If you take away AI and the new Siri, is there anything new in Apple’s OS 27?

This year, unlike 2025, I updated my computer as soon as macOS 27 Golden Gate was released. The positive feedback during the testing period was encouraging, and deep down I figured that the original Liquid Glass, from macOS 26 Tahoe, was so bad that it couldn’t get any worse.

No surprise: macOS 27 looks better. Aesthetically and in actual use: buttons look like buttons again, there are visible dividers in windows, the comically rounded windows’ corners, and the sidebar no longer floats around for… whatever reason it was floating.

The refined Liquid Glass is an improvement over macOS 26’s, but it’s still a regression compared to Sequoia, the last pre-Liquid Glass macOS. Which, in turn, was the peak of a gradual degradation process that began with macOS Yosemite (I don’t know which number that one was), the version that brought iOS 7’s “flat” look to the Mac.

Fixing the Liquid Glass disaster didn’t come for free.

Apple Intelligence, which used to be optional, is now mandatory. The system doesn’t even ask — it just notifies you that it has been installed and shows you two or three screens offering the image generator and some other nonsense that I declined.

That was also to be expected, but it still stings. Apple’s OS 27 releases could be called Siri AI OS. Take away the new Siri version with “AI” (an LLM) and there’s very little novelty left. And unless you speak English, live in the United States, and get through the virtual queue (!) for access, Siri AI will only be available “coming soon.” In Brazil, probably in October.

I’ve never used Siri on the Mac and have always kept the feature disabled, so it makes no difference to me. I was puzzled, though, that even so there is a Siri process, active and persistent, consuming ~300 GB of RAM. Apple Intelligence, which I barely know and have a feeling we’ll remain strangers, costs 13.7 GB of storage space, or 5.7% of my total space (245.1 GB usable).

By the way, note the tortuous path so you don’t get lost: in System Settings, under Screen Time, Content & Privacy, Siri, you can disable a few things related to Apple Intelligence, including the ChatGPT integration, which I had the displeasure of seeing embedded in my (supposedly) own operating system. Those 13.7 GB? They don’t come back anyway.

Why are these options under “Screen Time” (??) and not in the Siri settings? Settings, by the way, whose label was renamed; until the previous version it was “Apple Intelligence & Siri.” It gives the impression of a deliberate act to force and inflate usage of this excrescence.

On watchOS 27, I liked that the bubble-style app menu now shows six main apps and hides the rest below. I also liked the new watch face designed for Siri AI, which lets you remove any trace of Siri. At least once.

The good and old iPhone SE was spared much of the bad stuff because it’s incapable of running Apple Intelligence. Apart from some cosmetic changes, it’s the same after updating to iOS 27. (This is not a complaint!)

That observation pretty much applies to all three systems I have access to. Less ugly, with a ton of things that don’t work and/or don’t interest me, all involving AI, and a few gigabytes less. And… that’s about it. I guess I had set my expectations too high. It’s just a dull update. Life goes on.