Capabilities

Xcode 27 introduces a revamped customizable workspace with per-project themes, a new Device Hub for simulator and device management, integrated coding agent workflows directly in the editor, and untitled scratch projects for rapid prototyping.

iOS 27 and macOS 27 introduce the systemExtraLargePortrait widget family, previously only available on visionOS 26, giving widgets a tall, portrait-oriented canvas to display richer app content. Developers can now opt into this new size alongside existing families to give users a more immersive glanceable experience.

Swift 6.3 and 6.4 introduce a range of language and library improvements including anyAppleOS availability shorthand, module selectors (::), task cancellation shielding, improved Swift Testing interoperability with XCTest, and new standard library APIs for dictionaries and filepaths.

iOS 27 delivers a sweeping set of SwiftUI enhancements including Liquid Glass design, a new Document API with async read/write, toolbar visibility controls, and iPhone app resizability. These changes touch nearly every layer of a SwiftUI app.

iOS 27 opens the Foundation Models framework to third-party and server-based LLMs via a new public LanguageModel protocol. Any developer or company can package their own model (local or cloud-based) so it integrates seamlessly with the same session API used for Apple's on-device model.

iOS 27 introduces DynamicProfile and DynamicInstructions to the Foundation Models framework, enabling developers to build multi-agent app experiences where a single LanguageModelSession can switch between distinct model configurations, instructions, and tools depending on the current task phase.

Core AI is a new iOS 27 framework that lets developers bring their own .aimodel files (e.g. open-source LLMs, vision-transformers) on-device and run them through the familiar FoundationModels session API — no server, no per-token cost, no data leaving the device.

iOS 27 introduces security APIs for Foundation Models and App Intents that let developers inject deterministic guardrails into agentic loops — including user confirmation checkpoints, device-authentication gates, and prompt spotlighting to mitigate indirect prompt injection attacks.

SpotlightSearchTool is a new Foundation Models tool that lets a language model directly query your app's Core Spotlight index, grounding model responses in your app's own indexed content rather than general world knowledge.

App Schemas are predefined intent contracts that let your App Intents become directly executable by Siri via Apple Intelligence. By conforming entities and actions to schemas within a domain (e.g., Messages, Mail, Photos), Siri gains semantic understanding of your app's content and actions without requiring custom natural language handling.

The Evaluations framework is a new Swift testing system designed to measure the quality and reliability of intelligent features powered by generative AI models. It provides protocols, types, and Xcode test report integration to quantify how often your app's AI-driven features behave correctly across diverse input datasets.

Core AI is Apple's new on-device AI inference framework for iOS 27, giving developers direct access to the same high-performance ML execution engine that powers Apple Intelligence. It enables loading and running custom .aimodel files across CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine with a modern Swift API.

iOS 27 brings four major SwiftData enhancements: sectioned @Query results, a new .codable attribute modifier for third-party types, ResultsObserver for reacting to store changes outside SwiftUI, and HistoryObserver for monitoring persistent history transactions.

In iOS 27, MetricKit has been rebuilt from the ground up with a modern Swift-first API featuring async/await streams, structured metric groups, state-aware reporting via the StateReporting framework, and new diagnostics including memory exceptions and Metal frame rate metrics.

iOS 27 significantly expands the App Intents framework with EntityCollection for bulk performance, RelevantEntities for proactive suggestions, SyncableEntity for cross-device Siri continuity, ValueRepresentation for structured cross-app sharing, union value parameters, and longer-running intent execution support.

The @Observable macro, introduced in Swift 5.9 and now the standard for iOS 17+/iOS 27, replaces ObservableObject/Published with a simpler, more performant observation system. SwiftUI views automatically track only the specific properties they read, reducing unnecessary re-renders.