Apple Seeds Third iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Betas With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Apple today seeded the third betas of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the second betas.

Generic iOS 18
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 plans to release iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in early April.

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Top Rated Comments

goonie4life9 Avatar
12 months ago
YASSS! This is the BEST, MOST CAPABLE, MOST POWERFUL version of iOS 18 that Apple has EVER released for iOS devices. Apple thinks you're gonna love it.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
goonie4life9 Avatar
12 months ago

Where on-screen awareness? Where better Siri?
Who ever said this was coming? Apple's pace of innovation this year is staggering. iOS 18.4, with the INCREDIBLE new priority notifications, emojis, ambient music, mail sorting, and BRAND NEW AppleNews+ Food, looks to be the BIGGEST leap-forward in iOS 18 since iOS 18 debuted!
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Diopter Avatar
12 months ago
Is it intelligent yet? ?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iToph Avatar
12 months ago
I think the camera bump shrinked a bit in this beta
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
michsu Avatar
12 months ago

Where on-screen awareness? Where better Siri?
I have MORE on-screen awareness than Siri. That's all I have to say. ?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
I7guy Avatar
12 months ago
Might take the plunge. I miss being a beta tester.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)