Apple's iOS 18.4 is here, and it includes a new AI notification feature — but maybe not the one you wanted.
Thanks to Apple Intelligence, anyone with iOS 18.4 and a new enough iPhone can enjoy "priority notifications," which automatically organizes your incoming notifications based on importance.
That may sound useful in theory, but if Apple's last AI notifications endevaor is any indicator, you may not want to get your hopes up.
Apple introduces priority notifications in iOS 18.4
iOS 18.4 was originally expected to roll out in April, but Apple launched it a little early on March 31.
Any iPhone from the iPhone XR onward is eligible to download it (including the iPhone SE 2nd and 3rd generation). If you want to install it, all you need to do is go into your Settings app, select General, and select Software Update. If your phone is compatible, you should see an option to install iOS 18.4.
This update includes a few small tweaks and additions, like a handful of new emojis and the introduction of recipes in Apple News.
The most significant feature is priority notifications, which uses Apple Intelligence to identify the most important or urgent notifications and put them at the top of your lock screen.
You can still swipe down to see the rest of your notifications like normal, but this feature can help make sure time-sensitive updates don't get lost in the weeds.
Of course, you can also turn off priority notifications completely by going into the Settings app and selecting Notifications.
If your phone is compatible with Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro or any iPhone 16), you should see an option to "Prioritize Notifications" under the Apple Intelligence section of your notification settings. If you don't want to use the feature, simply turn off that option.
What happened to Apple's AI notification summaries?
If you're getting flashbacks hearing about an AI feature to sort notifications on your iPhone, it may be because Apple previously introduced AI notification summaries in January. However, that feature was temporarily paused, at least for news and entertainment apps, after users spotted it generating inaccurate summaries of news stories.
While Apple users didn't seem particularly upset about losing the feature, it was still yet another fumble for Apple's AI rollout.
Hopefully, priority notifications work better than notification summaries. At first glance, priority notifications seem more useful and less likely to run into problems since this feature doesn't require Apple's AI to generate anything, only sort what's already there.
It will most likely rely on identifying certain words and phrases in your notifications, such as "soon" or dates and times.
Whether it will go more smoothly than Apple's last AI notification experiment is anyone's guess, but between Apple's Siri fumble and notification summaries, Apple should hope its latest offering works as planned.
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