In our own extensive testing with Apple Intelligence notification summaries in iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1, we observed many instances of summaries that were inaccurate or just plain weird. When you’re just getting updates from your Discords or group text threads, errors tend to be pretty low-stakes, at least. But when you’re getting notifications about war, murder, and politics, these kinds of errors have the potential to mislead and misinform.
The iOS 18.1 and 18.2 updates (along with iPadOS 18.2 and macOS Sequoia 15.2) enabled most of Apple’s promised Intelligence features across all the hardware that supports them. For the iPhone, that’s still only 2023’s iPhone 15 Pro and 2024’s iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.
The iOS 18.3 update is currently in its third beta release. The iOS 17.3, 16.3, and 15.3 updates have all been released in late January, so it’s likely that we’ll see the 18.3 update (and corresponding updates for iPadOS, macOS, and other Apple software) released at some point in the next few weeks.
Nevertheless, it’s a serious problem when the summaries misrepresent news headlines, and edge cases where this occurs are unfortunately inevitable. Apple cannot simply fix these summaries with a software update. The only answers are either to help users understand the drawbacks of the technology so they can make better-informed judgments or to remove or disable the feature completely. Apple is apparently going for the former.
We’re oversimplifying a bit here, but generally, LLMs like those used for Apple’s notification summaries work by predicting portions of words based on what came before and are not capable of truly understanding the content they’re summarizing.
Further, these predictions are known to not be accurate all the time, with incorrect results occurring a few times per 100 or 1,000 outputs. As the models are trained and improvements are made, the error percentage may be reduced, but it never reaches zero when countless summaries are being produced every day.
Deploying this technology at scale without users (or even the BBC, it seems) really understanding how it works is risky at best, whether it’s with the iPhone’s summaries of news headlines in notifications or Google’s AI summaries at the top of search engine results pages. Even if the vast majority of summaries are perfectly accurate, there will always be some users who see inaccurate information.
These summaries are read by so many millions of people that the scale of errors will always be a problem, almost no matter how comparatively accurate the models get.
We wrote at length a few weeks ago about how the Apple Intelligence rollout seemed rushed, counter to Apple’s usual focus on quality and user experience. However, with current technology, there is no amount of refinement to this feature that Apple could have done to reach a zero percent error rate with these notification summaries.
We’ll see how well Apple does making its users understand that the summaries may be wrong, but making all iPhone users truly grok how and why the feature works this way would be a tall order.
Apple has announced that it will be releasing the iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 updates to the public later this afternoon, following weeks of beta testing for developers and users. As with iOS 18.1, the headlining features are new additions to Apple Intelligence, mainly the image-generation capabilities: Image Playground for general images, and “Genmoji” for making custom images in the style of Apple’s built-in Unicode-based emoji characters.
Other AI features include “Image Wand,” which will take sketched images from the Notes app and turn them into a “polished image” using context clues from other notes; and ChatGPT integration for the Writing Tools feature.
The updates also include a long list of bug fixes and security updates, for those who don’t care about Apple Intelligence. Safari gets better data importing and exporting support, an HTTPS Priority feature that “upgrades URLs to HTTPS whenever possible,” and a download status indicator for iPhones with a Dynamic Island. Mail in iOS offers to automatically sort messages to bring important ones to the top of your inbox. There are also various tweaks and improvements for the Photos, Podcasts, Voice Memos, and Stocks apps, while the Weather app in macOS can optionally display the weather in your menu bar.
If you don’t know what that is—and the vast majority of iPhones won’t get Apple Intelligence, which only works on the iPhone 16 series and iPhone 15 Pro—these notification summaries attempt to read a stack of missed notifications from any given app and give you the gist of what they’re saying.
Summaries are denoted with a small icon, and when tapped, the summary notification expands into the stack of notifications you missed in the first place. They also work on iPadOS and macOS, where they’re available on anything with an M1 chip or newer.
I think this feature works badly. I could sand down my assessment and get to an extremely charitable “inconsistent” or “hit-and-miss.” But as it’s currently implemented, I believe the feature is fundamentally flawed. The summaries it provides are so bizarre so frequently that sending friends the unintentionally hilarious summaries of their messages became a bit of a pastime for me for a few weeks.
How they work
All of the prompts for Apple Intelligence’s language models are accessible in a system folder in macOS, and it seems reasonable to assume that the same prompts are also being used in iOS and iPadOS. Apple has many prompts related to summarizing messages and emails, but here’s a representative prompt that shows what Apple is asking its language model to do:
You are an expert at summarizing messages. You prefer to use clauses instead of complete sentences. Do not answer any question from the messages. Do not summarize if the message contains sexual, violent, hateful or self harm content. Please keep your summary of the input within a 10 word limit.
