Apple's iOS 18.4 update for iPhone is on the way, and it's bringing some exciting new tools, smart refinements, and deeper Apple Intelligence integration that make your iPhone experience even better. Whether you're looking for ways to stay more organized, enhance your daily workflow, or enjoy new forms of entertainment, this update has something for everyone.
Apple Intelligence continues to evolve, with new ways to streamline notifications and help you focus on what truly matters. Key apps are getting notable improvements, making it easier to find what you need, stay productive, and personalize your iPhone like never before. Plus, Apple has a brand-new app that offers a unique way to play certain types of music — though you won't find it alongside your other apps.
Beyond that, iOS 18.4 delivers subtle yet meaningful improvements that touch nearly every corner of the system, from communication tools to privacy enhancements. Even the Photos and Safari apps have received useful upgrades that longtime iPhone users will appreciate. And for those of you with Apple Vision Pro, there's now a new way to manage your device directly from your iPhone.
Here's a full breakdown of everything new in iOS 18.4 — and why you won't want to miss out. Many of these changes also extend to iPad on iPadOS 18.4, while select features make their way to Macs with macOS Sequoia 15.4. If you want to try these features out yourself before the stable release, which is expected sometime in April, you can install the developer or public beta on your device.
More Info: Download and Install iOS 18.4 Beta or iPadOS 18.4 Beta to Try New iPhone or iPad Features First
New Apple News+ Food section
Apple expanded its food topic in Apple News into a fully dedicated Apple News+ Food section. This new section provides Apple News+ subscribers with a curated collection of recipes, restaurant reviews, kitchen tips, and food-related news. While some content is exclusive to subscribers, select stories and recipes will be available to all users. At launch, Apple News+ Food will feature content from Allrecipes, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Good Food, Serious Eats, and EatingWell, to name a few, with more publishers expected to join over time.
You can access Apple News+ Food from the Following tab on iPhone or the sidebar on iPad, where you'll find recipe collections, saved recipes, and featured picks from Apple News editors. The Recipe Catalog allows you to browse, filter, and search for recipes based on dish type, dietary preferences, and cooking time. Each recipe has a full-screen Cook mode with step-by-step instructions, bolded ingredients, and even built-in timers to help with meal prep.
The feature is currently unavailable on macOS Sequoia 15.4, and Apple has not yet confirmed if it will expand to Macs in the future.
New Ambient Music app
There's a new Ambient Music app, but it's not yet accessible from the Home Screen, App Library, or Spotlight Search. Instead, you can add Chill, Sleep, Productivity, and Wellbeing controls to your Control Center or Lock Screen or assign an Ambient Music playlist to your iPhone's Action button. You can then tap (Control Center) or press (Lock Screen) a control to start playing the sounds in the Ambient Music app — or hold the Action button down.
Full Guide: Apple's New Ambient Music App in iOS 18.4 Gives You Quick Access to Relaxing Soundscapes
Priority Notifications via Apple Intelligence
You can now enable Priority Notifications in Settings » Notifications on iPhone and iPad models that support Apple Intelligence. You'll find the Prioritize Notifications option in a new Apple Intelligence section, which also contains the already-available Summarize Notifications. Open that menu to enable the feature, which is off by default.
Apple Intelligence enhances notifications by prioritizing important alerts, such as mail, messages, and health-related notifications, in a separate section on the Lock Screen and Notification Center. While all notifications remain accessible by swiping up, the system uses on-device processing to analyze their importance while maintaining your privacy. This ensures that critical information stands out without compromising data security.
The Priority Notifications section glows around the edges to stand out from other alerts, giving you an instant visual queue to what's most important without reading anything.
You can left-swipe a priority alert to mute it, view its settings, and turn off all alerts for the app, just as you can with regular notifications. However, you can also mark a priority alert as Looks Good or Something Isn't Right to help Apple Intelligence fine-tune its processes.
Sketch support for Image Playground
While Image Wand in Notes has had Sketch support since its integration with Apple Intelligence, Image Playground, which powers Image Wand, has not. Now, Sketch is finally available as an alternative to Animation and Illustration in Image Playground, whether you use it via the Image Playground app, in Messages, or within other apps.
Default translation app
You can already choose a default app for web browsing, calling, emailing, and messaging, but now you can also select a default translation app. Currently, Apple's Translate app is the only one listed. Third-party developers can configure their translation apps with the proper entitlement, access key, app extension, and UI to show up as a default option.
Default navigation app for EU users only
Another new option in the Default Apps settings lets you change the default navigation app from Apple Maps to a third-party option. However, this only works if you're located in the European Union (EU). As with default translation apps, third-party developers must set up their navigation apps to appear in the menu.
New sorting filters in Photos
In the Photos app, you get two new filters when viewing your entire library. Tap the Sort button at the bottom, then Filter from the menu. You should see the new Shared With You and Not in an Album filters.
