Just like 2009's Snow Leopard update for Macs, next year's iOS 27 update will focus on refining everything released with this year's major overhaul, Bloomberg reports.

With iOS 27, Apple will reportedly slow down on flashy new iOS features and focus on improving everything that's already available.

As Bloomberg's Mark Gurman notes, this year's WWDC signaled a major shift across Apple's software lineup. Alongside new features, the company introduced the Liquid Glass interface with floating, translucent navigation bars and changed its naming scheme to reflect release years instead of version numbers, similar to what carmakers do with model years.

While the refreshed design was a major talking point when iOS 26 launched in September, users complained about bugs, quick battery drains, and other issues soon after. Some are still reporting issues such as keyboard inaccuracies.

Since it was an intensive software revision, Apple's engineering and software teams are now "hunting for bloat to cut, bugs to eliminate, and any opportunity to meaningfully boost performance and overall quality," Gurman writes in his weekly newsletter.

So, instead of working on sweeping new features for iOS 27, Apple will focus on fixing iOS 26's underlying performance and quality issues, much like it did with the Snow Leopard update for Macs in 2009, Gurman adds.

However, that won't leave iOS 27 as a "no new features" update like the Mac software. There will still be a few additions, and most of them will revolve around AI so that the company doesn't fall further behind in this area, Gurman notes. Apple has yet to release several AI features it announced at WWDC 24, including a revamped Siri. Rumors suggest that could finally roll out with iOS 26.4.

Apple's also rumored to be working on integrating Google Gemini into Apple Intelligence and Siri, while also infusing AI into some of its other apps. It is also rumored to be working on an AI-powered search tool that could rival both ChatGPT, its current AI partner for Apple Intelligence, and Perplexity.