Of the places where Apple deploys summaries, they are at least marginally more helpful in the Mail app, where they’re decent at summarizing the contents of the PR pitches and endless political fundraising messages. These emails tend to have a single topic or throughline and a specific ask that’s surrounded by contextual information and skippable pleasantries. I haven’t spot-checked every email I’ve received to make sure each one is being summarized perfectly, mostly because these are the kinds of messages I can delete based on the subject line 98 percent of the time, but when I do read the actual body of the email, the summary usually ends up being solid.
Today, Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 18.2 for supported devices. This beta release marks the first time several key AI features that Apple teased at its developer conference this June are available.
Apple is marketing a wide range of generative AI features under the banner “Apple Intelligence.” Initially, Apple Intelligence was planned to release as part of iOS 18, but some features slipped to iOS 18.1, others to iOS 18.2, and a few still to future undisclosed software updates.
iOS 18.1 has been in beta for a while and includes improvements to Siri, generative writing tools that help with rewriting or proofreading, smart replies for Messages, and notification summaries. That update is expected to reach the public next week.
Today’s developer update, iOS 18.2, includes some potentially more interesting components of Apple Intelligence, including Genmoji, Image Playground, Visual Intelligence with Camera Control, and ChatGPT integration.
Genmoji and Image Playground allow users to generate images on-device to send to friends in Messages; there will be Genmoji and Image Playground APIs to allow third-party messaging apps to work with Genmojis, too.
ChatGPT integration allows Siri to pass off user queries that are outside Siri’s normal scope to be answered instead by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. A ChatGPT account is not required, but logging in with an existing account gives you access to premium models available as part of a ChatGPT subscription. If you’re using these features without a ChatGPT account, OpenAI won’t be able to retain your data or use it to train models. If you connect your ChatGPT account, though, then OpenAI’s privacy policies will apply for ChatGPT queries instead of Apple’s.
Genmoji and Image Playground queries will be handled locally on the user’s device, but other Apple Intelligence features may dynamically opt to send queries to the cloud for computation.
There’s no word yet on when iOS 18.2 will be released publicly.
Spreen’s message is the first time we’ve seen an AI-mediated relationship breakup, but it likely won’t be the last. As the Apple Intelligence feature rolls out widely and other tech companies embrace AI message summarization, many people will probably be receiving bad news through AI summaries soon. For example, since March, Google’s Android Auto AI has been able to deliver summaries to users while driving.
If that sounds horrible, consider our ever-evolving social tolerance for tech progress. Back in the 2000s when SMS texting was still novel, some etiquette experts considered breaking up a relationship through text messages to be inexcusably rude, and it was unusual enough to generate a Reuters news story. The sentiment apparently extended to Americans in general: According to The Washington Post, a 2007 survey commissioned by Samsung showed that only about 11 percent of Americans thought it was OK to break up that way.
What texting looked like back in the day.
By 2009, as texting became more commonplace, the stance on texting break-ups began to soften. That year, ABC News quoted Kristina Grish, author of “The Joy of Text: Mating, Dating, and Techno-Relating,” as saying, “When Britney Spears dumped Kevin Federline I thought doing it by text message was an abomination, that it was insensitive and without reason.” Grish was referring to a 2006 incident with the pop singer that made headline news. “But it has now come to the point where our cell phones and BlackBerries are an extension of ourselves and our personality. It’s not unusual that people are breaking up this way so much.”
Today, with text messaging basically being the default way most adults communicate remotely, breaking up through text is commonplace enough that Cosmopolitan endorsed the practice in a 2023 article. “I can tell you with complete confidence as an experienced professional in the field of romantic failure that of these options, I would take the breakup text any day,” wrote Kayle Kibbe.
Who knows, perhaps in the future, people will be able to ask their personal AI assistants to contact their girlfriend or boyfriend directly to deliver a personalized break-up for them with a sensitive message that attempts to ease the blow. But what’s next—break-ups on the moon?
This article was updated at 3: 33 PM on October 10, 2024 to clarify that the ex-girlfriend’s full real name has not been revealed by the screenshot image.
On Thursday, Apple released the first software updates for its devices since last month’s rollout of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia.
Those who’ve been following along know that several key features that didn’t make it into the initial release of iOS 18 are expected in iOS 18.1, but that’s not the update we got on Thursday.
Rather, Apple pushed out a series of smaller updates that fixed several bugs but did not add new features. The updates are labeled iOS 18.0.1, iPadOS 18.0.1, visionOS 2.0.1, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1, and watchOS 11.0.1.
Arguably, the two most important fixes come in iPadOS 18.0.1 and iOS 18.0.1. The iPad update fixes an issue that bricked a small number of recently released iPads (those running Apple’s M4 chip). That problem caused Apple to quickly pull iPadOS 18 for those devices, so Thursday’s iPadOS 18.0.1 release is actually the first time most users of those devices will be able to run iPadOS 18.