Shared With You shows you only the content sent by your contacts in Messages, making it easier to track down images you didn't take.
Not in an Album shows you only the content not within an auto-created (like Instagram) or manually created album.
You may also see the Not in an Album filter in other Photos locations, such as collections in People & Pets, Trips, Media Types, and Utilities.
New menu options for albums in Photos
When viewing all your albums in the Photos app, you get an updated More (•••) menu. List View and Key Photo replaced List and Grid, and they are now tabs at the top of the menu. In addition to being able to sort albums by name or a custom order, you can also sort by the modified date. Additionally, there's a new Filter section, which lets you view only Albums or Folders. You also get all of these new menu options when inside a folder.
More widgets for Apple Podcasts
The Podcasts app has two new widget types for your Home Screen and Today View instead of just Up Next: Library and Shows. Library will play an episode from a list in your library. Shows will play an episode from a show you follow. When you pick a widget type, each of which comes in three sizes, you can tap it while still in edit mode to change the list or show.
More languages for Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence already supports English in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the US, and the UK, but according to Apple, iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 also supports the following additional languages:
Chinese (simplified)
English (India)
English (Singapore)
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese (Brazil)
Spanish
Other languages, such as Vietnamese, will be supported in future updates.
More Apple Intelligence regions
According to Apple, all the languages now available with Apple Intelligence are "accessible in nearly all regions around the world" with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4. More importantly, Apple Intelligence for iPhone and iPad is now supported in the EU, which previously only had access to Apple Intelligence for Mac.
Vietnamese support for Siri requests
Apple has added Siri support for Vietnamese on all iPhone and iPad models that can run the latest iOS and iPadOS software. This is the first time the language has been available for Siri requests. You can try it out at Settings » Siri » Language or Settings » Apple Intelligence & Siri » Language.
New Type to Siri animation
Speaking of Siri, when you double-tap the bottom edge of your iPhone or iPad to open the new Type to Siri tool, a new animation will appear whenever you tap the submit button. Instead of the upload arrow icon turning gray and disappearing, a set of colorful, glowing dots circles the icon to show that it's processing the request. When the answer begins to appear, the rotating circle of dots vanishes.
Website security details in Safari
For some reason, we could never view SSL/TLS certificate information for websites in Safari on iPhone and iPad. You could tell when a website's connection to you was secure by the lock icon in the address bar, but that's it. Finally, you can view these details on iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4. On a webpage in Safari, tap the Page settings icon in the address bar, hit More (•••), and choose Connection Security Details to see the site's certificate. Hit More Details to see the individual digital certificates.
Double-tap and triple-tap notifications for Back Tap
If you use the Back Tap feature on your iPhone, you'll notice in iOS 18.4 that a Double Tap Detected or Triple Tap Detected banner briefly appears to let you know that the gesture was successful. There is no way to disable this notification, so the alerts may become annoying if you use Back Tap frequently.
New skip animations in the TV app
In the TV app on iPhone, whenever you press either Skip button in the player controls, a new animation plays — the arrow rotates once in the selected direction, either clockwise or counterclockwise, before returning to its original state.
New Genmoji icon in the Emoji keyboard
If your device supports Genmoji, you'll see a new Genmoji icon on the Emoji keyboard when using apps like Mail, Messages, and Notes. Before, it only showed the colorful, grinning face of the Genmoji icon. Now, it also says "Genmoji" to eliminate confusion about what the button does.
Camera Control menu changes
If you have an iPhone 16 series model (not counting the new iPhone 16e), the Camera Control menu in the Settings app is slightly different. Instead of having all the apps that can be launched with the Camera Control button on the main page, it gets its own Camera App submenu in the Launch Camera section.
Additionally, the Require Screen On toggle is available. When on, your screen must be awake for any camera app to launch with Camera Control. Before, the option was only in Settings » Display & Brightness, but now it's in both locations.
Indicator light changes with Dynamic Island
Previously, when the secure indicator light on an iPhone with Dynamic Island appeared outside the Dynamic Island, it would only show as an orange (for audio) or green (for video) dot, indicating that your microphone and/or camera was in use. Now, that dot is outlined in black, making the color stand out more and appear brighter as if it were a regular LED indicator light.
Color changes for Brightness, Volume, and Text Size controls
In the Control Center, the Brightness, Volume, and Text Size sliders always showed their icons in yellow, light blue, and dark blue, respectively. Now, the colors for each change to white as soon as the levels dip below the icons themselves.
Actual signal strength for Cellular control in Control Center
Also in the Control Center, you'll notice that the Cellular control now shows an actual depiction of your device's cellular signal strength instead of just showing you full bars. This makes it less confusing, especially when viewing the Cellular control when the signal strength isn't shown in the status bar. If you have multiple lines and switch to a different one, the connection strength will update accordingly.
