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iOS 18 and iPadOS 18

What’s New in Version 1.3

In iOS and iPadOS versions 18,3 and 18.4, Apple made small-to-significant changes and additions to features and apps. Here’s what this update covers:

• Apple Intelligence is now opt out: Starting with iOS 18.3/iPadOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence is on by default on supported devices. See “Meet Apple Intelligence.”
• Apple drops Siri upgrades for now: Promised Apple Intelligence improvements to Siri that would mine data on your device to give better answers and to interact with a device interface to perform tasks has been pushed back to late 2025 or 2026. See “Siri Remains Mired in the Past.”
• Visual Intelligence (iOS only): Apple added a feature to several recent iPhone models called Visual Intelligence that can quickly access information about places, businesses, animals, and plants as well as read text aloud and other features. Features were added in waves from iOS 18.2 onward. See “Recognize the World Around You.”
• Change in AI-based notifications: After complaints about accuracy with Apple Intelligence notifications summaries, Apple no longer summarizes headlines from news apps and italicizes other summaries. See “Summarize Notifications. ”
• Image Playground adds a style option: The Playground app now offers Sketch as a style option when creating images. See “Create Images with Playground.”
• Control Center adds an Apple Intelligence & Siri section: This new section has buttons for Siri and Visual Intelligence. See “Apple Intelligence & Siri.”
• Photos: A number of tweaks have been made in how files can be viewed, filtered, and hidden:
  • New filters for All Photos: You can filter by Shared With You (from Messages) and Not in Any Album. See “View Your Photos.”
  • Sort images by date modified: See “View Your Photos.”
  • Reorganize Media Types and Utilities collection items: See “Learn About More Photos Changes.”
  • Disable Recently Viewed and Recently Shared collections: See “Learn About More Photos Changes.”
  • Blocks manual sync of hidden media if Face ID enabled: See “Learn About More Photos Changes.”
• Visual indicator of verification code timer remaining: In Passwords in iOS 18.4/iPadOS 18.4, a circular indicator next to Verification Code shows the remaining time for a generate code to be valid when logging in with two-factor authentication on a site. See “Add or Edit a Password.”
• Calculator restores its repeat-with-equals action: From iOS 18.3/iPadOS 18.3 onwards, you can once again tap the equals sign to repeat the previous operation. See “Power Up Calculator.”
• iPadOS gains Mail Categorization: The feature to enable categories in Mail for iOS became available for the iPad in iPadOS 18.4. See “Mail.”
• Child account setup improvement: Apple is in the middle of revamping the Child type of Apple Account. iOS 18.4/iPadOS 18.4 has streamlined how this kind of account can be set up from scratch. See “Apple Account.”

What Was New in Version 1.2

Version 1.2 covered the many changes in iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2. The big new things were:

• You can combine Siri with ChatGPT to open a wider range of queries and capabilities. See “Use ChatGPT Through Siri.”
• Writing Tools, which uses Apple Intelligence to help you write and revise content, added two new features that let you manually describe the revisions you want and revise text with ChatGPT. See “Leverage Writing Tools.”
• The new Playground app lets you use Apple Intelligence to create and remix original images. See “Create Images with Playground.”
• I added a new “Disable Summaries” section to discuss how to stop Apple Intelligence from automatically summarizing notifications and messages.
• The new Magic Wand tool in Notes lets you generate images based on the contents of a note. See “Make Images with Magic Wand” in the Notes app.
• The new Genmoji feature lets you create new emojis from a simple text description. See “Generate New Emojis.”
• The individual Control Center shortcut for Satellite has been removed—see “Connectivity.” However, the Connectivity platter still has a Satellite shortcut.
• There is a new section in Control Center with shortcuts to the Measure app and the Level feature. See “Measure.”
• There is a new Siri section in Control Center with a shortcut to the Type to Siri feature. See “Siri.”
• The Find My app now lets you share AirTag locations with others. See “Find My.”
• The Mail app now lets you easily filter messages. See “Mail.”
• There is now a central place to find all default app settings. See “Default Apps.”

What Was New in Version 1.1

Apple introduced the iPhone 16 line. The most notable new feature is the Camera Control, which lets you quickly access the Camera, take photos and videos, and change camera settings. This update adds a quick description of how the Camera Control works.