macOS 27 Golden Gate landed on eligible Macs this week, and downloading it does not get you very far on its own. Here are 10 things worth doing once the update finishes installing.
Apple’s highlight features for macOS 27 list Siri AI, a redesigned Spotlight, and refreshed Photos and Safari tools among the headline changes.
Turn On Siri AI and Try the New Spotlight
- Turn on Siri AI, it does not switch itself on by default, so open System Settings, then Apple Intelligence & Siri, and enable it from there
- Check your language, Siri AI is rolling out in English first, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish arriving in October
- Try the new Spotlight, it now works as a combined search and ask bar, so you can hold a conversation with Siri, search Mail and Photos, and take action in supported apps from one field
- Open the dedicated Siri app, past conversations sync through iCloud, so you can pick up a question you started on your iPhone
- Learn the Visual Intelligence shortcut, press Shift-Command-Space to ask about whatever is on your screen
Adjust the Liquid Glass Slider and Window Look
- Set your Liquid Glass transparency, golden Gate adds a slider in System Settings, Appearance, so you can go fully see-through or a more tinted, legible look depending on your desktop background
- Get used to the new traffic lights, the window control buttons are redesigned closer to the Aqua-style dots from before OS X Yosemite, and window border shapes are consistent across apps again after last year’s changes in macOS Tahoe
Back Up Before Time Capsule and AFP Disappear
- Move your Time Machine backup. Golden Gate ends AirPort Time Capsule support, so switch to an external drive, an SMB-capable NAS, or a shared folder on another Mac
- Switch older NAS devices to SMB. AFP file sharing is dropped in this release, and a Golden Gate Mac can no longer reach an AFP-only device
- Check for Rosetta dependencies, go to System Settings, General, About, System Report, Applications, and look for anything listed as Intel. Golden Gate is the last version of macOS with full Rosetta 2 support, so any Intel-only app you still rely on needs a plan before next year’s release
Boot Camp is also officially gone from macOS, though it won’t affect anyone running Golden Gate directly. Boot Camp only ever worked on Intel Macs, and Golden Gate does not run on Intel hardware at all. If you need Windows on Apple Silicon, use Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or the free UTM instead.
Our Take
Siri AI took ten minutes to set up and immediately felt more useful than the old Spotlight search. The bigger adjustment was the backup change. If you were still leaning on Time Capsule out of habit rather than necessity, this update forces the move to SMB now instead of during an emergency later.
