My most anticipated iOS 27 feature is not a new feature at all: If the rumors are true, Apple will use its next major iPhone update as an opportunity to squash bugs and improve stability across iOS. The company has already started work on this front ahead of iOS 27—with iOS 26.4, Apple fixed some key issues with the iPhone’s keyboard, which users have complained about since the company initially rolled out iOS 26., and launched new settings to tone down the look of Liquid Glass in response to negative feedback from some users.
But while I hope that iOS 27 is mostly a stability update, I know it won’t be totally absent any new features. In fact, the rumors suggest Apple will finally unveil its big AI Siri overhaul with this update, which has been a long time coming. But in addition to AI Siri, Apple has a small handful of other Apple Intelligence features in the works. It’s possible iOS 27 could be both a stability update, and Apple’s biggest investment in AI thus far.
New Apple Intelligence features are hinted at in Apple’s coding
As reported by MacRumors, backend code suggests that Apple is working on four new Apple Intelligence features for iOS 27. Nicolás Alvarez made the discovery, and MacRumors says it was able to verify the findings.
The first two of these features concern Visual Intelligence, Apple’s AI powered tool for exploring the world around you (or the contents of your iPhone’s display). Based on the backend code, it seems Apple is working on a feature that lets you scan a nutrition label on a food item to learn more about it. MacRumors guesses that this feature could work with the Health app—perhaps to log new food and include all of its nutritional stats.
in addition to this nutrition scanner, Visual Intelligence may be able to add phone numbers and addresses in print to your Contacts app. This could be especially useful when taking someone’s business card: Rather than hold onto the card and punch in the details by hand, you could simply scan the card with your iPhone, and iOS could add their details to a new entry in Contacts.
Apple Intelligence may also soon ship with the ability to create digital passes for the Wallet app based on physical items. The idea is, you use your iPhone’s camera to scan a concert ticket or a rewards card, and iOS automatically generates the pass to store in Wallet. A similar feature exists on Google Wallet over on Android.
Finally, Safari could be getting a new AI feature, too: When you create a Tab Group, iOS may automatically name it for you, based on the contents of the tabs. Maybe if you collect a bunch of tabs of different recipes, iOS will name your tab group “Dinner Ideas,” or if you move a collection of places you’d like to visit on your trip to New York, iOS will call the group “NYC Vacation Plans.”
While MacRumors confirmed these are the features alluded to in the code, there are no guarantees these features will arrive in iOS 27 or be exactly as described here. We won’t know what iOS 27 really looks like until Apple takes the stage in June for WWDC.
