Update: Apple has released iOS 18.3.
In its press release unveiling a new Black Unity Sport Loop for the Apple Watch today, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.3 is "upcoming." According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple Stores are being instructed to update the software on demo devices today, so iOS 18.3 should be released either today or within the next few days.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summariesApple Intelligence notification summaries for news apps are temporarily unavailable on iOS 18.3, after the feature inaccurately summarized some news stories.
Starting with iOS 18.3, notifications that have been summarized have italicized text, which makes them stand out visually compared to regular notifications. Apple also promised that improvements to notification summaries are coming in a future iOS update.
Last, iOS 18.3 lets you easily manage settings for notification summaries from the Lock Screen.
Visual Intelligence Upgrades
All four iPhone 16 models are equipped with a Camera Control button that enables Visual Intelligence, a new feature that can provide information about items or places in a person's surroundings. For example, Apple says users can click and hold the Camera Control to bring up the hours or ratings for a restaurant that they pass by.
iOS 18.3 includes a few Visual Intelligence upgrades for all iPhone 16 models. First, you can now add an event to the Calendar app from a poster or flyer. Second, Visual Intelligence can now identify animals and plants.
Visual Intelligence is not available on any other iPhone models.
Calculator App Enhancement
iOS 18.3 reintroduces a small but useful Calculator app function that had been removed in an earlier software update. Now, when you tap the equals sign a second time, the Calculator app repeats the last mathematical operation. This functionality is useful for calculating compound interest or other repeat operations.
Black Unity
In honor of Black History Month this February, Apple today unveiled a new Black Unity Collection, consisting of a special-edition Black Unity Sport Loop for the Apple Watch, a Unity Rhythm watch face, and matching iPhone and iPad wallpapers.
The new Black Unity Sport Loop is available to order today, and the watch face and wallpapers will be available in the upcoming iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and watchOS 11.3 software updates, according to the band's product page.
More
iOS 18.3 fixes these two bugs related to Siri and Apple Music:
- Fixes an issue where the keyboard might disappear when initiating a typed Siri request
- Resolves an issue where audio playback continues until the song ends even after closing Apple Music
Apple also added references to robot vacuum support in the Home app to iOS 18.3's code, but it seems this functionality never went live. Apple's website says the feature is coming in a future update, so perhaps we will see it with iOS 18.4.
We previously shared Apple's full iOS 18.3 release notes.
