Apple has hidden a Dogcow inside iOS 27.
No, that isn’t a typo. No, it isn’t some terrifying new Apple Intelligence experiment. And no, your iPhone hasn’t started crossbreeding animals while you sleep.
It’s Clarus the Dogcow, one of the weirdest characters from Apple’s past, and the company has quietly stuffed the legendary creature into iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 as a wonderfully nerdy Easter egg.
Finding Clarus requires venturing into Settings, then Appearance and Liquid Glass. Scroll through the “Welcome to Apple Park” sample images until you reach the last one, then keep dragging upwards. Instead of your iPhone politely telling you there’s nothing else to see, the word “Moof!” appears and Clarus makes an appearance.
Congratulations. You have successfully unlocked absolutely nothing useful.
But that’s precisely why it’s great.
Clarus dates back to the early Macintosh era. The creature evolved from a bitmap glyph created by Susan Kare for Cairo, a dingbat font included with the original Mac in 1984. The Dogcow later appeared in classic Mac OS printing interfaces, where it helped users figure out page orientation before sending documents to a printer. It eventually became the mascot for Apple’s Developer Technical Support group.
And yes, the Dogcow says “Moof!”
Because apparently choosing between “moo” and “woof” was too limiting for 1980s Apple.
The Easter egg is particularly amusing because modern Apple software rarely feels like somewhere developers might hide a ridiculous animal. Today’s Apple is polished animations, carefully measured interface elements and videos explaining why moving a button three millimetres represents the future of computing.
Clarus comes from a different Apple — one where software could occasionally be weird simply because somebody thought it was funny.
That makes hiding the Dogcow inside Liquid Glass surprisingly fitting. iOS 27 may be packed with serious new features and Apple’s latest interface work, but buried underneath all that polished glass is a tiny reminder of the Macintosh geeks who came before.
There’s no achievement badge, secret Dogcow mode or productivity benefit waiting for you.
Just Clarus.
Moof.
