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

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

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, potentially as soon as next week.

Related Forums: iOS 18, iPadOS 18

Popular Stories

Touchscreen MacBook Feature

Apple Is Expected to Launch These Four MacBooks in 2026

Friday January 9, 2026 8:17 am PST by
2026 could be a bumper year for Apple's Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop. Below is a breakdown of what we're expecting over the next ...
iPhone Top Left Hole Punch Face ID Feature Purple

10 Reasons to Wait for This Year's iPhone 18 Pro

Thursday January 8, 2026 2:56 am PST by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. One thing worth...
proposed unicode emoji 18%402x

Squinting Face, Pickle, and Lighthouse Among New Emoji Coming to iOS

Friday January 9, 2026 4:24 am PST by
The Unicode Consortium has published a draft list of emoji that could come to smartphones and other devices in the future. The list shared by Emojipedia outlines 19 emoji candidates under consideration for Emoji 18.0, which is expected to be finalized in September 2026. Among the proposed additions are a squinting face emoji, left- and right-pointing thumb gestures, a pickle, a lighthouse, a ...
apple homekit ios 18 5

Apple Reminding Users of Pending Home App Upgrade Requirement

Friday January 9, 2026 10:08 am PST by
Back in late 2022 and early 2023, Apple rolled out a new architecture for its Apple Home platform to deliver improved performance and compatibility, although the rollout came with some hiccups that forced Apple to pull and later re-release the upgrade. Three years later, Apple is now on the verge of ending support for the old version of the Home architecture, which may result in access to...
grok logo purple gradient

U.S. Senators Ask Apple and Google to Remove X and Grok Apps Over Sexualized Image Generation

Friday January 9, 2026 9:43 am PST by
In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, Ben Ray Lujan, and Edward Markey have requested that Apple and Google remove X Corp's X and Grok apps from their app stores over recent incidents of "mass generation of nonconsensual sexualized images of women and children." X has come under fire over the past week amid reports of Grok's AI image...
iOS 26 Glass Feature

iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release

Thursday January 8, 2026 3:44 pm PST by
iOS 26 is showing unusually slow adoption among iPhone users months after release, according to third-party analytics. Usage data published by StatCounter (via Cult of Mac) for January 2026 indicates that only around 15 to 16% of active iPhones worldwide are running any version of iOS 26. The breakdown shows iOS 26.1 accounting for approximately 10.6% of devices, iOS 26.2 for about 4.6%, and ...
iphone fold text

iPhone Fold to Pave Way for Thinner, Brighter Display on iPhone Air 2

Friday January 9, 2026 3:37 am PST by
The iPhone Fold will be the first Apple device to adopt a Samsung-made OLED technology called CoE (Color Filter on Encapsulation), which could make the display brighter and thinner than previous panels, reports The Elec. In a traditional OLED panel, a polarizing film sits above the display to cut reflections and improve contrast. The drawback is that this film also absorbs some of the OLED's ...

Top Rated Comments

Lounge vibes 05 Avatar
10 months ago
This time we get proper release notes.

Apple Intelligence (All iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max)


* Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention
* Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings
* Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US)



Apple Vision Pro App


* The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device



Apple News+


* Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+
* Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes
* Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions
* The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating, and more



Photos


* New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos
* Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos
* Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos
* Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos
* Ability to disable “Recently Viewed” and “Recently Shared” collections in Photos Settings
* Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings



This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:


* Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query
* Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account for a kid in their family, and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later
* Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app
* App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance
* Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress
* New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved, and Downloaded
* Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life
* Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library
* Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automations
* Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Windoes Avatar
10 months ago

Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu
Oh Canada be aware now
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
er2429 Avatar
10 months ago
Where is lossless bros
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lanceuppercut47 Avatar
10 months ago

Bluetooth fix coming for 15 Pro?
Also, hopefully a make it less ugly fix for 17 Pro/Pro Max?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
uczcret Avatar
10 months ago
Build number is 22E240. IPSW is up on the developer portal.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dog Bone Malone Avatar
10 months ago
I had a sneaky feeling there would be an RC2. My 16+ has been running like a bag of nails since RC1. Especially the random full reboots when using 'Find My'.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)