iOS 18.4 Is Almost Here With Priority Notifications, Visual Intelligence for iPhone 15 Pro Series, and More

Apple's next iPhone update, iOS 18.4, is just around the corner, and while it may have started out as a low-key release, it's now shaping up to be more meaningful than expected.

Scheduled to arrive in April, this update is part of Apple's ongoing push to bring more on-device AI features-what the company calls Apple Intelligence-into the hands of everyday users.

What started as a few Siri enhancements has grown into a multi-layered update that brings smarter notifications, more creative tools, better accessibility, and broader language support. If you've been waiting for Apple's AI features to actually do something useful, this update might finally make things click.

Here's a closer look at what iOS 18.4 is bringing to the table.

Priority Notifications

One of the more noticeable changes will be how notifications behave. Apple is introducing Priority Notifications, which splits your alerts into two visual tiers on the lock screen. Important ones-like a payment reminder or a message from a close contact-get bumped up to a clearly marked section. Everything else drops below.

The best part? You can tweak this per app, so you're not stuck with Apple's judgment. This should make life easier for anyone who's tired of being interrupted by every app fighting for attention.

Visual Intelligence Expands to iPhone 15 Pro Models

If you've been following Apple's AI features, you might remember Visual Intelligence launching last year as an exclusive to the iPhone 16 series. Now, Apple is bringing it to the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, finally making that feature available to more people.

It doesn't rely on a hardware button anymore. Instead, you can access Visual Intelligence through the Control Center, assign it to your Action Button, or place it on your lock screen.

A New Creative Touch in Image Playground

Apple's Image Playground app, introduced last December, lets you generate AI-powered images in different styles. Up till now, you could only pick from Animation and Illustration modes. With iOS 18.4, there's a new option: Sketch.

This one gives your creations a hand-drawn, pencil-sketch vibe-something that might appeal to casual artists or anyone looking to add a more raw, creative aesthetic to their visuals. It's not a huge change, but it adds to the personality of the app.

App Store Gets AI-Powered Review Summaries

Scrolling through dozens of reviews before downloading an app can be a pain, especially when you're just looking for a quick answer: "Is this worth my time?"

In iOS 18.4, Apple is adding AI-generated summaries of user reviews right in the App Store. It'll give you a short, to-the-point breakdown of what people are saying-without replacing the full reviews, which you can still access if you want more detail.

It's a small quality-of-life improvement, but one that might make app discovery a bit smoother.

Apple Intelligence Goes Multilingual

Until now, Apple's AI tools were mostly English-only, which obviously limited who could use them. That's finally changing.

With iOS 18.4, Apple Intelligence will support eight new languages, including:

• French

• German

• Italian

• Portuguese (Brazil)

• Spanish

• Japanese

• Korean

• Chinese (Simplified)

There's also localized English support for India and Singapore, which helps bridge regional variations in how English is used.

Availability

The iOS 18.4 release candidate became available on Monday, while the official public rollout of the update is expected to happen sometime next month.