The Apple Intelligence suite of features has taken a small, but not permanent, step back with the release of iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3.
Some Notification Summaries Are Temporarily Unavailable
Notification summaries first arrived with iOS 18.1 and were part of the first round of Apple Intelligence features. The feature provides a summary of all your notifications instead of needing to scroll through and read each one.
But the feature made a number of high-profile errors that caused confusing, or completely incorrect information.
Apple is trying to alleviate those concerns with the new software update. The notification summary is temporarily unavailable for news and entertainment apps. There’s no timetable from Apple on when those will be available again.
Just like in previous iOS versions, you can also turn off notification summaries completely or on a per-app basis. You can do that by going to Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications.
The new update, though, allows you to turn off notification summaries in a new way. Just swipe left on the notification from the lockscreen, then select Options and Turn off Summaries.
Apple is now also making it much easier to see the difference between a notification summary and a regular notification. The text of notification summaries will be italicized and feature a summary glyph.
All of the changes in the update for notification summaries were greatly needed, and I’m glad to see Apple take those steps. It’s good to be able to see at a glance whether the notification is summarized or traditional.
Hopefully, Apple will take its time to improve the summary technology for news and entertainment apps.
Visual Intelligence Improvement for iPhone 16 Models
The Visual Intelligence feature, also part of Apple Intelligence, received some improvements with the update. It’s only available on the iPhone 16 lineup.
First up, you can easily add an event to your Calendar from a poster or flyer. The feature, which is activated with the Camera Control button, is also able to easily identify plants and animals.
If you’re interested in the feature but don’t want to buy a new iPhone, take a look at these Apple Intelligence alternatives for older models.
