Overview
- The new Siri mode appeared in iOS 27 developer betas this week and creates a swipeable Camera option alongside Photo and Video.
- Point your iPhone in Siri mode and the camera can identify objects and take actions such as opening a restaurant’s Maps listing, showing reviews and hours, or translating text.
- Siri mode bundles features that used to live outside the Camera app so users can do things like identify plants, scan receipts to split bills, capture event flyers to add to Calendar, and view nutrition info from food in one interface.
- Apple says the system will use a hybrid model that runs smaller intelligence on device and sends heavier work to private cloud compute partners, a design meant to limit raw data exposure while boosting capability.
- The feature set will be staged: Apple is restricting access by handset, language and region during beta testing and plans a public beta next month with a wider release later in 2026, which could change how people search and act on visual information day to day.