Apple Seeds Second iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

[[{“value”:”Apple today seeded the second release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week a few days after Apple released the first RC.

iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update.

With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications Apple Intelligence feature, which is designed to determine which of your notifications are the most important, highlighting them in an easy-to-see dedicated section on the Lock Screen.

The update includes a new Apple News+ Food section for ‌Apple News‌+ subscribers, plus it adds the Sketch style to Image Playground so you can generate images that look hand drawn. ‌Apple Intelligence‌ is also available in more languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified), along with localized English for Singapore and India.

There are new emoji characters, and a dedicated Vision Pro app that allows Vision Pro owners to find and download content, manage the headset, control guest experiences, and more, right from the iPhone.

Mail Categorization has expanded to the iPad, and there’s a new Ambient Music feature for playing relaxing music from Control Center. There are a number of other smaller features too, with details available in our iOS 18.4 features guide. Apple’s release notes for the update are below.

Apple’s release notes for the update are 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

Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit:

https://support.apple.com/100100