All of the New Features in iOS 18.4 So Far

[Parowdy]

When will Apple finally admit that they can't deliver on the AI promise they made last year? We're now almost six months past 18 first being available, and hardly any of the features they touted are actually integrated.

They took the Cities Skylines 2 approach with this os version: we'll deliver what we promised once we actually figure out how to do it.

“Our engineers have found a way to do it”
Wonder where I’ve heard that one before.

 

[Liquid Galaxy]

Quite a significant update but as boring as I may sound, the fact that I can now see what photos I don't have in an album scratches a huge itch and is probably the most looked forward to feature for me.
I have almost 6,000 photos and I know there are a quite a few of them from years ago that are not in an album so those photos are currently kind of lost somewhere in the mountain of other pictures. Will be good to finally get them organised.

 

[Parowdy]

Let's not tell other people what they should and shouldn't like.

More advanced would be nice, for sure but it's a solid start I guess.

Nothing is solid about a system that can’t answer simple questions about itself. I asked AI Siri what it can do, it asked me back if I want ChatGPT to answer that… I asked about my current iPhone, it couldn’t deliver me more than a few links. Asking about the S25 it read its specs out loud. Apple Intelligence is in a state it should have been at last year during launch. Between useless and incorrect its generative capabilities can also be very offensive, half a year after the initial launch and promise of a revolutionary system that will change how you use your phone.
It’s not a start if it’s this bad this late.

 

[Parowdy]

I am not and do not want be Apple apologizer. They are behind in this race but one has to consider number of things as well.

Not sure if members here who says AI is no use are not the same calling Apple behind 😀

Apple started pretty late compare to Google and AI is not his only pursue as OpenAI

They are probably the only phone maker doing own AI, others use Google Geminy, not sure how Huawei or other Chinese makers.

They use only licensed sources and focus on privacy.

Their system integration looks better and starting with little feaatures like text formating. basic image generation and so.

Yeah, Siri sucks, but it will get better, it just takes more time...

Should we be scared? In some way yes. Few days ago, I tried to identify location where was one pic taken just my describing stores and some other things and it managed to offer right city so be aware what you post online 😀

Do be fair, my girlfriend has an Android with Gemini/Google Assistant and surprisingly it’s far worse than the new Siri.

 

[nburwell]

I’m oddly looking forward to the ambient music feature since I typically listen to rain/sleep sounds to help me fall asleep.

 

[Dark_Omen]

Not really, I don't look, I don't use Android and don't care.

Alright, well great answer. You’re done now.

 

[iphoneMiniWanter]

The only AI feature that looked cool to me was in their original demo video where the user asks Siri about the event date that their mother was talking about last week, or something like that. Is that ever coming?

 

[collin_]

This sounds like a really good update.

 

[applefan8254]

can we get multiple users

 

[lazyrighteye]

While I can’t rule out user error, Ambient Music doesn’t appear to be functioning on either my iPhone 16 Pro or my iPad mini 6. Both are connected to my Apple One account.

 

[OUsooner08]

IOS needs more advanced AI features. That’s all that matters right now. Not new emojis. Not Genmoji or image playground. Nobody cares about that stuff, unless you’re eight years old.

I should be able to open an “Apple Intelligence” app on my phone, type to it, speak to it, and it should be able to cross reference commands and questions through multiple apps at the same time. It should be able to translate voice calls and texts in real time. It should be able to translate and draft notes better than it does.

At this point, how can something already be so behind, yet, it’s brand new.

Weird I use Apple Intelligence daily for work and I think it works a heck of a lot better than old Siri.

 

[OUsooner08]

As a European using Apple Intelligence for the very first time using the 18.4 dev beta, I understand the disappointment.

View attachment 2485712
using ChatGPT yields a response not about Siri
View attachment 2485717
and tapping the feedback button crashed Siri for the first 10 times.

But this, this is shameful
View attachment 2485718View attachment 2485719

Interestingly I still have the indicators in the DI. Anyway, at least it’s entertaining.

