At Apple’s recent hardware event, the software powering its foldable iPhone Duo stood out, with translucent Liquid Glass effects and vertically stacked icons. But you don’t need to snatch a folding smartphone to reap the benefits of Apple’s iOS 27 updates.
When iOS 27 leaves beta on Monday, Siri AI’s standalone app and smartphone search integration will likely be the most immediately obvious change for many iPhone users. But it’s worth digging even deeper to uncover helpful additions to key apps, like Apple’s Safari browser, as well as revamps to underutilized apps, like Shortcuts.
The version of Safari available in iOS 27 looks fairly similar to the last iteration, with a few key updates tucked away in the settings. These Safari features are powered by Apple Intelligence, which requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer (they’re also available on iPadOS 27 and macOS 27).
Notify Me
Photograph: Courtesy of Apple
If you’re shopping online and want a quick price-drop notification, you can use the “Notify Me” feature to scan a webpage on a certain cadence and look for changes. First, head to the page you want to track and tap the three-lined hamburger menu icon in the top right corner of Safari. About halfway down, you’ll see this option listed.
“Safari can let you know when a website updates the content you’re interested in,” reads the feature’s description. Here you’ll find an open text box where you can describe what change in content you want Safari to scan for, as well as how often you want it to check.
For example, my couch is broken, so I’ve been eyeing a few different replacement options. I have two final contenders from CB2, but both are out of my price range. So, I set up a “Notify Me” for Safari to scan the pages each day for a significant discount. Whichever one goes on sale first will likely be what I decide to get, and now I don’t have to refresh the pages manually every day.
While many other browsers have similar shopping features, like the price-tracking bell in Google Chrome, I appreciate how this feature stretches beyond just buying stuff. You can also use Safari to scan for ticket drops, privacy policy changes, and other content updates.
Describe an Extension
Photograph: Courtesy of Apple
If you’ve experimented already with the “Describe a Shortcut” feature for iPhone automation, then “Describe an Extension” for Safari will seem familiar. It’s located under the same settings menu as the “Notify Me” tool, just a little further down.
The feature asks you to type what you want the extension to do, then generates a custom option. Some of the suggested prompts in Safari revolve around boosting productivity, like “display a reading time estimate as a badge on the extension,” maintaining better focus, like “make the web page grayscale,” and more random ideas, like “show a colorful and explosive firework every time I tap.”
It took only a few seconds for each of those three examples to generate. Safari also suggests pre-made extensions during the process that could fit what you’re looking to do. As I scrolled through the internet with all three of the new extensions activated, everything worked as expected. While I’ll likely only keep the grayscale one to help me focus while reading online articles, the fireworks felt whimsical in small doses.
Organize Tabs
Video: Courtesy of Apple
I am a glutton for mobile tabs, especially on Safari. I’m rarely ever exiting out of anything and always just pop open something new, which leaves me with hundreds upon hundreds of loosely connected, completely unorganized tabs—until now.
This feature is in the wider browser tab view accessible by tapping the two overlapping squares at the bottom-right corner of your screen. Swipe to a tab group brimming with websites and look for the three-lined button in the top-left. Here’s where you can choose to allow Safari to “automatically create topics” based on those tabs.
It takes a few seconds to organize everything after you activate this feature, but it did a great job of finding helpful trends in those 500+ tabs. For example, it grouped all the WIRED articles I had open and created a tab topic for upcoming San Francisco event pages and comedy clubs I was considering checking out.
