Apple just released the third major update to iOS 18, bringing with it all manner of changes. There are new features to try out, essential security updates, and modifications to one particularly controversial feature. But perhaps most notably, iOS 18.3 sees Apple Intelligence move from an opt-in beta release to something that’s switched on by default. Let’s dig in.
Notification summaries
After a series of high-profile errors were accused of spreading misinformation, Apple has backtracked on some aspects of its AI-powered notification summaries. You’ll no longer see summaries for any app in the News & Entertainment category, although Apple plans to bring this back once it has refined the feature further.
You can also disable these automatic summaries for individual apps, either from Settings or by swiping left on one of the alerts. Finally, the text in notification summaries is now italicized to make it clearer users are seeing AI-generated text that could be wrong.
Apple Intelligence
As mentioned earlier, Apple Intelligence is now an opt-out function, rather than opt-in. It will be set up automatically when upgrading to iOS 18.3 on a compatible device.
If you’re not a big fan of the AI features, or you just don’t want to sacrifice 7GB+ for the privilege of making your own emoji, you at least get the choice to switch it off again. You can easily disable the feature from Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri.
Smaller changes
As ever, Apple bundles a ton of bug fixes and security improvements with each software release, and iOS 18.3 is no different. If you’ve had issues with Apple Music playback or typed Siri requests, those should now be fixed. You’ll also notice some improvements to Visual Intelligence, and the Calculator app will repeat an action when you tap the equals button. Huge news, right?
More importantly, the update also addresses a list of 29 serious-sounding security vulnerabilities, so we’d recommend downloading it ASAP to protect yourself against potential attacks.
How to get iOS 18.3
Note that even with Automatic Updates switched on in Settings, it’s often faster to manually trigger the update process. Go to Settings > General > Software Update to check for the latest version of iOS, and App Store > Account to see which apps are due an update.