ios 18.3

As is custom, Apple rolled out software updates to all its platforms at once today. All users should now have access to the public releases of iOS 18.3, macOS Sequoia 15.3, watchOS 11.3, iPadOS 15.3, tvOS 15.3, and visionOS 2.3.

Also, as usual, the iOS update is the meatiest of the bunch. Most of the changes relate to Apple Intelligence, a suite of features built on deep learning models. The first Apple Intelligence features were introduced in iOS 18, with additional ones added in iOS 18.1 and iOS 18.2

iOS 18.3 doesn’t add any significant new features to Apple Intelligence—instead, it tweaks what’s already there. Whereas Apple Intelligence was opt-in in previous OS versions, it is now on by default in iOS 18.3 on supported devices.

For the most part, that shouldn’t be a noticeable change for the majority of users, except for one thing: notification summaries. As we’ve reported, the feature that summarizes large batches of notifications using a large language model is hit-and-miss at best.

For most apps, not much has changed on that front, but Apple announced that with iOS 18.3, it’s temporarily disabling notification summaries for apps from the “News & Entertainment” category in light of criticisms by the BBC and others about how the feature was getting the substance of headlines wrong. The feature will still mess up summarizing your text messages and emails, though.

Apple says it has changed the presentation of summaries to make it clearer that they are distinct from other, non-AI generated summaries and that they are in beta and may be inaccurate.

Other updates include one to visual intelligence, a feature available on the most recent phones that gives you information on objects your camera is focused on. It can now identify more plants and animals, and you can create calendar events from flyers or posters seen in your viewfinder.