We can’t say it’s a major update on the level of iOS 18.2, in which Apple released its AI model, Apple Intelligence, to iPhones, but today’s release of iOS 18.3 brings some sorely needed updates to soothe a chaotic two months that saw Apple Intelligence in the news for all the wrong reasons.
It’s not all damage control, though. The new update contains a few tweaks that are welcome additions to the iPhone range, and if you’re the type to let your iPhone updates languish, you should reconsider—at least just for now.
one bad apple that spoiled the bunch
One of the biggest positive changes is not what’s been added in iOS 18.3, but what’s been mercifully taken away. That is, Apple News’ dalliance with AI-assisted news summaries has been yanked after two months of fake-news-packed stumbles since it was pushed out to all users who updated to iOS 18.2 this past December.
The flawed AI summaries stuck around through the so-so minor update of iOS 18.2.1, but at least Apple let us know that the next software update would bring a withdrawal of the faulty project.
I entirely doubt that Apple will give up their AI-summarized headline project permanently, or that other companies won’t roll out the same thing. I wouldn’t bet a dime against it. But at least when it inevitably returns, it’ll do so in a more vetted, responsible manner.
So enough of the course correction. What iOS 18.3 adds to the iPhone 16’s Visual Intelligence (sorry, older iPhones) is pretty neat. If you have Apple Intelligence turned on, you can now add events to Apple Calendar by taking a picture of a flyer or poster. Visual Intelligence will scan it for the date and time to add as an event in your Calendar app.
Users were already able to use Visual Intelligence to snap pictures of plants and animals for identification, and the update broadens the range of plants and animals that can be identified. This, too, is for the iPhone 16 range, only. Older iPhones don’t have Visual Intelligence, and so these aspects of the update are lost on them.
The rest of the iOS 18.3 are minor house cleaning issues, such as fixes for the malfunctioning Calculator app, keyboard snafus, and audio playback problems.
You only get these additions—and that one important subtraction—if your phone updates to iOS 18.3. If you’ve got automatic updates turned on, great. It’ll update for you at some point.
If you’re not sure you do or if you just get impatient, you can go into your iPhone’s Settings app, click General, tap Software Update, and leave Fake News City behind. At least for a while, when it comes to Apple News.
Just know that Apple Intelligence is now turned on by default for iOS 18.3, so if you’re not a fan, make sure you go into your settings and turn it off, even if you hadn’t turned it on earlier.
The post iOS 18.3 Is Here, and Apple News’ Faulty AI Notifications Are Not appeared first on VICE.