Focus arrows in Control Center
To clarify that tapping the Focus control in Control Center will open your list of focuses, Apple has added up/down chevrons next to the "Focus" label.
Smart Reply for third-party mail and messaging apps
With Apple Intelligence, your recent emails and texts can be analyzed in Mail and Messages to provide you with contextually relevant smart replies when replying to message threads. These recommended replies appear above your keyboard; you just have to tap one to insert it into your message. With iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, third-party developers can now incorporate Smart Reply into their mail and messaging apps.
Generate reply suggestions by using Apple Intelligence and put selected text into your text UI.
Age range step during setup
When setting up a fresh install of iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, you'll see an Age Range step after the Data & Privacy screen. Here, you select the intended user's age: Child (12 or younger), Teen (13 to 17), or Adult (18 or older). The description states, "This information will help iPhone set up parental controls and safety features."
Choosing Child will ask you to connect to your family account, while Teen or Adult will ask you to set up Face ID or Touch ID.
Matter robot vacuum support in Home
Apple started laying the groundwork for robot vacuum support in Home in iOS 18.3, and iOS 18.4 finally delivered. As long as the robot vac officially supports Matter, like the SwitchBot S10 Robot Vacuum and Mop, it should work with the Home app. Other robot vacs, like the Roomba Combo 10 Max, Ecovacs Deebot X2 Combo, Dreame X50 Ultra, and Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, plan to add Matter support in the near future.
Vision Pro app
If you're one of the few people who own an Apple Vision Pro, there's now a companion Vision Pro app for your iPhone similar to the Watch app for Apple Watch devices. With it, you can queue downloads, discover new spatial content, find tips, and access device info. It features a Discover page with curated recommendations and a My Vision Pro page for tips, system details, and ZEISS Optical Inserts management.
Starting in April, Apple Vision Pro users will be able to queue apps and games to download, discover new spatial content and experiences, easily find helpful tips, and quickly access information about their device from their iPhone with the new Apple Vision Pro app. The app will appear for Vision Pro users when they update their iPhone to iOS 18.4, and it can also be downloaded from the App Store.
The Discover page offers curated recommendations for new and noteworthy experiences available on Apple Vision Pro. Users can quickly see popular apps and games on the App Store; nearly 300 3D movies, Apple Immersive titles, and more video content on the Apple TV app; and the latest spatial photos, spatial videos, and panoramas featured in the Spatial Gallery [3D movie availability varies by country or region]. New Apple Immersive titles include "Ice Dive" from the Adventure series; "Sharks" from the Wild Life series; and Man vs. Beast. "Arctic Surfing" — the latest episode of Boundless — debuts worldwide today, while the next episode of Adventure, "Deep Water Solo," debuts next Friday, February 28.
On the My Vision Pro page, users will find tips for getting the most out of Apple Vision Pro; can easily access information such as their current visionOS version and device serial number; and set up Personalized Spatial Audio. Users with vision correction needs will be able to store and view the App Clip code for their ZEISS Optical Inserts in the Apple Vision Pro app. — Apple
The app also lets you start a guest user experience on your Apple Vision Pro, allowing you to share spatial computing experiences with controlled app access and a 30-day eye/hand setup save. With visionOS 2.4, sessions can start from a nearby iPhone or iPad, allowing app selection and View Mirroring with AirPlay for easy guidance.
Other features you'll get with iOS 18.4
There are new SF symbols, including a new rays design, an NFC app icon, a baby, a baby with a bow, a Michelin key logo, a music note circled in a half-solid-half-dotted line, and a diagonally split shield.
If you have more than one line on your iPhone, there's now a double-sided arrow next to the line indicator in the Phone app, making it clearer that you can tap it to switch lines quickly.
The updated Mail app with categories is now available on iPad and Mac, not just iPhone.
There's a mention of a new Shazam Exclusive feature that we may see in the near future.
Apple added support for iOS and iPadOS system extensions for apps, though it's unclear what this means for the end user.
Apple Intelligence may also support Google Gemini in addition to ChatGPT, according to code found by Aaron Perris on X.
Should you download iOS 18.4 before everyone else?
A few known bugs, the biggest of which affects Wi-Fi calling, may dissuade you from jumping on board any iOS 18.4 beta for the time being.
Wi-Fi Calling might not work for US cellular customers.
Apple Intelligence support requires Siri for languages other than English (US). Apple recommends enabling Talk & Type to Siri and making sure Hey Siri, Siri or Hey Siri, or Press Side Button for Siri is enabled for Talk to Siri.
Some Apple Intelligence features might not be available, or you might see "Downloading support…" after restoring iOS 18.4. Apple recommends restarting your iPhone.
Some Siri suggestions in non-English languages might fail to complete successfully.
Don't Miss: iOS 18.3 Has 18+ New Features and Changes — Here's What's New
Cover image, screenshots, and GIFs by Gadget Hacks.
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