iPadOS 26 was Apple’s most ambitious iPad update in years. It was a sweeping productivity overhaul that redesigned multitasking and made the iPad feel closer to a laptop replacement.
iPadOS 27, announced at WWDC 2026, takes a different approach. This one is more about doing the existing things better and faster, along with a few notable upgrades.
What is new in iPadOS 27?
The headline addition is the same upgraded Siri AI that is coming to iPhone. It is a fully conversational AI assistant powered by Apple’s Foundation Models and Gemini (as part of the company’s partnership with Google).
It comes with a dedicated Siri app, a new wave-like animation, on-screen awareness, systemwide proofreading, and cross-device conversation continuity. For instance, if you switch from your iPad to your iPhone in the middle of a conversation, Siri picks it up exactly where you left off.
That alone is a meaningful quality-of-life upgrade for anyone working across multiple Apple devices.
One of iPadOS 26’s most popular additions, the Menu Bar, now has an option to stay permanently on screen, removing the need to swipe for it every time, which, if you ask me, feels quite irritating at times.
What else do you get with iPadOS 27 and when?
With the new software, you’ll be able to resize iPhone apps when running on iPad. Furthermore, Safari gains automatic topic-based tab organization, something that is genuinely useful for people who open fifteen tabs and never close them.
Photos improvements include slideshow customization, and iCloud Shared Albums now work across Android and Windows devices. Search has been rebuilt with upgraded intelligence for faster, more relevant results.
Just like iOS 27, Apple is not dropping any iPads from the iPadOS 27 compatibility list this year. The developer beta is already available, while the public beta arrives in July. The full release arrives this fall alongside Apple’s next hardware lineup.
