Take Control of Golden Gate

Version 1.1, updated September 14, 2026

In macOS 27 Golden Gate, Apple has fixed bugs, improved performance, eliminated annoyances, and added some terrific new features. This book describes what's new and shows you how to upgrade. It's available exclusively in a bundle with Take Control of Siri AI and Apple Intelligence, which goes into detail about the changes in Siri and Apple Intelligence across Apple's operating systems.n The version 27 operating systems, including macOS 27 Golden Gate, look superficially similar to last year's releases. Under the hood, they have hundreds of new or improved features. This book tells you what's new in Golden Gate, helps you find your way around, and provides detailed upgrade instructions.

The biggest collection of changes, by far, involves the all-new Siri AI and improvements to Apple Intelligence, most of which extend across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Rather than add 100 pages to this book and another 100 nearly identical pages to Glenn Fleishman's Take Control of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, we're doing something different. In our individual Mac and iPhone/iPad books, we've included just a quick summary of Siri AI, and Glenn and Joe have collaborated on a new book, Take Control of Siri AI and Apple Intelligence, which tells you the full story about those features. You'll need that book to get the complete picture of what's new, so we're offering the Golden Gate and iOS 27/iPadOS 27 books only as bundles. You can buy either operating system-specific book plus the Siri AI book at a special combo price, or you can buy the Siri AI book on its own, but this book is not available as a separate purchase.

In this book, you'll learn:

• How to tell whether your Mac is compatible with Golden Gate (hint: you need an Apple silicon Mac)

• Steps you should take before upgrading

• How to upgrade your Mac to Golden Gate using either an in-place upgrade or a clean install (including migration of your old data from a backup)

• The helpful but surprisingly minor changes Apple made to Liquid Glass

• A brief overview of changes in Siri AI and Apple Intelligence (explored in vastly more detail in Take Control of Siri AI and Apple Intelligence)

• How Apple has improved child safety in Golden Gate

• What's new in the System Settings app

• Smaller changes you'll find throughout macOS, including iCloud, international/multilingual features, swipe down to refresh, and more

• Noteworthy improvements to bundled apps, including Calendar, Finder, Image Playground, Mail, Messages, Passwords, Photos, and Shortcuts, among others