iOS 18.3 launched this week with several new features, but it also temporarily disabled one feature. Apple has deactivated AI notification summaries for two app categories, and one of them is a big mystery to me.
Apple removed two categories from AI summaries, but only one has been a problem
It’s rare for Apple to remove functionality when shipping new iPhone updates, but that’s exactly what happened in a small way with iOS 18.3.
Due to reports of errors with Apple Intelligence notification summaries, iOS 18.3 disables the feature for two app categories: News and Entertainment.
If you had gotten used to having your news updates summarized in a single AI alert, that feature is no longer available—for now.
Apple says it will be reactivated in a future update, presumably when the AI models get the necessary fixes.
Apple disabling summaries for news apps makes a lot of sense, because misleading news notifications sparked this whole controversy in the first place.
I even personally advocated for such an approach from Apple.
But disabling Entertainment app summaries? I’m a little stumped.
The curious case of disabled Entertainment summaries
When running iOS 18.3, I recently scrolled through my list of apps that have had AI summaries disabled.
You can find your own list by opening Settings ⇾ Notifications ⇾ Summarize Notifications on your iPhone. Even though apps will still be toggled on for summaries, disabled apps will say ‘Temporarily Unavailable’ underneath.
For me, some of those disabled apps include:
- Disney+
- Max
- Music
- Podcasts
- Shazam
- YouTube
Scanning this list, it’s hard to understand why these entertainment apps needed to have notification summaries disabled.
So I thought I’d visit the App Store and check out the Entertainment category there.
Apple recently made it easier than ever to access app categories, as they now live at the top of the Apps tab.
Upon opening the Entertainment category, I found a lot more of the same. Mainly video streaming apps, but also some podcast apps, music, and even coloring book and drawing apps.
Was there some controversy with coloring book app notifications that I missed?
iOS 18.3’s notification summaries: wrap-up
Maybe—and this is all I can think of for now—the feature was removed because news podcasts like The Daily exist, offering episode titles that resemble news headlines. But if that’s the case, it’s a shame that the entire Entertainment category had to be disabled.
I’m certain Apple had a good reason for disabling summaries for Entertainment apps, I’m just very much in the dark as to what that reason could be.
Here’s hoping Apple can fix the underlying issues causing AI summary errors and we can get full-featured notification summaries back soon.
What do you think of iOS 18.3’s changes to notification summaries? Why might Entertainment apps be problematic? Let us know in the comments.
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