iOS 18.4 release notes: Ambient Music, Priority Notifications, Apple News+ Food, Photos tweaks and other changes

Read the full iOS 18.4 release notes from Apple to learn about new iPhone features, quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes in this update.

You can download an over-the-air iOS 18.4 update on your iPhone in Settings > General > Software Update. After updating, Apple Intelligence will be automatically turned on during iPhone onboarding, but you can turn it off later in the Settings app.

We’ve rounded up the Apple Intelligence features and explained their function. Apple Intelligence is compatible with the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 16 lineups.

iOS 18.1 introduced the first set of Apple Intelligence features. iOS 18.2 expanded them with six new AI capabilities, while iOS 18.3 brought further AI-powered features such as visual intelligence and notification summaries. Unfortunately, Apple has confirmed that an AI-infused Siri has been delayed until 2026.

iOS 18.4 release notes: What’s new in this iPhone update?

The full iOS 18.4 changelog is available in the Software Update interface and on Apple’s website. We’ve pasted the full iOS 18.4 release notes below.

Apple Intelligence (All iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max)
● Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention
● Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings
● Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US)

Apple Vision Pro App
● The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences and quickly access information about your device

Apple News+
● Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+
● Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes
● Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions
● The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating and more

Photos
● New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos
● Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos
● Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos
● Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos
● Ability to disable “Recently Viewed” and “Recently Shared” collections in Photos Settings
● Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings

This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:
● Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query
● Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account for a kid in their family and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later
● Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app
● App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance
● Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress
● New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved and Downloaded
● Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life
● Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library
● Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automations
● Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu

Apple’s security page will provide information about the security content of iOS 18.4 after the update is live, including big fixes and patches for critical vulnerabilities.

iOS 19 is bringing a significant redesign this fall

Apple may release another update, iOS 18.5, before restarting the beta cycle this summer at the Worldwide Developers Conference, its annual pilgrimage for developers. The company will preview iOS 19, iPadOS 19, macOS 16 and other updates and release the first betas at the WWDC25.

The five-day event is running from June 9 through June 13 at the Apple Park headquarters in California. Multiple rumors point to a major user interface refresh in iOS 19, iPadOS 19 and macOS 16 that should bring a Vision Pro-inspired redesign.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2025/03/28/apple-ios-18-4-release-notes-new-iphone-features-ambient-music-priority-notifications-apple-news-food-photos-tweaks-and-other-changes/