View attachment 2485725View attachment 2485726View attachment 2485728View attachment 2485738

Edit: there is a new animation when skipping through a video for example in fullscreen safari videos

They literally told us they were going to partner with ChatGPT. Building AI takes time.

I feel like people on MacRumors just complain without realizing what goes into the tech.

 

[Parowdy]

They literally told us they were going to partner with ChatGPT. Building AI takes time.

I feel like people on MacRumors just complain without realizing what goes into the tech.

Excuse me? Are we talking about the same „It Just Works“ Apple Inc. here?
When was the last time Apple announced a feature and messed up its release over and over again?
Yes, AI takes time. Apple’s marketing made it seem they got it all figured out half a year ago, just some refinement here and a language there. But no, here they are exposing Europe to the same half baked gimmicky stuff they already got laughed at and thrown into hot water for in the US.

It doesn’t matter if I or any customer for that matter knows how any of this works, if it doesn’t work.
No consumer pressured Apple into going down this road, regardless of their partnership. And I’m sure for every one person complaining about something here there are multiple people complaining in the real world, they just simply might never get to know why exactly they are disappointed.
They brought this to themselves.
I don’t even know what you expect of anyone, people didn’t even know 3D Touch existed, let alone how it worked and that was simple compared to AI.
I don’t have a problem with them partnering with ChatGPT, but if they already do, they should do it properly.
My point still stands, if AI/Siri can tell me more (or ANYTHING for that matter) about a rival product but not the phone I’m holding it’s a bad product, that’s the only thing to understand and it’s not that hard. No amount of explaining why a product is bad makes it any less bad, regardless if it’s on MR or anywhere else.

 

[OUsooner08]

Excuse me? Are we talking about the same „It Just Works“ Apple Inc. here?
When was the last time Apple announced a feature and messed up its release over and over again?
Yes, AI takes time. Apple’s marketing made it seem they got it all figured out half a year ago, just some refinement here and a language there. But no, here they are exposing Europe to the same half baked gimmicky stuff they already got laughed at and thrown into hot water for in the US.

It doesn’t matter if I or any customer for that matter knows how any of this works, if it doesn’t work.
No consumer pressured Apple into going down this road, regardless of their partnership. And I’m sure for every one person complaining about something here there are multiple people complaining in the real world, they just simply might never get to know why exactly they are disappointed.
They brought this to themselves.
I don’t even know what you expect of anyone, people didn’t even know 3D Touch existed, let alone how it worked and that was simple compared to AI.
I don’t have a problem with them partnering with ChatGPT, but if they already do, they should do it properly.
My point still stands, if AI/Siri can tell me more (or ANYTHING for that matter) about a rival product but not the phone I’m holding it’s a bad product, that’s the only thing to understand and it’s not that hard.

Excuse me? Are we talking about the same „It Just Works“ Apple Inc. here?
When was the last time Apple announced a feature and messed up its release over and over again?
Yes, AI takes time. Apple’s marketing made it seem they got it all figured out half a year ago, just some refinement here and a language there. But no, here they are exposing Europe to the same half baked gimmicky stuff they already got laughed at and thrown into hot water for in the US.

It doesn’t matter if I or any customer for that matter knows how any of this works, if it doesn’t work.
No consumer pressured Apple into going down this road, regardless of their partnership. And I’m sure for every one person complaining about something here there are multiple people complaining in the real world, they just simply might never get to know why exactly they are disappointed.
They brought this to themselves.
I don’t even know what you expect of anyone, people didn’t even know 3D Touch existed, let alone how it worked and that was simple compared to AI.
I don’t have a problem with them partnering with ChatGPT, but if they already do, they should do it properly.
My point still stands, if AI/Siri can tell me more (or ANYTHING for that matter) about a rival product but not the phone I’m holding it’s a bad product, that’s the only thing to understand and it’s not that hard. No amount of explaining why a product is bad makes it any less bad, regardless if it’s on MR or anywhere else.

