In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April.
From the
Apple News+ Food announcement:The first beta of iOS 18.4 is
already available for developers and
public beta testers.
The first iOS 18.4 beta does not include any of the new
Apple Intelligence features for Siri that were originally expected, such as personal context and on-screen awareness, but the update still has a handful of other new features and changes.
Below, we highlight some of iOS 18.4's key new features.
Available Now
Priority Notifications
iOS 18.4 introduces a promised Apple Intelligence feature that can automatically identify and surface your most important notifications on the Lock Screen.
The option can be turned on in the Settings app under Notifications → Prioritize Notifications.
Apple Intelligence requires an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any iPhone 16 model.
Apple News+ Food
iOS 18.4 adds a
new Food section to the Apple News app on the iPhone. This section will provide Apple News+ subscribers with tens of thousands of recipes and other food-related content from well-known food-related publishers, at no extra cost.
Here is how Apple describes the new Food section:Apple News+ is available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The service provides digital access to hundreds of major publications, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, PEOPLE, The Athletic, Rolling Stone, and others. In the U.S., Apple News+ costs $12.99 per month, and it is also included in the Apple One Premier bundle alongside other Apple services for $37.95 per month.
Ambient Music
iOS 18.4 adds a new Ambient Music feature to the Control Center on the iPhone.
This feature allows you to quickly listen to a collection of songs from four different categories, including Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing.
More
- iOS 18.4 makes Apple Intelligence available in more languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), English (Singapore), and English (India).
- There is a new "Sketch" drawing style for the Image Playground feature, alongside existing "Animation" and "Illustration" styles. This feature, powered by Apple Intelligence, lets you generate images based on text descriptions.
- In some vehicles equipped with very large dashboard displays, CarPlay is showing an extra row of app icons on a single page.
- iOS 18.4 lets you set a default maps app, such as Google Maps, in the EU. You can also set a default translation app worldwide.
Read our
iOS 18.4 features guide for even more.
Coming Later
Vision Pro App
It is not in the first beta, but iOS 18.4 will add a new Apple Vision Pro app to the iPhone.
The app will offer Vision Pro users a new way to download apps and games from the App Store, discover Apple TV content, learn helpful Vision Pro tips, quickly access information about their own Vision Pro, and more.
The app will appear for Vision Pro users when they update their iPhone to the iOS 18.4 release, and it will also be available in the App Store.
New Emoji
iOS 18.4 will include new emoji, according to code seen by
MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris.
iOS 15.4, iOS 16.4, and iOS 17.4 all introduced new emoji, so there was a good chance that trend would continue with iOS 18.4.
Last year, the Unicode Consortium previewed the new emoji that should be coming with iOS 18.4, with new options including face with bags under eyes, fingerprint, leafless tree, root vegetable, harp, shovel, splatter, and more.
Article Link:
Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features