Apple Intelligence and Siri AI have sucked most of the oxygen out of the room at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this year—understandable, maybe, given that the AI-powered Siri delays are all anyone has wanted to ask any Apple executive about for the last two years.

But Apple Intelligence is just one of the three big focus areas Apple outlined during its keynote this week. The second is new parental controls—overdue, but promising-looking, as the parent of a 6-year-old with an iPad that I only begrudgingly connect to the Internet. And the third is "platform improvements," a catch-all for a wide range of fit-and-finish changes aimed at boosting responsiveness and addressing common user complaints.

I have the first beta of macOS 27 Golden Gate running on an M1 MacBook Air—the oldest, slowest hardware Apple supports now that Intel compatibility is out the window. With some help from Apple's densely packed wall-of-features slide, here are a few things from the "platform improvements" column I like the most, plus one item I'd still like to see.

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Apple has taken the wraps off of its next-generation operating system updates at its Worldwide Developers Conference today, including iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 Golden Gate. And while the long-awaited Siri AI update is the headliner, Apple also emphasized its efforts to optimize its software, improving its performance and reliability.

For starters, the company is continuing to refine the Liquid Glass design language that it introduced last year. A slider in the Settings will allow users fine-grained control over the translucency of the Liquid Glass effect, ranging from maximally transparent and glassy to fully tinted. Last year's redesigned icons are also being re-redesigned with more glass layers, which Apple says will make them sharper and more distinctive.

On macOS, Apple has also changed the way app toolbars and sidebars work, making toolbars more distinct, making the contents of sidebars extend all the way to the edge of the window, and reintroducing color to sidebar icons. Mac windows are also getting a "tighter corner radius," to address complaints about the way window resizing works in macOS 26 Tahoe.

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