iOS 18.3 Temporarily Removes Notification Summaries for News

[dandy1117]

Seemed silly to summarize things like news headlines and email subject lines - things that are already, essentially, summaries.

Perhaps, you're unfamiliar with the features you mentioned, but Apple Intelligence does not summarize individual news notifications; instead, it tries to summarize a group of notifications from the same app. Similarly, the Mail app summarizes entire email messages or threads rather than just individual email subject lines.

Apple needs to address inaccuracies and the presentation of these summarization features, but forum posters shouldn't misstate features intentionally.

 

[klasma]

Comic Sans finally found its home.

Comic Sans was originally created for Microsoft Bob, so that would constitute some kind of continuity.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Apple admitting that this

Apple Intelligence Update Will Add Clarification to Prevent Fake Headline Confusion

Apple is working on an update for Apple Intelligence that will cut down on confusion caused by inaccurate summaries of news headlines, Apple told BBC...

www.macrumors.com

isn't enough.

Wise move.

They likely realized that it wasn’t worth the pad PR and the additional development/fact checking resources that would be involved to make it completely reliable.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Perhaps, you're unfamiliar with the features you mentioned, but Apple Intelligence does not summarize individual news notifications; instead, it tries to summarize a group of notifications from the same app. Similarly, the Mail app summarizes entire email messages or threads rather than just individual email subject lines.

I understand how the feature works. I've been using it for a while. My point is that a collection of news headlines doesn't require a summary; simply presenting them as a single notification would be sufficient. No need to summarize the text of each notification into one.

Also, you should consider making fewer assumptions about the intelligence or intent of other forum posters. Makes the experience nicer for everyone.

 

[nadador]

To be fair, it has probably summarized hundreds of thousands of headlines without issues since launch but the inaccurate ones will of course get highlighted (as they should be). It’s possible that Apple thought that the mistakes would be rare enough to be forgiven by users and news agencies.

Reminds me of some legislative testimony about self-driving cars in California... (paraphrasing) 95% of the time, they perform better and more safely than human drivers. But that other 5% of the time, it can be real bad.

 

[Macaholic868]

Removing the notification summaries from the betas because they need more refinement and more testing is dumb.

Default to having them turned off for users and make them jump through a hoop or two in order to turn them back on. Alert them to the fact that the summaries may be false or misleading and not to take them, or anything else in an AI generated summary, as gospel.

Then let we beta testers do their thing and beta test as Apple refines things. Otherwise what’s the point of a beta anyway?

I realize that AI generated news summaries can be false or misleading. Newsflash, regular headlines can be as well. Sometimes willfully by people or supposed “news” outlets that are just propaganda outlets with an agenda. Plus humans get things wrong sometimes and news authors rarely get to pick their own headlines, bylines, etc. That’s usually done by their editors.

Just be clear these are in beta and shut them off by default moving forward forcing beta users who want to help to turn them back on. You could outright shut them off with no way of turning back on in the release versions that aren’t for testing but IMO just shutting them off is weak sauce. These are betas.

 

[ntlman]

Add this to Tim Cook's greatest hits:

1. Having to undo all the Macbook changes made from 2016-2019
2. Airpower DOA
3. HomePod
4. Apple Vision Pro
5. Apple TV (least popular streaming service, despite being pre-loaded on the most popular smartphone in the USA)
6. Apple Watch Edition models (the gold ones can't even be melted down)
7. U2's Songs Of Innocence iPhone fiasco

 

[svish]

Summarizing with italics font is a good way to distinguish it. For me, the summarizing feature works well with messages app. Good that there is an option to turn it off. Looks like the feature won't be back for News apps immediately.

 

[Veinticinco]

If only there was a subtle clue, I dunno maybe hidden in code in the app icon itself, that Apple AI was a crock of sh…

 

[NMBob]

Apple said that a future software update would clarify when notifications were summarized by Apple Intelligence.

All they have to do is preface summaries with, "Siri says:..." We'll know what to expect.

 

[neuropsychguy]

News flash! Beta software features have issues. Story at 11.

AI summary (this actually is Apple's AI summary from Notes): "Beta software features have issues. Story at 11."

 

[neuropsychguy]

Add this to Tim Cook's greatest hits:

1. Having to undo all the Macbook changes made from 2016-2019
2. Airpower DOA
3. HomePod
4. Apple Vision Pro
5. Apple TV (least popular streaming service, despite being pre-loaded on the most popular smartphone in the USA)
6. Apple Watch Edition models (the gold ones can't even be melted down)
7. U2's Songs Of Innocence iPhone fiasco

1. Butterfly keyboard (which I liked to type on) and touch bar didn't last. Other changes (these are 2016 versus 2015) were positive: thinner and lighter design, brighter more accurate display, larger trackpad, switched to Thunderbolt 3, Touch ID. Have all those changes been undone? Were they bad?
2. Wasn't successful but many companies develop product ideas that never launch. Apple's problem was talking publicly about it before having it ready to ship.
3. What's wrong with HomePod? I use mine about every day. Many people have and use them. If it was a bad and unsuccessful product, why does Apple have a mini version and an updated one?
4. What's wrong with the AVP? It's an early adopter device for a niche set of users. It appears to be the best headset out there.
5. Apple TV has great shows. It's not huge like Netflix, but so what?
6. I agree with you about this, but they are still part of the Apple Watch set of devices. The AW is hugely successful.
7. I mostly agree. Although at the time and in hindsight, I think it was hugely overblown.

