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Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

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Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas.

Generic-iOS-18.4-Feature.jpg

iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update.

With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications Apple Intelligence feature, which is designed to determine which of your notifications are the most important, highlighting them in an easy-to-see dedicated section on the Lock Screen.

The update includes a new Apple News+ Food section for Apple News+ subscribers, plus it adds the Sketch style to Image Playground so you can generate images that look hand drawn. Apple Intelligence is also available in more languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified), along with localized English for Singapore and India.

There are new emoji characters, and a dedicated Vision Pro app that allows Vision Pro owners to find and download content, manage the headset, control guest experiences, and more, right from the iPhone.

Mail Categorization has expanded to the iPad, and there's a new Ambient Music feature for playing relaxing music from Control Center. There are a number of other smaller features too, with details available in our iOS 18.4 features guide.

Apple plans to release iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in early April, and the RC represents the final version of the software that will be provided to the public should no issues be found.

Article Link: Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/03/24/apple-releases-ios-18-4-rc/
build number for both is 22E239

here are builds of the other stuff released today

iPadOS 17.7.6 RC (21H423)
macOS 15.4 RC (24E246)
macOS 14.7.5 RC 5 (23H527)
macOS 13.7.5 RC 5 (22H527)
tvOS 18.4 RC (22L254)
audioOS 18.4 RC (22L254)
visionOS 2.4 RC (22O237)
watchOS 11.4 RC (22T250)
 
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More features that should have been included 18.0 and any bugs fixed in 18.4 Is it that hard to add a food section to news+ and ambient music to control center, those kind of things used to roll out without a .x update. Adding new languages to a still in beta feature. The new mail categories that aren't that intelligent.
 
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They’re really trying to get this iOS 18.5 Beta 1 out, huh?

Damn. lol. They were running through these 18.4 updates.
 
Should I download the RC Beta? Or should I wait till next week? I want to try Apple Intelligence on my iPad, and I have been waiting for a long time because I live in the EU
 
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pabloo said:
Should I download the RC Beta? Or should I wait till next week? I want to try Apple Intelligence on my iPad, and I have been waiting for a long time because I live in the EU
Click to expand...
I’m jumping in now. This (at least) should be the final version.
 
ghostface147 said:
Jeez, Verizon’s network had me download the full build in like two minutes. Not bad for 7.3 gigs.
Click to expand...
There's a new feature omitted from the release notes, adding Verizon advertisements to your device. They're eager to make it happen, especially for existing subscribers.
 
(iPadOS 18.4) quick impressions:

No forced Apple Intelligence enablement but auto-OS-install is encouraged and optional during first login
Mail arrival sound/badges fixed
Mail categories and icons/BIMI in mail list column, new in-line prompt to switch category/list view (always available in ··· menu)
Safari Clear History and Website Data still doesn’t clear login cookies successfully on first attempt
 
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Has anyone had a priority notification show up? I’ve gotten a few notifications today that I thought would be considered priority, but nothing showed so far.
 
crobcary said:
I dunno…lately "release candidate" has been followed up with "release candidate final FINAL," with either a second RC release or just a different build number at public release.
Click to expand...
I can’t really see another release candidate because generally there is no major changes in iOS 18.4
 
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coolfactor said:
Bugs are very beneficial. Ohhhhh... you mean softwae bugs. Please enlighten us to a bug that's interfering with your daily usage.
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Might not be a bug that affects you, but the no notification from Mail app (iOS 18.3.2) for incoming emails is annoying if you need to know when important work emails come in. Now I have to manually check every so often so I don't accidentally miss something.

18.3.1 update - no notification sounds on… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com discussions.apple.com


 
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Now, I cannot remove the red badge on Settings.app forcing me to update the Home architecture. I don’t have a hub so I don’t want to. How do I remove this?
 

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App Updates is finally fixed (broken since 18.2) ….no longer crashes when large amounts of apps need updating
 
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