The new phones get the headlines, but the free update is what most people will actually get this week. iOS 27 arrives on Tuesday 15 September here, with watchOS 27 the same day, and it carries the rebuilt Siri. Buried in Apple's own release notes is something worth reading before you get excited: the cloud-based AI has daily caps, and Apple says it'll sell more access later.
Apple's Australian newsroom gives Tuesday 15 September for iOS 27 and watchOS 27. The US release says Monday 14th, which is the same moment in our time zone. It's free, as always.
Siri AI, in beta
The big one is Siri AI, which Apple describes as an entirely new Siri. It can look across your messages, mail and photos to find things, act on what's on your screen, and answer general questions. There's a Siri mode in the Camera app that lets it look at what's in front of you, and a Siri app that keeps your past conversations. It rolls out as a beta, English only to start, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish coming in October. It's not available to anyone under 13.
The bit nobody's leading with
In the footnotes of every one of today's releases Apple says the same thing. Some Apple Intelligence features that run on Apple's servers, including Siri AI, the smarter photo editing tools and Image Playground, are subject to daily usage limits. The limits vary by feature, how complex the request is and how busy the system is. And then: expanded access to those features will be available for a fee in the future. That's Apple's wording, not mine. So the free tier of the new Siri has a ceiling, and a paid tier is coming. Apple hasn't said what the limits are or what it'll cost.
What else is in it
New parental controls, which Apple says are built on expert guidance, give you more flexible ways to manage what your kids see, who they can talk to, and when they get access. I'll be going through those properly, because with four kids that's the feature I care about. iPhone Handoff lets you move between two iPhones on the same number, but only on supported carriers, and at launch Apple names one US and one German carrier, so don't count on it here yet. Safari gets Notify Me, which watches a page for a restock or a price drop. The photo tools get Spatial Reframing and Extend, Image Playground can now make photorealistic images, and there are more ways to tweak how Liquid Glass looks.
Apple hasn't listed which iPhones get iOS 27 in these releases, so I'm not going to state a cut-off. Check Apple's iOS 27 page for your model before Tuesday. What Apple does say is that the most capable on-device model, the one behind the new expressive Siri voices, needs an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air or an 18 Pro, so older phones get the update but not every feature.