iOS 27 shipped September 14, 2026, as build 24A437, and Apple's support documentation lists the new Apple Intelligence capabilities by platform. Counting Siri AI separately and counting Apple's three Intelligent Accessibility subfeatures individually produces 20 entries for the purposes of this article. Updating doesn't hand every iPhone owner all 20 iOS 27 Apple Intelligence features at once, though. Hardware, storage, language, age, and region each gate access on their own, and some entries never touch iPhone at all.
Apple groups several capabilities under a single support-page entry. The photo-editing listing bundles Spatial Reframing, Extend, and Improved Clean Up into one line; the Safari listing bundles three separate tools the same way.
Which iPhones qualify for Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27
Apple's support page, published alongside the release last week, lists supported iPhones as iPhone 16 or later, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPhone Air. Apple's newsroom post from the same day adds "iPhone Duo" to that list. The cited documents do not explain the discrepancy, so use Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri as an additional eligibility check rather than relying on either published list alone.
Storage requirements differ by model. iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air need up to 14GB free; other eligible iPhones need up to 8GB. Device language and Siri language also have to match, set to the same supported language, or the features won't turn on even on qualifying hardware.
Language support gets more complicated once individual apps enter the picture. Apple Intelligence broadly supports 16 languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, and Korean. Siri AI launches in English only, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish scheduled to arrive next month.
Some individual tools carry their own limits on top of that: Mail Suggestions and Personalized Smart Reply in Messages are English-only; Apple does not list the same English-only restriction for Personalized Smart Reply in Mail.
Where the features still don't work, no matter what iPhone you have
Siri AI isn't available at launch on iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch in the EU, though EU-based Mac and Vision Pro users can access it in a supported language. Apple separately confirms that next-generation across-app features such as advanced photo editing, Image Playground, and intelligent browsing are available to EU users on supported iPhones and iPads. Siri AI and features that depend on Siri AI are the stated exceptions on iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS.
Apple's support page restricts the entire feature set for mainland China in two separate ways. Apple says supported devices purchased in mainland China are currently excluded from Apple Intelligence. Separately, the feature set won't work if both conditions apply together: a user currently located in mainland China and an Apple Account region also set to mainland China. The purchase-location restriction blocks access on its own; the location-plus-account restriction needs both factors present. Apple hasn't published a timeline for lifting either one, so it's worth treating this as unavailable rather than pending.
Siri AI also isn't available to users under 13.
Five iPhone features highlighted in Apple's announcement
The following five receive the clearest user-facing descriptions in Apple's announcement. They aren't an independent ranking of usefulness or performance, just the entries Apple chose to explain in the most detail.
Siri AI. Apple says it answers questions about whatever's on screen through Visual Intelligence, draws on personal context across Messages, Mail, and Photos, pulls current web results, and takes actions across apps. It's rolling out as a beta in English right now, not a finished feature. A separate, dedicated Siri app syncs conversation history across devices through iCloud, which Apple says is done privately on a new architecture built to protect user privacy; that's distinct from asking Siri through the usual voice trigger, and it's Apple's own claim about the sync, not independently verified.
Photo editing tools. Apple confirms Spatial Reframing, Extend, and Improved Clean Up as new tools, plus a caveat that usage limits may apply. Apple's material doesn't spell out the actual workflow inside the Photos app or what the usage quota looks like, so treat "usage limits may apply" as an open question rather than a fixed number.
Image Playground. Apple says it can generate photorealistic images and accept natural-language edit requests. Like Siri AI and photo editing, it's subject to daily usage limits Apple hasn't published a number for, which matters more here since image generation tends to hit those caps faster than text-based tools.
Safari intelligence. Apple lists this as three distinct tools for iPhone, iPad, and Mac: automatic tab organization by topic, Notify Me alerts for page changes like restocks, and Describe an Extension, which generates a custom browser extension from a plain-text description. Vision Pro only gets a partial version, organizing bookmarks and reading lists by topic rather than full tabs.
Natural-language Shortcuts. Describing a shortcut in plain language instead of building it manually is its own entry on Apple's support list, separate from the similarly worded calendar and reminder tools covered in the table below. Apple marks Describe a Shortcut as subject to possible usage limits and separately identifies AFM 3 Cloud models in Shortcuts among the server-side features covered by daily limits.
