After a light iOS 18.3 launch, Apple is finally ready to start the beta cycle of what should have been the most exciting iOS 18 update so far, as the company just seeded iOS 18.4 beta 1 to developers.
iOS 18.4 is expected to open the path for a really useful Siri, a personal assistant that can finally understand context and look through your messages and apps to find precisely what you need. While it’s unclear if these features will be already available with iOS 18.4 beta 1, the company will likely start adding these Apple Intelligence improvements over the coming months.
With a release date confirmed in April, Apple is also expected to expand Apple Intelligence languages. In this update, Apple says its AI platform will support Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
As mentioned above, a better Siri is another major feature expected to be available with iOS 18.4. Currently, Apple has only revamped its design, but it will soon be even more capable. Apple says that it will be able to “draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that’s tailored to them. Siri will also gain onscreen awareness and will be able to take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps.”
Apple is expected to offer other minor features, such as creating images in Image Playground in Sketch style and a better display of Priority Notifications across Apple and third-party apps.
With these features available, Apple will continue to improve Siri with iOS 19. The rumors so far reveal that the personal assistant might get powered by a new LLM, making it more conversational, just like ChatGPT.
Apple is currently playing catch up with other major tech companies, such as Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft. This is why Cupertino integrated some ChatGPT capabilities in Writing Tools with iOS 18.2. We also expect more GPTs to be available in the coming months.
That said, Apple is adding an Apple Vision Pro app to the iPhone so users can manage AppleCare, Guest Mode, spatial content, and more.
BGR will let you know if we learn more about what’s new with iOS 18.4 beta 1.
The post Apple releases iOS 18.4 beta 1 as we expect these 4 big new features appeared first on BGR.