Well apparently you don’t even know how the comments work…

I knew 3D Touch existed, knew how it worked, I knew about how they were rolling out AI features. Plenty of consumers were hammering Apple over Siri and Apple being behind in AI, so it’s disingenuous to say “no one asked them go down this route…”

It’s not hard to watch a keynote, read release notes, or just the news to understand that AI was an iterative rollout that they openly said was “in beta.”

 

[Parowdy]

Well apparently you don’t even know how the comments work…

I knew 3D Touch existed, knew how it worked, I knew about how they were rolling out AI features. Plenty of consumers were hammering Apple over Siri and Apple being behind in AI, so it’s disingenuous to say “no one asked them go down this route…”

It’s not hard to watch a keynote, read release notes, or just the news to understand that AI was an iterative rollout that they openly said was “in beta.”

The server had a problem and my initial and my new comment were posted together. It’s on me that I didn’t check twice but if that’s all you need to draw conclusions than thats great for you I guess.

Maybe you knew that 3D Touch existed and how it worked but neither me nor Apple care, obviously you aren’t the average consumer otherwise they might have kept it.
And of course people hammered Apple for Siri and they have every right to continue to do so. For years they treated Siri with neglect and then they decided to throw even more processing power in some iPhones but decisively not others. Yes it’s great that they don’t just support the current iPhone but also the prior Pro model. Just sucks for everyone else, even 15/15Plus users who could use AI according to some people that got it to work on not officially supported devices. Everyone who doesn’t have the current or prior pro model is stuck with the same old unreliable and mostly, now more so than ever, useless Siri.
Ok but there is AI now and Siri is better, right? Yes, it’s way better. Which is why responses to “What’s my phone’s resolution” or “What is my phone’s display resolution” stick out so much. They should be the easiest thing to do. If not even Siri is an Apple fanboy and gives you very incorrect information about your system or no information at all I think we should still be allowed to hammer Apple even without knowing why it works when it works and why it doesn’t when it doesn’t.
Because the stuff that does work in my experience is mostly ChatGPT.
„Down this road“ mean promise everything and deliver, maybe, later; wasting your time with generative gimmicks that have no use but to be shown in ads; declaring they are so close to figure it out but then don’t; offload many queries to a completely different AI because yours can’t handle it. Nobody wanted to see any of this from Apple.
Nobody needs image playground and people apparently find it even less appealing or useful than Memoji’s, which also must have been a slap in the face for Apple.
Genmoji I think does make sense but it too is still very bad, 6 months later. Sorry but how can we trust Apple to improve AI if even their emoji generator is still very flawed?
Yes, AI is obviously in beta. And it will remain this way for a long time unless they get their act together or are withholding updates that fix the majority of users problems.
And yes, it’s not difficult to watch a keynote or read release notes.
But who does that? Not the average Joe, no, they are who the marketing material is for. The big promises in the flashy short ads.

 

[Lizzard899]

While I can’t rule out users, Ambient Music doesn’t appear to be functioning on either my iPhone 16 Pro or my iPad mini 6. Both are connected to my Apple One account.

View attachment 2486306

Yea I think they just get rid of it. It will prob take up space on your iphone too. I wont use it anyways

 

[Zeus2018]

I did the latest update and now all of my items in find my are gone. has anyone had this issue?

 

[Lizzard899]

At this point, all the Apple Intelligence stuff will move into iOS 19.

Or not at all. They should remove it completely.

Hopefully I’m wrong, but I’m not super confident that Apple is going to pull off everything they promised between now and 18.5

Yea theyre already backtracking saying siri stuff wont be in ios 18 anymore. Wont come until ios 19.3 or something. But I bet they will scrap it altogether

 

[thefrost]

Or not at all. They should remove it completely.

Siri can't even answer basic questions right. It's just embarrassing at this point.

 

[softeky]

@Parowdy:

I have been able to get around Apple Stupidity on my iPhone by importing results from WhatsApp “Imagine” text-line option. “A duck wearing a cactus as a hat” produces this as a result. I saved it to my pics and selected the duck to produce a sticker:


Compared to Apple’s playground, producing a sticker from the same (poorly parsed) text:

All on iOS but WhatsApp’s AI was “head and shoulders” above Apple’s AI... literally!