The rest of Apple's iOS 27 Apple Intelligence full list
Fourteen more entries round out the 20. Each row lists every platform Apple names for that feature, since several extend to Apple Watch or Vision Pro alongside iPhone.
Suggestions in Mail — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac; Language/limit: English only; Status: New
Personalized Smart Reply (Messages) — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro; Language/limit: English only; Status: New
Personalized Smart Reply (Mail) — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac; Status: New
Automatic proofreading — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac; Status: New
Call Context — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch; Status: New
Describe a calendar event — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac; Status: New
Describe a reminder — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac; Status: New
Home app activity notifications — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro; Status: New
HomeKit Secure Video AI search/captions — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro; Language/limit: Usage limits may apply; Status: New
Enhanced Workout Buddy (no iPhone nearby) — Platforms: iPhone, Apple Watch; Language/limit: English and Spanish only; Status: New
Journal writing prompts — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac; Status: New
VoiceOver/Magnifier descriptions — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro (VoiceOver); Status: New
Voice Control flexible item names — Platforms: iPhone, iPad; Language/limit: US, UK, Canada, and Australia English; Status: New
Accessibility Reader cleanup/summaries — Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro; Status: New
That's 5 features above plus 14 in the table, 19 entries total. The 20th is "intelligent file and folder name suggestions in Finder," which Apple's support page tags with iPhone despite Finder being a Mac-only app. This article marks it as Apple-listed but excluded because its platform tag conflicts with Finder's Mac-only identity, rather than folding it into either count above.
A handful of items that sound like they might apply to iPhone actually don't. Live Rewind, which recalls recent conversation audio, and a Digital Crown double-press that surfaces the last 15 seconds of a conversation as text, are both described specifically for Apple Watch. Sound Recognition for deaf and hard-of-hearing alerts is also Watch-only.
Two more capabilities are confirmed but not live yet. Siri Recap and new Health features are coming later this year. Apple says Siri Recap requires Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4 paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone 16 or later, excluding iPhone 16e; it will launch in English and initially remain unavailable in the EU. Apple's Health announcement also provides device and regional qualifications for individual features.
What to check before assuming a feature is broken
Work through this order before writing off a missing feature as a bug:
Confirm the build is 24A437 or later under Settings > General > About
Confirm free storage clears the model's threshold under Settings > General > iPhone Storage
Confirm device and Siri language match under Settings > General > Language & Region and Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri
Confirm Apple Intelligence is toggled on in that same menu
Confirm the Apple Account region isn't set to China mainland under Settings > [name]
Siri AI is explicitly rolling out as a beta. The cited Apple materials don't describe a staged rollout for the other entries, so if one of those is missing after all five checks pass, recheck its language, region, and platform requirements before assuming something's broken.
Two things Apple's own documentation leaves open. Usage limits on Siri AI, Image Playground, the photo-editing tools, and Shortcuts' AFM 3 Cloud models vary by feature, request complexity, and system demand, but the support page doesn't specify the actual caps. And Apple's June preview said increased access came with most iCloud+ plans, while its support page now says expanded access will cost extra "in the future." Apple hasn't explained how the current iCloud+ benefit relates to that future paid tier, so neither statement should be treated as final policy.
What to do based on where you are
Eligible outside the EU and China mainland: update, confirm the build is 24A437 or later, and turn Apple Intelligence on in Settings. Siri AI is still a beta, and several server-based tools carry usage limits, so if a listed feature is missing, recheck its language, region, and account requirements before treating it as a bug.
In the EU: Siri AI won't work on iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. Apple's announcement doesn't confirm a full feature-by-feature list for the rest, so check individual tools like Photos, Safari, Image Playground, and Shortcuts after updating rather than assume the whole non-Siri lineup is available.
Tied to mainland China by device purchase, or by current location plus Apple Account region: none of this works yet, and Apple hasn't given a timeline. Check Apple's support page periodically rather than delaying an otherwise worthwhile iOS 27 update over this alone.
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