macOS 27 introduces NSTextSelectionManager for custom text selection in any view, while reinforcing best practices for gesture recognizers, keyboard navigation, and NSWindowRestoration to make AppKit apps feel native and resilient.
ā¢ NSTextSelectionManager introduced in macOS 27 as a new API bringing gesture-recognizer-backed text selection to arbitrary views
ā¢ NSStatusItem expanded interface session lifecycle API clarified and promoted for custom popup windows
ā¢ preventsApplicationTerminationWhenModal guidance updated to encourage setting false for non-data-critical sheets
ā¢ Control events (NSControlEvents) confirmed available back to 10.11 and now officially recommended over mouseDown overrides
ā¢ NSTextSelectionManager is a new macOS 27 API that brings full bidirectional text selection, drag-and-drop, and toggle behaviors to any custom view without subclassing NSTextView
ā¢ Proper NSWindowRestoration ensures apps quit gracefully during system reboots and relaunch exactly where users left off, a growing expectation on modern macOS
ā¢ Adopting gesture recognizers and control events instead of mouseDown overrides enables cross-framework compatibility with SwiftUI and Mac Catalyst components
Liquid Glass is Apple's new material and visual design language introduced in iOS 27, bringing translucent, refractive glass-like surfaces to system and custom UI elements. It replaces the frosted vibrancy aesthetic with a more dynamic, depth-aware material that responds to content beneath it.
iOS 27 brings a sweeping set of SwiftUI enhancements including Liquid Glass design adoption, new toolbar visibility and overflow APIs, document architecture improvements with Observable, and resizable iPhone app support ā all designed to modernize app UIs with minimal code changes.
Xcode 27 introduces a fully customizable toolbar and theme system, untitled scratch projects, coding agent integration directly in the editor, and the new Device Hub for evaluating apps across simulators and physical devices side-by-side.
In-depth guide
SwiftUI & Liquid Glass in iOS 27 āPaperKit is Apple's full-featured canvas framework ā previously internal-only ā now publicly available in iOS/macOS/visionOS 27. It powers the drawing and markup experience in Notes, Preview, and Freeform, giving developers access to a complete pencil, shapes, images, and text canvas with a rich data model.