iOS 27 has been on iPhones for two weeks now, and most people did what they always do: installed the update and never touched a setting. That is a shame, because this year’s release hides several genuinely useful changes behind new menus. If you have not installed iOS 27.0.1 yet, do that first, then come back and change these eight settings.
Give your alarm its own volume
This one fixes a real daily annoyance. In iOS 27, Settings, then Sounds and Haptics, gains an Alarms and Timers section with a “Match Ringtone Volume” toggle. Switch it off and a dedicated alarm slider appears. You can now silence your ringer overnight and still be woken at the volume you chose. Apple’s own note under the slider says it will not override wake-up alarms or other alarms that carry their own volume control.
Dial in the Liquid Glass look
iOS 27 replaces the old Clear/Tinted choice with a proper slider. Go to Settings, then Appearance, then Liquid Glass, and drag from ultraclear to fully tinted until the interface feels right to you. One catch: the slider only takes effect when Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast are both switched off. If moving it changes nothing, look under Settings, then Accessibility, then Display and Text Size, and turn both switches off.
Make text bigger and bolder in one place
Text Size, Bold Text and Display Zoom now live together under Settings, then Appearance, instead of being scattered around. Drag the Text Size slider, flip on Bold Text, or tap Display Zoom and choose Larger Text to enlarge everything on screen, icons and buttons included. If the largest text size still is not enough, the old route through Accessibility, then Display and Text Size, still goes further.
Share your location for exactly as long as you want
Find My used to offer three presets: one hour, until end of day, or indefinitely. iOS 27 adds custom durations, so you can share for, say, four days and six hours, or enter an exact date and time for sharing to expire. You can also pause sharing with a specific person until the end of the day, without them being informed. Handy for trips, festivals, or a week of airport pickups.
Let your iPhone change weak passwords for you
Buried in the Passwords app is one of the best security upgrades in years. When it spots a weak or compromised password, iOS 27 can use Apple Intelligence to navigate to the site, sign in, and update your password for you, with a tap to approve. It turns password hygiene from a weekend chore into something you clear in seconds.
Save a still frame from any video
The Photos app can now pull a single frame out of a video and save it as its own photo. The old workaround of pausing playback, taking a screenshot, and cropping out the scrubber is finally unnecessary. The frame saves to your library as a normal image, ready to edit or share like any other shot.
Supersize your widgets
iOS 27 adds new extra-large widget sizes, including an Extra-Large Portrait option that effectively gives you a full-screen widget on the Home Screen. Music, Photos, Weather and Calendar all have them. Add one the usual way: long-press the Home Screen, tap the plus button, and look for the new largest size before you place it.
Tidy up the lock screen
Two small changes add up. You can now swipe away the Now Playing widget from the lock screen instead of waiting for it to clear, and you can move the clock up into the top widget row so it stops covering your wallpaper. Neither is dramatic. Together they make the lock screen feel like yours again.
Want to see what is coming next? Our rundown of every new feature and hidden change found in the iOS 27.2 beta covers the update already in testing.
