Apple is releasing iPadOS 27 on September 14, bringing its biggest AI upgrade yet to the iPad alongside a refined Liquid Glass design, faster performance, new Visual Intelligence tools, stronger child safety features, and improvements across core apps.
The centerpiece is Siri AI, Apple’s next-generation conversational assistant powered by Apple Intelligence. iPadOS 27 also expands Apple Intelligence into Photos, Notes, Safari, Image Playground, Passwords, Messages, Mail, and Shortcuts while adding a wide range of smaller system improvements.
Siri AI Comes To iPad
Siri AI is the biggest change in iPadOS 27. It moves beyond simple commands with more natural conversations, deeper answers, personal context, and the ability to take actions across supported apps.
Siri can search through information on your iPad, including photos, emails, and notes, to find relevant details without requiring you to manually search through each app. It can also use information from the web to answer broader questions and provide more complete responses.
Apple is also introducing a dedicated Siri app on iPad. It brings conversations together in one place, lets users start new conversations, and allows important conversations to be pinned for quick access.
Siri AI can take actions in apps such as Messages, Music, and Reminders. It can also help create events, make notes, add items to playlists, edit messages, and perform other actions based on what you ask.
Visual Intelligence Gets Powerful
Visual Intelligence is no longer limited to understanding the physical world through a camera. On iPad, it can analyze virtually anything displayed on the screen.
Users can select part of an image, document, webpage, or PDF and ask Siri AI about it. With Apple Pencil, they can circle an object or section of the screen to get more information or take an action.
This makes Visual Intelligence particularly useful for research, studying, shopping, and working with documents on a larger iPad display.
Apple Intelligence Expands
iPadOS 27 adds several new Apple Intelligence capabilities throughout the operating system.
Photos gets Spatial Reframing, which lets users change the framing of an image after taking it. The new Extend tool can expand an image beyond its original boundaries, while an upgraded Clean Up tool can remove larger unwanted objects.
Image Playground also becomes more capable, including support for creating more detailed and photorealistic images from descriptions.
Notes gets new Siri-powered actions. Users can ask Siri to organize typed or handwritten notes, turn bullet points into a formatted agenda, or transform handwritten lecture notes into a more detailed study guide.
Safari can automatically group tabs by topic, making large collections of open webpages easier to manage. Its new Notify Me feature can monitor webpages and alert users when something changes, such as a price drop or a product coming back in stock.
The Passwords app can also identify weak or compromised passwords and, where supported, help update them without requiring users to manually navigate through account pages.
Siri Can Write For You
Write with Siri is expanding into a more capable writing assistant on iPad.
Users can describe what they want Siri AI to write, generate a draft from scratch, or ask for feedback on existing text. In Messages and Mail, Siri can also match the user’s writing style, punctuation, and tone.
Shortcuts gains a similar AI upgrade. Instead of manually building an automation action by action, users can describe what they want a shortcut to accomplish and Apple Intelligence can create the workflow.
Liquid Glass Gets More Control
iPadOS 27 continues refining Apple’s Liquid Glass design introduced in the previous generation.
Apple is improving readability with more consistent refraction and stronger contrast, while app icons receive sharper and more detailed designs.
A new Liquid Glass slider gives users more control over the appearance, allowing them to choose between an ultra-clear look and a more heavily tinted appearance.
iPadOS 27 Gets Faster
Apple is also targeting some of the everyday performance bottlenecks that iPad users notice most.
File transfers between an iPad and an external drive can be up to five times faster. App launches and AirDrop transfers are also faster, while an optimized CPU scheduler improves how the system handles workloads.
Apple has also improved memory usage, search, display rendering, and CPU utilization across the operating system.
Network switching is getting an upgrade as well. iPadOS 27 can more smoothly move between available Wi-Fi and cellular connections, helping maintain connectivity when users move between networks.
More Improvements Across iPad
Messages gets faster and more reliable syncing between devices. Missed-message notifications and unread counts should appear more consistently when returning to an iPad after being away.
Calendar can understand natural-language descriptions when creating or editing events. Instead of manually changing individual fields, users can describe the change they want and Calendar can update the event.
Maps gets enhanced Flyover imagery powered by aerial photography and Visual Intelligence models, providing more detailed representations of locations.
Photos also gets customizable slideshows. Users can choose slide duration, transitions, and music, then save the finished slideshow as a video in their Photos library.
AirPods users gain Custom EQ controls that allow them to adjust the lows, mids, and highs directly from AirPods settings.
Shared Albums Get Better
iCloud Shared Albums are becoming more useful across platforms.
People using Android or Windows can more easily join and contribute to shared albums through iCloud.com. Apple is also adding full-resolution sharing, improved filtering, reactions, and new ways to invite people to albums.
Home Gets Smarter
The Home app is gaining additional Apple Intelligence capabilities.
Compatible HomeKit Secure Video footage can be analyzed to describe what happened in a recording, while natural-language searches can help locate specific moments in saved video.
Apple is also adding smarter notification grouping for related Home activity. Supported HomeKit Secure Video cameras can now stream and record in 4K.
New Accessibility Features
iPadOS 27 adds several accessibility improvements.
VoiceOver gets richer image descriptions, while a new captioning feature can automatically generate synchronized subtitles for videos. Existing captions can also be translated into other languages.
Magnifier gains additional tools designed to make it easier for people with low vision to navigate and understand their surroundings.
More Tools For Parents
Apple is expanding its child safety features in iPadOS 27 with additional controls designed to help parents manage their children’s digital experiences.
The system gives parents more control over content, communication, app access, and device usage while adding guidance intended to help families make decisions around children’s device use.
iPadOS 27 Compatible iPads
iPadOS 27 supports a wide range of recent iPad models:
- iPad Pro M4 and later
- iPad Pro 12.9-inch 4th generation and later
- iPad Pro 11-inch 2nd generation and later
- iPad Air 13-inch M2 and later
- iPad Air 11-inch M2, M3, and M4
- iPad Air 11-inch 4th generation and later
- iPad A16
- iPad 9th generation and later
- iPad mini A17 Pro
- iPad mini 6th generation
Apple Intelligence is available on supported iPad models with M1 or later, along with the iPad mini with A17 Pro. Some of the most advanced Siri AI capabilities require newer hardware.
iPadOS 27 Release Date
Apple will release iPadOS 27 on September 14 as a free software update for compatible iPad models.
Siri AI will arrive as a beta later this year, initially for supported devices configured for English, with additional languages planned afterward. Availability of individual Apple Intelligence features can vary by device, language, and region.
For iPad users, iPadOS 27 is less about one visual redesign and more about bringing Apple’s AI ambitions directly into everyday iPad workflows. Siri AI, Visual Intelligence, smarter app actions, faster performance, and the expanded Apple Intelligence toolkit make the update considerably broader than a typical annual iPad software refresh.
