iOS 18.3 launched almost a month ago, leaving a long gap afterward with no new software. But the first iOS 18.4 public beta is finally here, and it brings a lot of big and small changes for iPhone. Here’s what’s new in today’s release.
Priority Notifications and other new Apple Intelligence features
There are four new Apple Intelligence upgrades and changes available in the first iOS 18.4 beta:
- Priority Notifications: Off by default, you can go to Settings ⇾ Notifications ⇾ Prioritize Notifications to make your most important alerts feature prominently on your Lock Screen.
- Image Playground upgrade: Apple’s AI image creation tool now supports a third style to choose from: Sketch joins the existing Animation and Illustration options.
- New supported languages: Until now, Apple Intelligence has only been supported in English, but now there are 10 new language options to choose from.
- AI in the EU: Users in the EU previously couldn’t use Apple Intelligence on any device except the Mac, but now the full AI feature set is available on iPhones and iPads too.
The only big new AI features we’re still waiting on are Siri upgrades, which I’ll address further down.
Video walkthrough: iOS 18.4 – 50 features
Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more videos
Apple News+ food and recipe features
Apple News+ is getting better in iOS 18.4 with a major expansion into food and recipe features.
Inside the News app, News+ subscribers can access a dedicated Food hub for finding “tens of thousands” of recipes. There are also stories on restaurants and other food-related news. Recipes themselves are presented in a beautiful new interface that makes it easy to follow along.
If you regularly use recipes from the web, you know how nice a change this will be. A recipe interface that’s free from the clutter of intrusive ads is huge. There’s also a nice device integration that lets you start a timer with just a tap in the recipe itself.
Ambient Music in Control Center and more
There’s a new Ambient Music feature in Control Center that lets you choose from four different ‘mood’ soundtracks:
- Chill
- Productivity
- Sleep
- Wellbeing
Each option is set by default to a specific Apple Music playlist, but you can also edit which playlist is triggered—choosing from preset options or your own creation. Each control can be added not only to Control Center, but also your iPhone’s Action button or Lock Screen.
All the rest
- New default app categories: Adding to the existing set of categories where you can set your iPhone’s default apps, iOS 18.4 enables setting a default Translation app—and in the EU, Navigation is a new option too.
- Apple Podcasts app widgets: There are two new types of widgets available for Apple Podcasts users: Library and Shows, each of which provides convenient access to different groups of episodes.
- CarPlay’s expanding app grid: For users with a large enough CarPlay display, iOS 18.4 adds a third row of app icons to the standard grid, up from the previous limitation of two.
- Robot vacuums with Matter: The Home app now offers support for robot vacuums that integrate with the cross-platform Matter standard.
- Miscellaneous: There are also a variety of user interface changes and improvements in iOS 18.4, including various tweaks in Control Center, Safari, new options when editing your Albums list in Photos, a shortcut to open a specific Messages conversation, and more.
What’s missing: Siri upgrades
iOS 18.4 was expected to bring three major Siri upgrades: onscreen awareness, personal context understanding, and new in-app actions. But unfortunately none of these are currently supported in beta 1.
It’s possible Apple will add some of these Siri changes in future iOS 18.4 betas. However, Mark Gurman seems to believe they’ve been delayed into iOS 18.5 instead.
What are your favorite iOS 18.4 public beta features? Let us know in the comments.
Best iPhone accessories
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
