Major software updates almost never arrive without a few headaches, and iOS 27 is proving to be no exception. Developers are already scrambling to patch various issues, including the widely discussed Apple Intelligence storage problem that can eat up roughly 15GB of space — even for users who never touch AI features or live in regions where they're unavailable. Fortunately, that particular issue has a temporary workaround. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the frustrating HDMI output bug that's now making the rounds.
A growing number of iPhone owners on Reddit are complaining that video streamed to an external display over HDMI cuts out the moment the phone's screen locks. Previously, users could plug their iPhone into a monitor or TV, let the screen turn off, and keep watching without interruption. That behavior has changed with iOS 27.
Curiously, the problem doesn't affect every app. VLC, for instance, continues to output video without any issues — something we confirmed in our own office testing. However, we successfully reproduced the bug in both YouTube and Netflix, and user reports suggest several other apps suffer from the same behavior.
After some investigation, we discovered that Apple quietly introduced a new policy in iOS 27 that requires apps to explicitly register external display video sessions. In earlier versions of iOS, this permission was granted automatically, with no action needed from developers.
For now, the only real workaround — if you can even call it that — is to keep your iPhone's screen awake during playback, perhaps dimming the brightness to save some battery life. Of course, that also means avoiding accidental touches on the display, which becomes especially tricky if you're using AR glasses such as the XREAL Air 2.
Complaints about this behavior first surfaced in September, shortly after iOS 27 launched, yet the recently released iOS 27.2 update does nothing to resolve it. That said, some would argue this isn't technically a bug at all — Apple simply altered the permission rules governing video playback on external screens. That would explain why VLC continues to work on a locked screen while other apps don't. In other words, the ball is now in the developers' court, and affected apps will need updates that comply with iOS 27's new requirements before the experience returns to normal.
