is downloading it at the same time, so the download can be slow for the first hour or two. There's no prize for being first. If you'd rather, leave it until Tuesday and it will be quicker and calmer.

Before you tap update

Back up first. I say this every year and I'll keep saying it, because the one time it matters is the one time you didn't. On iPhone or iPad, go to Settings, tap your name at the top, then iCloud, then iCloud Backup, and tap Back Up Now. If it tells you there isn't enough iCloud space, that's worth sorting before the update rather than after. On a Mac, make sure Time Machine has run recently, or plug in your backup drive and let it finish before you start.

Then a few small things that save a lot of grief. Make sure you've got a few gigabytes free, because major updates need room to unpack, and Settings, General, iPhone Storage will show you what's taking up space. Plug the device in and stay on Wi-Fi, as the update won't install on a low battery. Update your apps from the App Store, since developers push fixes in the days around a new release. And have your Apple Account password to hand, because you may be asked for it once the update has finished.

Finally, if you rely on your iPhone or Mac for work, there's nothing wrong with waiting a week or two for the first point update. The people who need to be on day one are developers and the curious. The rest of us can let them find the rough edges.

Will your devices get it?

iOS 27 runs on iPhone 11 and later, along with iPhone SE 2nd generation and later, which is the same list as last year, so no iPhone is left behind. iPadOS 27 runs on iPad Pro 4th generation and later, iPad Air 4th generation and later, iPad 9th generation and later, and the A17 Pro iPad mini. watchOS 27 needs an Apple Watch Series 9 or later, an SE 3, or an Ultra 2 or later.

macOS 27 Golden Gate is the one to check, because it's Apple silicon only. Any Mac with an M1 chip or later, or the new MacBook Neo, gets it. If your Mac has an Intel chip, it stays on macOS 26 Tahoe, which will keep working and should keep getting security updates for a while yet. Click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac if you're not sure which you have. I wrote the full compatibility list up last month, including which devices get the AI features.

What's actually new

The headline is Siri AI, which is a proper rebuild of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence. You can type or talk to it naturally, ask it open-ended questions, have a back-and-forth conversation, and ask it to find things using your own context, like a photo from years ago or an email buried in your inbox. There's a new Siri app that keeps your conversations in one place and lets you pick up on your iPad or Mac where you left off on your iPhone. Two things to know: it launches as a beta, in English first, and it needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, an iPad with an M1 chip or the A17 Pro mini, or a Mac with an M1 chip or newer. An iPhone 14 will get iOS 27 but not Siri AI.

The part I'm most pleased about is the everyday stuff. Apple says apps launch up to 30 per cent faster on iPhone, new photos load up to 70 per cent faster, and AirDrop transfers are up to 80 per cent faster. On iPad, browsing and copying files to an external drive is up to five times faster. Your devices should also switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data more smoothly, and search in Mail has been rebuilt so the result you actually want comes to the top.

The design has been tidied too. Liquid Glass gets more uniform refraction and better contrast so it's easier to read, and there's a new slider that lets you set how see-through it is, from ultra-clear to fully tinted. If you found last year's look a bit much, that slider is for you. On the Mac, Golden Gate adds uniform toolbars, edge-to-edge sidebars, updated window shapes, and support for higher resolutions on ultra-wide displays, up to 5K at 120Hz.

A handful of smaller things I think you'll notice. Photos gets new AI editing tools, including Spatial Reframing to change the framing after the fact, Extend to widen a shot, and a stronger Clean Up for removing larger objects. Safari can group your tabs into topics automatically, and a new Notify Me feature will watch a page and tell you when a price changes or something comes back into stock. The Passwords app can now fix weak or compromised passwords for you. Call Context surfaces things like a confirmation code from Mail when you ring a business. You can adjust the bass and treble of your AirPods in a new Custom EQ. And a new captioning feature generates synced subtitles for any video you watch, which is a big deal for anyone with hearing loss.

For parents and grandparents, there's a new set of child safety controls, including Ask to Browse, which means a child has to request permission before visiting a new website, and Time Allowances that let you set daily limits by category like games or social media, with guidance based on the child's age. And in the Health app, Cycle Tracking can now flag patterns suggestive of perimenopause, with support and resources alongside.

On the watch, watchOS 27 brings Siri AI to your wrist, a new one-handed tap gesture for getting to your widgets, and smarter suggestions in the Smart Stack.

If something goes wrong

Most updates go through without a hitch, and the most common problem is simply that it takes longer than you expected. If your device seems stuck, give it a good while before you do anything, then restart it. If an app misbehaves afterwards, check the App Store for an update before assuming the worst. And if you'd rather not do any of this on your own, that's exactly what I'm here for.

I'll be around all week helping people through the update, remotely and in person. Book a session and we'll get your devices backed up and updated without any drama.