iOS 27 feels like a hollow update on older iPhones

Apple announced the upcoming iOS 27 Update it Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, June 9th. While the company announced that The next iOS version will be compatible With the hardware coming to the iPhone 11, this move seems very frustrating for people with older devices thanks to one wrinkle.

WWDC It was focused on integrating artificial intelligence into Apple’s digital assistant Siri. The company spent about 25 minutes improving the platform and privacy combined, then roughly doubled that on Siri and Apple Intelligence. While Apple said the digital assistant can help you in more areas on your iPhone, it did not expand on which iPhones can use AI features.

Apple Intelligence still only works with iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max And all newer iPhone versions, e.g iPhone 17e. So, if you have an iPhone 11 – or iPhone 14 Pro As I do — and I was happy to hear that your device can run iOS 27 — most of the features announced from WWDC won’t make it to your phone.

And this is the issue. Yes, backwards compatibility is a good thing because not everyone can upgrade to the latest iPhone every year or two, and supporting older phones can help protect these devices from exploits. But at the same time, Apple’s heavy focus on AI features seems to be leaving older phone owners in the past.

After WWDC, I downloaded a iOS 27 developer beta On my old iPhone 14 Pro and was disappointed almost immediately. Since my device does not support Apple Intelligence, nothing significantly changes on my device. I found the new Liquid Glass slider, but then didn’t know what to do with the update.

I think some of the app icons, like Maps, look a little different if you take a quick glance, but the update didn’t offer anything for my iPhone 14 Pro to get excited about. If someone had secretly updated my device without my knowledge, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

Even when Apple releases iOS 27 this fall, if I don’t want to use the new Siri AI features on my device iPhone 16 Pro Because I don’t find it useful or have ethical concerns about using AI, what’s the excitement? Smoother grid transitions? More child safety features? These are welcome improvements, but they’re not the big new features I expect from major iOS upgrades.

“We believe the best operating systems aren’t just built on big accomplishments, they’re built on putting more effort into the details,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said at the start of the presentation. That’s fine, but the company didn’t seem to care much about the details about who can actually use the features it spent most of the presentation talking about.

With Apple’s focus on AI at WWDC, the company appears to be ignoring people who don’t have access to these features or don’t want to use them. We’ve seen Google do this exact thing for a few years now with its annual report Google I/O presentation. The shows focus on AI but fail to offer anything revolutionary useful, and everything else is put on the back burner.

If Apple wants to provide more utility to more people and iPhones, Introducing the clipboard for iOS For all your copy and paste needs, bring split-screen capabilities to your iPhone or just fix some persistent bugs. These things do not require artificial intelligence and can be generalized to a larger number of people.

The more a company focuses on AI, the less compatibility with older devices. while iOS 26 It was divisive thanks to him Liquid glass The design, at least offered something important to everyone.

For more Apple news, here Everything the company announced at WWDC And what do you know about him? iOS 27.