👋 HEY, IT'S RAJA

iOS 27 has been on most of your phones for about ten days now, which makes this a better moment to adjust it than launch day was. On day one, everything is new, so you change things you have not lived with yet. A week or so in, you know exactly what bothers you.

Five settings, each one a minute or less. I have noted which ones need a newer iPhone, so you do not go hunting for a menu that is not there.

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Settings → Appearance → Liquid Glass

The slider replaces last year's two presets. Drag left for a glassier look, right for a more tinted, solid look, and watch the preview update as you move it. The middle is Apple's default. It affects notifications, folders, menus, and Control Center all at once.

There is no switch to turn Liquid Glass off completely. If the far right of the slider is still too transparent for you, turn on Reduce Transparency under Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size.

Works on every iPhone that runs iOS 27.

Settings → Siri → Voice

If Siri AI is going to talk to you more often, it is worth choosing how it sounds. Pick American or British from the Voice menu and two sliders appear: Pace, for how fast it speaks, and Expressivity, for how much emotion goes into the voice. Siri reads sample lines as you adjust them.

The full voice controls need an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air or newer. On any other iPhone, go to Settings → Accessibility → Siri instead, where you can change the Speaking Rate and the Siri Pause Time, which controls how long Siri waits before it answers.

Safari → tab view → three-line menu → Organize Tabs → Automatically Create Topics

Tap the overlapping squares to see your tabs, open the three-line menu, and switch this on. Safari groups your open pages by topic, so the six tabs about a new chair and the four about a weekend trip end up in separate piles. The same menu lets you filter by topic and open only the tabs you need right now.

Needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.

Safari → three lines at the left of the address bar → Notify Me

Open any page you keep checking, choose Notify Me, and describe the change you are waiting for in a sentence: a price drop, a product back in stock, tickets going on sale. Choose how often Safari should check, and it sends you a notification only when that change happens.

It is not only for shopping. Point it at the pricing page of a subscription you pay for and you will know the day the price goes up, rather than finding out on your card statement.

Needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.

Find My → People → tap a name → three-dot menu → Hide Location

Until now, stopping location sharing was a blunt switch that the other person might notice. iOS 27 adds Hide Location, which pauses sharing with one specific person without sending them any alert. If they check, they see "No Location Found." Sharing resumes by itself at the end of the day, or when you tap Unhide Location.

Useful for a surprise, a gift run, or any afternoon you would simply rather not be a dot on someone's map.

Works on every iPhone that runs iOS 27.

5 minutes this weekend, and your phone will work the way you want, not the way Apple guessed.

See you Monday.

Keep it useful,

Raja · The Useful Tech

P.S. Enjoyed this? Forward it to a friend who loves their Apple gear a little too much.