Apple’s iOS 27 could make your old iPhone feel new again with this one feature

Apple will allow older iPhone models to run better through a major efficiency upgrade introduced with iOS 27. The new tool, called CPU Scheduler, will make older iPhones feel more responsive during everyday use, Apple claims.

What is CPU Scheduler?

During the WWDC presentation, Stacey Ford, Vice President of OS Program Management, said, “The CPU scheduler is a key system component that manages CPU resources across workloads as you use your iPhone throughout your day. Even when you’re doing a ton of things at once, requiring a whole lot of compute, the CPU scheduler ensures the right work is executed at precisely the right time.”

“On our newer iPhones, iOS already has an advanced CPU scheduler. This year, we further optimised it so it’s even more efficient when handling performance-intensive workloads.” she added

Ford noted that the company has now found a way to bring the same scheduler improvements to older iPhones, with iOS 27 supporting the iPhone 11 series and later devices.

The company also said it had spent significant time optimising core system functions, including memory usage, CPU utilisation, networking operations, and display rendering, in order to improve the responsiveness of its operating systems across different platforms.

The Cupertino-based tech giant did not provide any benchmarks to show how the scheduler upgrade will improve performance on older iPhones. However, it did share metrics on performance improvements across the board for all iPhones.

How will iOS 27 be faster than ever before?

Apple said iPhone and iPad app launches will be up to 30% faster thanks to a new system that preloads key app data before launch. Meanwhile, newly captured photos will appear in the Photos app up to 70% faster, and AirDrop file transfers will be up to 80% quicker.

The company also said it has optimised its operating systems to be more responsive, leading to smoother animations when performing tasks such as swiping through Home Screen pages or navigating the Settings app.

Apple also announced that iPhones will be more intelligent when switching between cellular networks and Wi-Fi connections, which is expected to reduce situations where users remain connected to a weak or outdated Wi-Fi network.

Which devices support iOS 27?

All iPhones launched since the iPhone 11 support iOS 27, making it one of the most widely supported iPhone software updates to date. However, some of the latest Apple Intelligence features require a minimum of 12GB of RAM, limiting them to the iPhone 17 series.

More broadly, Apple Intelligence is supported only on the iPhone 15 Pro and later models.