A long-missing block
Anyone who has built complex Shortcuts automations knows how frustrating the absence of an 'Else If' block was. To simulate logic of the form 'if condition A, then X; if condition B, then Y; otherwise Z', you had to nest If blocks inside Else blocks, producing deep structures that were hard to read and maintain. With iOS 27, as noted by Dan Moren at Six Colors among the details surfaced from the WWDC 2026 keynote's 263-improvement slide, Apple finally adds native Else If support.
Practical impact
The Else If block is not an abstract developer concept: it is the basic structure of any automation that needs to distinguish between multiple cases. Users building shortcuts to handle different contexts — workday vs. weekend, Wi-Fi vs. cellular, location A vs. location B — can now do so with a flat, readable structure rather than nested condition trees. It is the kind of improvement that never makes the official press release but transforms the quality of experience for anyone using Shortcuts seriously.