If there’s one change I could make to iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, it would be disabling the new swipe-down gesture to invoke Siri AI. There are enough ways to summon Siri that don’t break my muscle memory around opening Notification Center on my iPhone and iPad.
By default, the percentage isn’t visible. It’s just a battery-shaped visual indicator. In this state, it looks nice. I run with the percentage off on iPhone, which has the same battery indicator. I’ve always preferred to display the percentage on Mac, though. Putting the percentage inside the battery icon on iPhone is Apple’s density solution for cornering everything to the right of the notch or Dynamic Island. On the Mac, this screen real estate issue isn’t present for me — even in the menu bar.
macOS 27 Golden Gate includes a redesigned menu bar control for battery. If you flip the ‘show percentage’ toggle on in macOS 27 Golden Gate, it puts the number inside the battery. I believe this is to be consistent with what the iPhone does in iOS 27. I’ve been running macOS 27 Golden Gate on my 15-inch MacBook Air since day one of the first developer beta.
Because it’s less legible for my eyes, what I’ve found is that I’m generally less aware of my battery percentage.
I hope Apple revisits this design decision in the future, especially if it’s an issue for more users. In the meantime, I’ve at least resolved the issue for myself.
