Everything New in iOS 27.2 Beta 1

Apple surprised us with the first beta of iOS 27.2 today instead of releasing an iOS 27.1 beta. Apple likely went straight to iOS 27.2 to keep iPhone Duo code under wraps for now, since we already know the ‌iPhone Duo‌ will ship with iOS 27.1 when it comes out in October.

This beta includes Apple's revamped Health app, new languages for Siri AI, and a handful of other useful tweaks.

Revamped Health App

The iOS 27.2 beta includes the redesigned Health app Apple showed off at its September iPhone event. The new app is organized into three main tabs: Insights, Longevity, and Browse.

Insights includes your most recent and relevant health info, such as vitals, sleep score, heart rate, and Activity Rings. Longevity shows your health data over time, offering up a Health Age calculated from activity level, VO2 max, sleep time, and other metrics.

The Health Age feature uses in-app assessments that take advantage of the iPhone's camera. You can measure flexibility, strength, balance, and VO2 max. The revamped Health app is only available in U.S. English.

The Health app also has a new icon.

Call Context

Apple added anniversary alerts to the Apple Intelligence Call Context feature. If you make a phone call to someone and you have an anniversary for them set in the Contacts app, you'll see a reminder in the Phone app.

CarPlay

There are themes for CarPlay Ultra that include options for wallpaper, gauge style, and color. Code suggests ambient lighting in supported vehicles will also match the color of the selected theme.

Siri AI Languages

‌Siri‌ AI is available in French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish in the iOS 27.2 beta.

Apple TV App

Apple extended Apple TV app profiles to the iPhone and iPad in iOS 27.2. ‌Apple TV‌ app users can create profiles in the account settings section, and then swap between those profiles. Profiles only require a name, profile rating, and information about whether the user is a child.

Creating an account for a child limits content to a PG rating by default, but there is a customize option for more granular control. Users can select age ratings for TV shows and movies that are appropriate for the child based on their age. Profiles are useful for parents that want to hand over an iPhone or ‌iPad‌ to a child to watch TV content while also restricting content that's not age-appropriate.

There's also a new option to turn on sign language interpretation when available. It can be toggled on in the TV app settings.

ASL FaceTime API

Back in May, Apple said it would add a new API to FaceTime allowing developers who make sign language interpretation apps to add a human interpreter to an ongoing video call.

That feature appears to be live in iOS 27.2.

Clock

Apple tweaked how alarms appear in the Clock app. The a.m. and p.m. readouts are now smaller than the time.

Music

In the Music app, some of the red accents have been removed. The Play and Shuffle buttons in Library are black instead of red, as are all of the icons next to the Library sections.

Siri

App Access in the ‌Siri‌ section of the Settings app is now named "Excluded Apps." Tapping on "Add Apps" brings up a list so multiple apps can be excluded at once. Apps previously had to be excluded one by one.

Adding an app to the Exclude list prevents it from showing up in ‌Siri‌, Search, and suggestions.

Podcasts

Apple renamed Up Next to New Episodes, with a Continue Playing option directly below it.

App Tracking Transparency

According to Apple's release notes for the update, App Tracking Transparency supports an alternative expanded prompt for EU users along with re-prompting on an annual basis. The alternative prompt is required for users in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Romania.