iPadOS 27 beta review: Your iPad, now with Siri AI

Siri AI and system optimizations are the focus of iPadOS 27, but that's enough for iPad's usual in-between year. Power users will notice the changes the most.

The iPad operating system has been on a predictable tick-tock upgrade cycle where one year is significant and the other minimal. Apple focused on Siri AI for its OS 27 releases, but iPadOS 27 still has a few new and useful upgrades.

As an iPad-first user, I'm most interested in how iPadOS might affect my workflows each year. I do have a Mac mini for recording a video podcast, and my Apple Vision Pro is still used regularly for focused work, but the iPad is where I live.

Of those three platforms, funny enough, the Apple Vision Pro saw the most new feature upgrades overall.

That isn't to say what's new in iPadOS 27 won't affect me or my work. There are some interesting new automation and windowing features that may prove useful.

Plus, the merging of Spotlight and Siri saved the search tool from being a broken mess.

If you're an iPad user who's mainly using the iPad as a tablet, there's a chance you won't notice much new beyond Siri AI. Power users definitely got the most focus this year thanks to system optimizations, design changes, and a couple of new features.

Let's get into it.

iPadOS 27 review: Features & optimizations

Apple's WWDC keynote didn't split up features by OS due to a focus on optimizations and child safety features. I'm not getting into the child safety stuff in this early review since it doesn't affect me.

There are many small changes across every operating system, but when you break down exactly what's in each, it feels small versus previous years. That's likely because of Apple's stability and optimization focus this year, and how nearly all the truly new features are tied to AI.

Spotlight reindexed

Spotlight search is vastly improved thanks to a completely rethought indexing system. Everything stored on your device, from Contacts to Journal entries, is crawled after installing iPadOS 27.

The process can take up to a week, depending on how much data you have saved locally. The improvements are immediately noticeable because you can actually use Spotlight without waiting for results to populate.

There's word that the new indexing is being added in iPadOS 26.6 so people upgrading to iPadOS 27 in the fall will already have everything done day one. However, while that indexing will be done, it won't be used until the fall releases.

That's important because the new Siri AI relies heavily on that newly indexed data. Some queries flat out didn't work when indexing was still going on, so keep that in mind.

While the Spotlight interface has integrated Siri AI, they are still distinct entities. If you search for an app name, hit enter, and it launches, that's Spotlight.

In my use this past week I can say that Apple accomplished its goal. Spotlight is instant.

Optimizations

Quality-of-life improvements aren't always the most exciting, especially when discussed during a keynote. However, they are felt in everything you do when implemented properly.

One feature everyone will notice almost immediately is the new paste option in the typing suggestions. On iPad, that shows up whether you're using the virtual keyboard or a physical one.

Not only is it convenient when using the touch interface, it's great for verifying what is in your clipboard before pasting. So, even if you're on a physical keyboard, there is some benefit.

Apple says that windowing actions are faster in iPadOS 27. I'm not sure if I notice faster, but they certainly feel more fluid and responsive.

Transferring files in the Files app to an external drive is five times faster. While I didn't pull out a stopwatch, it certainly seems to be true.

I need to get photos from my camera's SD card to my iPad, then from my iPad to an SSD later for backup, and both can be quite annoying when in progress.

Family photoshoots can take ages to transfer, especially when you're trying to transfer photos while on the move. That 5-minute transfer turning into 1 minute is a huge workflow improvement.

6GB took around 20 seconds to transfer to my external SSD I keep attached to my Studio Display. While I don't have a good way to compare, it's certainly faster.

The iPad menu bar is also changed, and I think for the better. Whatever your active app is, wherever it is on the display, the name is shown in the top left corner.

Hovering over that name with a cursor, or tapping with a finger, opens the menu bar items for that app. The window controls appear there too in full-screen mode, but otherwise stick with the window.

iPadOS 27 review: Siri AI

Siri AI is here and it's deeply ingrained in Apple's operating systems. However, I stand by the idea that the AI side of Apple is still ignorable if that's what you want.

I understand the anti-AI sentiments, but I do think we shouldn't be throwing a blanket over all AI. It's a dumb term that applies to too many technologies.

Many of these implementations are bad, yes.

Apple's use of AI, arguably, is one of the few that feels right. It is private and secure with a focus on local operation, though there are powerful cloud models when needed.

There are five new third-generation Apple Foundation Models.

• AFM Core: the on-device model we had before, upgraded and using a 3-billion parameter model
• AFM Core Advanced: an on-device model with a 20-billion parameter model built with sparse architecture that activates 1 to 4 billion parameters as needed
• AFM Cloud: the server-side model that's a step above the on-device models
• AFM Cloud for images: an image-focused model for image generation and editing
• AFM Cloud Pro: the model to be used for agentic tools and complex reasoning

Users don't really need to worry about the specifics of this. And while the new Apple Foundation Models were built thanks to a partnership with Google, the Gemini Assistant and Google Search are nowhere to be found.

It's Apple AI all the way down.

