Apple has officially rolled out iOS 18.4, and if you haven’t updated your iPhone yet, now’s a good time to check your settings. This latest version brings several practical changes—some noticeable, others more subtle—that aim to improve how you use your device on a daily basis. From updates to the Photos app to a new ambient music feature and smarter notifications, iOS 18.4 touches multiple corners of the operating system.
Let’s break down what’s new, what’s useful, and what might actually make a difference in how your iPhone feels day to day.
One of the main features in iOS 18.4 is something Apple is calling “Priority Notifications.” If your lock screen often looks like a wall of unread alerts, this feature might help clean things up. It uses Apple’s AI system—called Apple Intelligence—to figure out which notifications are most important to you and bumps them to the top. It’s designed to save you the hassle of sorting through a pile of alerts just to find the one that actually matters.
The AI system also now supports more languages, including French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. There are also regional versions of English for Singapore and India. That means more people around the world can access the system in a language and dialect that feels natural.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the number of photos and albums in your library, you’re not alone. With iOS 18.4, Apple is giving users a few new tools to help sort and customize how photos are displayed.
For starters, you can now filter your collections by album or by date, making it a little easier to find what you’re looking for. There's also an option to hide automatically generated albums like “Recently Shared” and “Recently Viewed,” which some users might find cluttered or unnecessary. These tweaks won’t revolutionize your photo experience, but they can make it feel a bit more tailored to how you use your phone.
For Apple News+ subscribers, there’s a new section to explore: food. Yep, Apple has officially added recipes to its premium news service. Inside the new Food section, you’ll find a Recipe Catalog where you can browse and save recipes. Once you pick one, you can switch to “Cooking View,” a simplified layout that makes it easier to follow along while you’re in the kitchen—think bigger text and fewer distractions.
A new feature called Ambient Music has also quietly appeared in the Control Center. It’s not a full-blown music app, but it does give you access to curated playlists that aim to suit your mood or environment.
The four options—Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing—can be played directly from the Control Center and don’t require any additional setup. It’s the kind of thing you might use for a bit of background noise while working or winding down.
It wouldn’t be a proper iOS update without some new emoji. This time, Apple has added characters like a “Face with Bags Under Eyes,” “Harp,” “Shovel,” “Root Vegetable,” and even a “Splatter” emoji. There’s also the flag of Sark, a small island in the English Channel. Whether you’ll use them regularly or not is another question, but they’re there if you want to freshen up your texts.
If you’ve got Apple’s Vision Pro headset, you’ll notice a new app after updating. The iPhone now installs a companion app that connects to the Vision Pro, giving you updates on new content and features available for the headset. It’s automatic if your Apple ID is linked to a Vision Pro.
There are also a handful of smaller but still helpful improvements scattered throughout iOS 18.4:
As with every iOS release, iOS 18.4 includes under-the-hood security patches. These aren’t always visible to users, but they help protect against newly discovered vulnerabilities. Apple has posted a full list of security updates on its website if you want to dive into the technical details.
If your iPhone supports iOS 18, you can install the update by heading to Settings > General > Software Update. It’s always a good idea to back up your device first—just in case anything goes sideways.
