You open Settings, scroll down to General, tap Software Update, and tonight you'll have iOS 27. Around 7 p.m. here, 10 a.m. in California. On the same day, Apple pushes iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27 and visionOS 27. Six systems all at once, once a year, it's back-to-school time.

And the big new feature of the year won't be in it. Not for you, anyway.

The star is called Siri AI, and it's no longer the Siri you know. You activate it by holding down the button on the side, like before, that doesn't change. The difference is elsewhere. It looks at what's on your screen, and it acts in applications: it sends a message, moves an appointment, adds a line to your shopping list. It's the kind of request for which you used to do six gestures and a copy-paste. It also has its own application, and it answers by drawing on your life, your messages, your photos, your calendar. Apple has been promising this for two years, and this time it's delivered.

Delivered for whom? You need an iPhone 15 Pro or later for AI. An iPhone 11 runs iOS 27 without a hitch, but not this. And above all, you must not live in the European Union.

There you have it. On iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, the new Siri isn't available in Europe at launch. It's not a language issue: the French version doesn't exist yet anyway, the assistant only speaks English to start with, with five more languages announced for October. The block is geographical. Even in English, from Brussels, you won't get it.

Apple announced this at the beginning of June, and the situation is well summed up at eWeek. The company says it proposed two things: a mechanism it calls a trusted system agent, a sort of intermediary that would give competing assistants the same capabilities as Siri AI, and a rollout spread over eighteen months. The European Commission replied that the second point was a request for an exemption, and that there is no exemption. Since then, no timeline at all.

There's an age limit too. Siri AI isn't open to users under thirteen.

The part that makes you dream, and the part that doesn't make it here

And here, there's a detail that doesn't add up. On Mac, the same Siri is coming to Europe. On Vision Pro too. So on the same evening, in the same living room, with the same Apple account and the same identity card, you'll have the new assistant on your computer and not on your phone. If anyone has an explanation, I'm all ears.

The official explanation has a name: the European regulation on digital markets, the DMA. It's the text that forces the big platforms to open their services to competition. Apple argues that an extreme reading of the regulation would force it to give competing assistants direct access to its users' private data. It refuses, and prefers to deliver nothing at all. On the other side, the regulators don't read the text the same way. Both sides are legally right in some sense, and meanwhile the feature doesn't exist.

My opinion, and it's not going to make anyone happy: both sides have an interest in making the standoff last. Apple gains a commercial argument against regulation, and on the other side they gain a case to add to their record. The only person who has nothing to gain from it is the one who paid full price for their phone.

It's not just Siri in this update, fortunately, because the evening would be short.

The Liquid Glass design, the one that had set people's teeth on edge last year, gets a setting. A slider to choose between a clear look and a tinted look, with more uniform refraction along the way and better contrast on the icons. In other words: version 1, corrected.

Performance, next, and these are the only figures announced that everyone will be able to check. Applications launch up to 30% faster, photos appear up to 70% faster, AirDrop transfers up to 80% faster. This isn't smoke and mirrors, you can time it.

There is the transfer between two iPhones: you move from one device to the other while keeping your number, provided the operator supports it. T-Mobile in the United States, for an extra 5 dollars a month, and Deutsche Telekom in Germany are leading the way. Verizon and the English operator EE are announced before the end of the year. In Belgium, nothing.

And then there is my favorite feature of the release, the one that says a lot about the times we live in. In Find My, you can pause sharing your location for a specific length of time, or until the end of the day, without the other person knowing. Sharing resumes automatically when the time is up. This is not a security tool, it is a social life tool.

CarPlay finally accepts video apps, but only when stopped. Photos gets Extend and Crop, two tools that complete the edge of an image. Image Playground generates photorealistic images. Shortcuts are created by describing them. HomeKit cameras describe themselves. And splitting the bill between friends via Apple Cash is coming to the United States, obviously.

A phone waiting for an assistant that will never come

Two announced features are not there, and Apple acknowledges it. Message suggestions, the ones that add an appointment or a note from a conversation, and the automatic correction of weak passwords. Both are pushed back to a future update, a phrase which, at Apple, means nothing precise. It is worth noting that a system that finally fixes weak passwords would have been a good idea to release on the day they present an assistant that reads your messages.

There is one detail that has stayed with me for the past few days. Apple's assistant will therefore read your screen and act in your applications. This is exactly the subject of the article I wrote a few days ago about Meta's assistant: same promise, same data, same question to ask yourself before installing it. The answer I had given myself does not change here, except that here it is Apple, on an iPhone, with a reputation for discretion to defend. This is the only reason why I will look into the matter more closely on the day it arrives here.

So concretely, what does it change for you?

For tonight, there is only one thing to do and it is boring: make a backup. A major update cannot be undone, going back costs a complete restore, and an iCloud backup that is three weeks old means three weeks of photos and conversations lost in the void. Start it now, before downloading, not during.

Then, you will know right away whether your device can handle it. iOS 27 runs on the iPhone 11 and newer models, as well as on the second-generation iPhone SE and later. For Siri AI, you need an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, which leaves out a large part of the phones that are still in very good shape. And in Europe, on iPhone, the question does not even arise.

The speed gains, you will get them, even on a four-year-old model. It is time saved every time you open something, several dozen times a day, and honestly that is the real benefit of the evening.

One last piece of advice that has nothing to do with Apple. Every time an assistant arrives with daily usage limits and a paid offer announced for later, the right question is not what you gain today, it is what will be limited tomorrow. Siri AI is starting out like this. The time to decide whether you want to depend on it is before you get into the habit, not after.

What you do before downloading, not during

Good luck with the update, and save first. As for the rest, if anyone can explain to me why the same Apple account gets the same assistant on a Mac but not on an iPhone in the same living room, the door is open.