I'm conflicted on what I should talk about here in regard to an iPadOS review. The Siri AI and new Apple Intelligence features are available across Apple's ecosystem.

The new live proofreading feature is a nice addition. If I make a silly grammatical mistake, a blue line appears in my text.

Writing Tools vanished in beta 1 a day after I installed it. However, those grammar suggestions still work, so that's a good in-between until the Writing Tools Proofread function returns in a later beta.

I don't generate images, text, or anything for work and don't plan to start. Spotlight and Siri AI are useful in that it's easier than ever to uncover an old email.

The new Photo editing tools like extend and reframe are interesting, but I don't think this is the place to discuss them. I'll be examining those more closely in the future.

I'm sure some workflows might emerge from this new Apple Intelligence, but I didn't use AI before either. I have considered that the Siri app might be a good search alternative.

The idea would be to ask Siri if there are any gaps in my longform pieces and have it present me with some results. I'd reference the included sourcing and verify if that information indeed was missing and learn what I needed to add from there.

I can say that I will never take a Siri text response as the default answer or paste in a response into my text as fact. The results of some queries are interesting though, as Siri generally doesn't summarize what it is sharing.

Instead, Siri shares giant clumps of data from various sources. Since the text is verbatim from the source, it can even include typos. Apple is doing this to prevent hallucinations in the output, which actually works quite well.

That said, it is still AI, and I do catch it in a hallucination from time to time. So, since I know I can't catch every bit of wrong information, I just default to it as a reference and open the link to verify.

As we said in US Navy nuclear power operations when checking each other's work: trust, but verify.

I believe this is a great starting point for Siri AI and Apple Intelligence. Apple delivered on everything it promised in 2024, and took things even further with its new models.

I believe Apple is the only player on the market with an entire ecosystem of products and data with an AI built in at this scale. Google Gemini has some of this on Pixel, Samsung Galaxy, and a few others, but not to the depth of Apple's AI integrations.

It can only improve from here. I'm especially excited for third-party developer support.

iPadOS 27 review: Shortcuts

Shortcuts is quite the powerful tool that I'm not sure many Apple users actually know about. That, or they've stumbled into it and got intimidated and never came back.

Either way, iPadOS 27 and the other new releases make Shortcuts much easier to use. You simply hit the plus button and type in what you want a shortcut to do, and if it's reasonable and within the app's abilities, it generates that shortcut.

That's it, you're done. Now, you're not going to generate a 200-step shortcut using this method, but you can massage out a task with a few commands to refine what you'd like to do.

I'll remind everyone that is experimenting with Shortcuts: simple is better. Instead of making a giant and complex shortcut with a million actions, break each section of actions out into their own shortcuts.

Then, once you've got your various separate tasks, you can combine the shortcuts into one action using the Run Shortcut option. But of course, that's a bit more manual.

Now you can just voice your shortcut into being.

It is limited to Apple apps at the moment, so you won't be making Shortcuts with third-party actions just yet. That should become available once developers can add support outside of the beta.

iPadOS 27 users got one new action that could come in handy. You can now have a shortcut run when removing or attaching a keyboard.

So, toggle between full-screen apps for tablet mode and multitasking for keyboard mode. It's a simple automation that helps lean into iPad's ability to be a naked robotic core and transform into the device you need in the moment.

A good off year for iPad

The refinements and optimization paired with Siri AI make the 2027 release feel like it's good enough. Had Apple ignored the platform entirely beyond the new Siri, we'd be having a very different discussion.

There's also the chance iPadOS could see more changes through the beta and through the OS 27 cycle. Never count Apple out of introducing some big paradigm-shifting feature in iPadOS 27.3 or something.

I do wish more time could have been spent on some of the pain points, like the awkwardness of Slide Over and some windowing actions. Resizing my Safari window from the right shouldn't reduce its size from the left too, especially when it was touching the left side before.

We're all still waiting on features like clipboard history and system-wide extensions similar to those found on macOS. I do wonder with the continued attention on the menu bar if we won't see menu bar apps in iPadOS eventually.

The iPad Pro continues to be my device and platform of choice. Apple Vision Pro is another great option, but there are several awkward areas there that make work a little slower versus the iPad.

My Mac mini is great for capturing our video version of the AppleInsider Podcast. I wonder if we'll see a dedicated podcast recording and editing tool for Apple Creator Studio at some point.

Then, and only then, will I fully leave Mac behind. For now, Continuity Camera and multiple recording options are only available on Mac.

Oh, one last thing: bring Universal Control to iPad. Let me move my cursor from my iPad Pro to my iPad mini without a Mac present.

Anyway, this is an early review of iPadOS 27 conducted during the first developer beta. A lot could change in the coming months, and AppleInsider will be back to review the shipping version in the fall.

iPadOS 27 Pros

iPadOS 27 Cons

Rating: 4 out of 5

As far as in-between iPadOS years go, this is a strong offering. Siri AI is transformative to the entire ecosystem, including on iPad.

It is never a bad thing to take time to focus on optimization, speed, and design. More could have been done for multitasking and pro tools, but we'll see what iPadOS 28 offers in that regard.