Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas.

Generic iOS 18
iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update.

With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications Apple Intelligence feature, which is designed to determine which of your notifications are the most important, highlighting them in an easy-to-see dedicated section on the Lock Screen.

The update includes a new Apple News+ Food section for ‌Apple News‌+ subscribers, plus it adds the Sketch style to Image Playground so you can generate images that look hand drawn. ‌Apple Intelligence‌ is also available in more languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified), along with localized English for Singapore and India.

There are new emoji characters, and a dedicated Vision Pro app that allows Vision Pro owners to find and download content, manage the headset, control guest experiences, and more, right from the iPhone.

Mail Categorization has expanded to the iPad, and there's a new Ambient Music feature for playing relaxing music from Control Center. There are a number of other smaller features too, with details available in our iOS 18.4 features guide.

Apple plans to release iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in early April, and the RC represents the final version of the software that will be provided to the public should no issues be found.

Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

Popular Stories

iOS 27 Next to iPhone

Here's When iOS 27 Rolls Out Around the World

Sunday September 13, 2026 3:00 am PDT by
Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event that it will be releasing iOS 27 sometime tomorrow – Monday, September 14. iOS 27 won't be the only release on...
iOS 27 Icon iPhone

iOS 27 Available Tomorrow With These 8 New Features

Sunday September 13, 2026 4:30 pm PDT by
During its iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo event last week, Apple announced that iOS 27 will be released widely on Monday, September 14. iOS 27 should be available around 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow via the Settings app, under General → Software Update. Below, we have highlighted eight new features and changes coming with iOS 27, with the main attraction being a...
deep black iphone 18 pro

Apple Says iPhone 18 Pro Max Sold in U.S. Differs in One Way

Saturday September 12, 2026 3:27 pm PDT by
As noted by Nicolas Lellouche, who writes for the French tech website Numerama, Apple has updated its tech specs pages for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max to clarify which models are equipped with its new C2 cellular modem and where. Apple now says the iPhone 18 Pro has a C2 modem worldwide, while the iPhone 18 Pro Max uses the chip in every country except for the U.S. According...

Top Rated Comments

attohs Avatar
19 months ago
Please 🙏 fix a bug, any bug. Stop throwing new bugs at me and just squash one. I beg you.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
diego.caraballo Avatar
19 months ago
18.4 “Rushed Edition”
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
19 months ago
build number for both is 22E239

here are builds of the other stuff released today

iPadOS 17.7.6 RC (21H423)
macOS 15.4 RC (24E246)
macOS 14.7.5 RC 5 (23H527)
macOS 13.7.5 RC 5 (22H527)
tvOS 18.4 RC (22L254)
audioOS 18.4 RC (22L254)
visionOS 2.4 RC (22O237)
watchOS 11.4 RC (22T250)
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sw1tcher Avatar
19 months ago

Bugs are very beneficial. Ohhhhh... you mean softwae bugs. Please enlighten us to a bug that's interfering with your daily usage.
Might not be a bug that affects you, but the no notification from Mail app (iOS 18.3.2) for incoming emails is annoying if you need to know when important work emails come in. Now I have to manually check every so often so I don't accidentally miss something.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255969944?sortBy=rank

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mail-notification-sound-non-op.2449146/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/18-3-2-ios-ipados-no-mail-notifications-or-updates.2452926/
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ghostface147 Avatar
19 months ago
Jeez, Verizon’s network had me download the full build in like two minutes. Not bad for 7.3 gigs.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rGiskard Avatar
19 months ago

Please 🙏 fix a bug, any bug. Stop throwing new bugs at me and just squash one. I beg you.
Apple needs an iOS version without a single new feature. Spend a year on bug extermination. I’m still plagued with a significant Mail bug introduced in 18.0 (both iPadOS and iOS). It’s ridiculous. Steve Jobs would have gone Krakatoa on the iOS team for this kind of sloppiness.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)