The upcoming software update carries on the tradition of Apple’s consistent expansion of AI functionality on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Six new features and improvements to Apple Intelligence on your iPhone will be included in iOS 18.4, which is about to arrive. This is what’s going to happen.
Priority Notifications
Notification summaries are among my favorite modern Apple Intelligence features. Additionally, AI drives Priority Notifications, a feature in iOS 18.4 that also improves your alerts over time.
In essence, this feature gives your alerts on the lock screen two distinct levels of prominence.
An alert will appear more prominently in a new Priority Notifications highlighted area if Apple Intelligence deems it very relevant. Although they are still there, less significant alerts are not given the same visual decoration and are positioned below Priority Notifications.
The feature can be manually enabled or disabled for individual apps as well as for all apps. In this manner, Priority Notifications can accurately represent your specific priorities.
Growth of Visual Intelligence
Visual Intelligence was first available only on the iPhone 16. Visual Intelligence was absent from the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, even though they supported all other AI features.
However, iOS 18.4 fixes this by adding the capability to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16e, which do not have Camera Control buttons.
It accomplishes this by enabling Visual Intelligence through a new Control Center button that may also be linked to the Action Button or Lock Screen controls on your device.
A fresh look is added to Image Playground
Three styles were offered when Apple first demonstrated its Image Playground software for producing creative images:
- Animation
- Illustration
- Sketch
Only the first two style options were available when Image Playground was released in iOS 18.2 in December.
Sketch has now completed the trio in iOS 18.4. This implies that you can use a new design that appears pencil-drawn in any AI image you create now or in the future.
App Store review summaries
AI is an excellent fit for customer reviews since it can be very effective at combining and summarizing vast amounts of data. And that helps the App Store with iOS 18.4.
Within the App Store app, Apple Intelligence adds review summaries to app and game listings. Even though you can still read user-written reviews in their entirety, you can now read the AI review summary to get a brief overview of what people think about an app.
New AI languages
Being exclusively in English upon debut was one of Apple Intelligence’s main drawbacks. Up until now, AI has only been available in English, but Apple has now added several localized English alternatives.
iOS 18.4 currently supports eight additional AI languages:
- French
- German
- Italian
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Spanish
- Japanese
- Korean
- Chinese (simplified)
Localized English support is now available for Singapore and India as well.
Apple Intelligence in the EU
The EU and China, two significant regions where Apple Intelligence has not yet been offered, are now officially finished waiting.
For the first time, iOS 18.4 supports AI in the EU. AI features were previously limited to Macs in the EU, but now iPhone and iPad users can also take advantage of them.
New AI features in iOS 18.4: Conclusion
For the past nine months, Apple has been progressively introducing new Apple Intelligence features. Regretfully, several of the most anticipated features—significant enhancements to Siri—will not be available anytime soon.