5 things I already love from the iOS 27 beta

The Verge’s early hands-on with the iOS 27 developer beta finds several welcome refinements despite limited access to Apple’s new Siri AI. Highlights include a Liquid Glass opacity slider, subtly redesigned app icons, and broader fit-and-finish improvements across the system.

Apple appears to be using iOS 27 to refine its visual language and user controls while its bigger AI features remain gated behind waitlists. That suggests a staged rollout strategy where design polish ships broadly first, while more complex assistant capabilities are tested more cautiously.

Some app icons have a little more glass, but it gives them more identity.

iOS 27 has only been out for a few hours, and I've been messing around with the developer beta on my iPhone 16 Pro. I was most interested in trying out the new Siri AI, but unfortunately, I'm still on Apple's waitlist for that. In the meantime, I've been poking around a bunch of features that aren't about AI and found a lot that I'm happy with - even though this doesn't seem to be as big of an update as previous years, the fit and finish throughout the operating system is already great to see. Here are a few neat things that have jumped out at me. The Liquid Glass opacity slider should have been there from the start I've always thought th … Read the full story at The Verge.