 

[hybrid_x]

In general, I've found these summaries to be really terrible and inaccurate. I see summaries of Discord conversations and they totally miss the context of what was posted. Generative AI really is nowhere near as good as people think it is.

 

[MasterControlProgram]

Seems for the best. I recently had an issue with Uber Eats and the summary of the notifications was totally different from what had actually been discussed with their support people.

 

[MNWildFan]

Yikes!

How did this mess slip through the testing cracks? I mean, isn't this what beta testing is for???

Good on them for yanking the feature for nwo though; this is clearly not ready for prime time still and LOTS of work needs to be done still.

 

[Capeto]

I tried giving Apple Intelligence a chance but it's been useless. I turned notification summaries off because most notifications already are summaries (email subjects, headlines; text messages are also usually brief). Image Playground was fun for about 2 minutes. The only good thing to come out of this is that iPads and iPhones now come with 8GB of RAM, and Macs with 16GB.

 

[ntlman]

1. Butterfly keyboard (which I liked to type on) and touch bar didn't last. Other changes (these are 2016 versus 2015) were positive: thinner and lighter design, brighter more accurate display, larger trackpad, switched to Thunderbolt 3, Touch ID. Have all those changes been undone? Were they bad? They also had to bring back the SD card slot and MagSafe. The butterfly keyboard was not just something that "didn't last". It was an expensive mistake for the company that ended up costing them much more in repairs/parts and reputation than was ever worth

2. Wasn't successful but many companies develop product ideas that never launch. Apple's problem was talking publicly about it before having it ready to ship. I don't think Steve Jobs ever let products get that far if they weren't ready to ship. And they didn't just talk about it: it was already being integrated into marketing materials and investor decks. Not just "talk".

3. What's wrong with HomePod? I use mine about every day. Many people have and use them. If it was a bad and unsuccessful product, why does Apple have a mini version and an updated one? They had to take it off the market for 2 years to go back to the drawing board. For a speaker that doesn't connect via BlueTooth, it is pretty good. Unfortunately, the market for a small portable speaker WITHOUT bluetooth connectivity is pretty niche. I personally think AP is a better audio standard, but Bluetooth is the ubiquitous streaming standard, not AP.

4. What's wrong with the AVP? It's an early adopter device for a niche set of users. It appears to be the best headset out there. Who needs a $5000 headset just to browse Safari? No killer apps. Requires $149 lenses for people who wear glasses (which will have to be replaced when one's eyesight prescription changes). The giant battery pack doesn't even have enough charge to get through one of the LOTR movies without having to pause and plug it into the wall or change batteries. For the same price, one can buy a 100" 4k tv and enjoy a movie with MULTIPLE PEOPLE AT ONCE without the need for extra equipment or pausing the movie to keep the tv powered up.

5. Apple TV has great shows. It's not huge like Netflix, but so what? The subs number indicates that they don't draw enough sub rev to cover the production costs and rights fees they're acquiring for the service. They don't produce enough episodes of any show to generate income via syndication sales to a 3rd party (where the real money comes from), and no other streamer/studio is interested in licensing their crappy OG movies. It's not an appealing service to non-Apple users, so what is the point of burning large sums money on content for people who already bought your more profitable devices?

They also stab their creative partners in the back. The director of "Wolfs" (who also directed the last 3 great MCU Spidey movies) came out and said they straight up lied to him regarding the release strategy and that's why he'll never work with them again.

6. I agree with you about this, but they are still part of the Apple Watch set of devices. Apple discontinued the entire Edition line over 2 years ago. Here is the link to the MacRumors article about it.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/09/07/apple-discontinues-apple-watch-edition-2/

7. I mostly agree. Although at the time and in hindsight, I think it was hugely overblown. It was generally overblown, but Apple was responsible for choosing to send the album to iPhones instead of as just free download in the iTunes store from a notification popup link. And the janky fix and subsequent throwing of U2 under the bus was overall half-assed (as if the product strategy decisions came from Dublin and not Cupertino).

 

[dave1120]

AI will never function correctly for such uses

the Brain is NOT Consciousness or the Mind, it IS the subconscious and the storage unit for sensory uptake

the Mind is Not of the Flesh, it combines with the Flesh

As long as they keep pretending, then AI will always be psychotic

 

[Razorpit]

That's deep @dave1120, you aren't wrong though.

 

[Cunir]

maybe there really is a lot going on under the hood, but the way they've got it working at the moment it just looks like a glorified article spinner... swap this word for that word to shave a few letters off... swap this phrase for that phrase to knock an extra word off... that's basically all it's doing with the headlines, and it doesn't save you any time reading the new versions (maybe a few nanoseconds)

summarising and re-writing your emails and messages is a lot more useful