Apple released iOS 27.2 on Monday, its first substantial update since iOS 27 launched, and most of the headline changes have nothing to do with Siri.
The standout is dual camera support for FaceTime. For the first time, you can use an iPhone's front and rear cameras at the same time on a call, either solo or in a group. Point the rear camera at a room while the front camera stays on your face, and the person on the other end sees both feeds at once. The catch: everyone on the call needs to be running iOS 27.2 or the matching iPadOS or macOS update for it to work.
Apple has also added support for third-party sign language interpreters and live captioners on FaceTime calls, a change aimed at deaf and hard-of-hearing users.
Sports fans get Multiview Expansion, a feature that first showed up on Apple TV and now works on the iPhone itself. It lets you watch up to four live events on screen simultaneously, covering Major League Soccer, Formula 1 coverage in the US, and Friday Night Baseball doubleheaders during the MLB season. For F1 races specifically, viewers can switch between driver-view cameras and course maps mid-stream. All of it requires an active Apple TV subscription.
Elsewhere, Messages now surfaces contextual suggestions, prompting you to add a calendar event or set a reminder based on what you're texting about. The Podcasts app has split its Up Next section into two rows on the Home screen, one for new episodes from shows you follow and one for episodes you've already started, sorted by recency. Shared Albums in Photos picks up caption and comment editing, better duplicate detection, and a warning before an album is about to expire.
What's new for iPhone Duo owners
Two changes are specific to Apple's foldable, the iPhone Duo. It now supports the USB-C Apple Pencil, so owners can draw in Notes, mark up PDFs in Preview, and use Scribble to write into any text field. Apple has also added Edge Light, which brightens the screen's edge to light up your face during video calls in dim rooms.
The update follows iOS 27.0.1, a minor fix in late September for a bug that froze Face ID on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, and iOS 27.1, which Apple reserved specifically for the iPhone Duo's launch. IOS 27.2 is the first release to span the whole lineup since then, and it's also rolling out in parallel for iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS and HomePod software.
One thing missing: the redesigned Health app. It briefly surfaced in iOS 27.2 betas but didn't make the final release. Apple is said to be holding it back for iOS 27.3, expected in December.
To install iOS 27.2, open Settings, go to General, then Software Update, and tap Update Now. A restart finishes the job.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
Laptops, desktops, processors, graphics cards and the operating systems that run on them.
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