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Here’s why I’m optimistic about iOS 27 and Apple’s renewed focus on stability

Avatar for Michael Burkhardt  | May 9 2026 - 9:35 am PT
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iOS 27 concept

This year, Apple is rumored to be doing a code cleanup for iOS 27, as well as overall having a renewed focus for stability and performance – on top of a plethora of Apple Intelligence features. While this on its own sounds good, I think there’s a higher reason for why we should expect an impressively stable release.

Love it or hate it, agentic coding has substantially sped up the process for developing software. Towards the tail end of last year, the models started to get remarkably good, and we’re now at a point where you can reliably have a model work on entire tasks and handle it mostly well. And, according to Mark Gurman, Apple is all in on using Anthropic models for product development.

Does this mean that we’re going to see a slop-filled iOS 27? Most likely not. I still expect Apple to have its usual level of hesitance to new technology. Engineers are still (hopefully) reviewing every line of code – but the fact that it’s allowed to be used internally at all is a great sign.

The prospect of engineers being able to use Claude to handle lower hanging fruit, and instead focus all of their energy on the challenging problems is incredibly exciting. Especially since, for the most part, iOS 27 will be light on features outside of Siri and Apple Intelligence. In theory, that means most teams will be able to double down on improving performance.

Wrap up

There’ve been so many rumors over the year of Apple focusing on performance on iOS, and often times it amounts to almost nothing. This year though, I feel incredibly optimistic about it. Historically, Apple has been bottlenecked on software engineers, but if each engineer is a lot more productive with AI, maybe a lot more will get done this year. One can hope.

Are you looking forward to WWDC26 next month? What are you most excited for? Let us know in the comments.

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Author

Avatar for Michael Burkhardt Michael Burkhardt

Michael is 9to5Mac’s Weekend Editor, keeping up with all of the latest Apple news on Saturday and Sunday. He got started in the world of Apple news during the pandemic, and it became a growing hobby. He’s also an indie iOS developer in his free time, and has published numerous apps over the years.

Michael Burkhardt's favorite gear

Anker 25K Compact Battery Bank

Featuring two built in cables, a built in display, multiple ports, a 25,000mAh capacity, and up to 100W of output - this is one of the best battery banks for recharging your entire Apple ecosystem on the go.

AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C)

AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C)

Despite a new version reportedly being around a corner, I still personally believe AirPods Pro 2 are a great deal. They're already equipped with USB-C, and continually gain new software features. With them consistently going on sale, it's a great purchase to make. Features like Adaptive Audio are incredible.