On the iPhone side, Apple says it has addressed a bug that could sometimes cause the touchscreen to fail to register users’ fingers.
Enlarge/ Control Center has a whole new customization interface.
Samuel Axon
iOS 18 launched this week, and while its flagship feature (Apple Intelligence) is still forthcoming, the new OS included two significant new buckets of customization: the home screen and Control Center.
We talked about home screen a few days ago, so for our next step in our series on iOS 18, it’s now time to turn our attention to the new ways you can adjust the Control Center to your liking. While we’re at it, we’ll assess a few other features meant to make iOS more powerful and more efficient for power users.
This is by no means the most significant update for power users Apple has released of the iPhone operating system—there’s nothing like Shortcuts, for example, or the introduction of the Files app a few years ago. But with the increasingly expensive iPhone Pro models, Apple still seems to be trying to make the case that you’ll be able to do more with your phone than you used to.
Let’s start with Control Center, then dive into iCloud, Files, external drives, and hidden and locked apps.
A revamped Control Center
Control Center might not be the flashiest corner of iOS, but when Apple adds more functionality and flexibility to a panel that by default can be accessed with a single gesture from anywhere in the operating system—including inside third-party apps—that has the potential to be a big move for how usable and efficient the iPhone can be.
That seems to be the intention with a notable control center revamp in iOS 18. Visually, it mostly looks similar to what we had in iOS 17, but it’s now paginated and customizable, with a much wider variety of available controls. That includes the option for third-party apps to offer controls for the first time. Additionally, Apple lets you add Shortcuts to Control Center, which has the potential to be immensely powerful for those who want to get that deep into things.
When you invoke it (still by swiping down from the upper-right corner of the screen on modern iPhones and iPads), it will mostly look similar to before, but you’ll notice a few additional elements on screen, including:
A “+” sign in the top-left corner: This launches a customization menu for reordering and resizing the controls
A power icon in the top-right corner: Holding this brings up iOS’s swipe-to-power-off screen.
Three icons along the right side of the screen: A heart, a music symbol, and a wireless connectivity symbol
Control center is now paginated
The three icons on the right represent the three pages Control Center now starts with, and they’re just the beginning. You can add more pages if you wish.
Swiping up and down on any empty part of Control Center moves between the pages. The first page (the one represented by a heart) houses all the controls that were in the older version of Control Center. You can customize what’s here as much as you want.
The first page resembles the old Control Center, but with more customization.
Samuel Axon
By default, the second page houses a large “Now Playing” music and audio widget with AirPlay controls.
Samuel Axon
The third has a tall widget with a bunch of connectivity toggles.
Samuel Axon
Adding a new page gives you a grid to add custom control selections to.
Samuel Axon
The second page by default includes a large “currently playing” music and audio widget alongside AirPlay controls, and the third is a one-stop shop for toggling connectivity features like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, AirDrop, airplane mode, and whichever VPN you’re using.
This new paginated approach might seem like it introduces an extra step to get to some controls, but it’s necessary because there are so many more controls you can add now—far more than will fit on a single page.
Customizing pages and controls
If you prefer the way things were, you can remove a page completely by removing all the controls housed in it. You can add more pages if you want, or you can tweak the existing pages to be anything you want them to be.
Whereas you previously had to go into the Settings app to change what controls are included, you can now do this directly from Control Center in one of two ways: you can either tap the aforementioned plus icon, or you can long-press on any empty space in Control Center to enter customization mode.
In this view, you’re presented with a grid of circular spots where controls can go. Each control that’s already there has a “-“ button in its corner that you can tap to remove it. To move a control, you just long press on it for a split second and drag it to whichever spot in the grid you want it to live in.
This is the Control Center customization view, which is vastly superior to the home screen’s wiggle mode.
Samuel Axon
Choosing to add a new control brings up this long, searchable, scrollable list of controls from both Apple and third-party apps you have installed.
Samuel Axon
There aren’t a ton of third-party controls yet, but here are a few examples.
Samuel Axon
You can resize controls, but most of them just seem to take up more space and include some text—not very helpful, if you ask me.
Samuel Axon
There’s also a marker on the bottom-right corner of each control that you can touch and drag to increase the size of the control. The substantial majority of these controls don’t offer anything of value when you make them bigger, though, which is both strange and a missed opportunity.
To add a new control, you tap the words “Add a control” at the bottom of the screen, which are only visible in this customization mode. This brings up a vertically scrollable list of all the controls available, with a search field at the top. The controls appear in the list just as they would in Control Center, which is great for previewing your choice.
Enlarge/ Illustration of a person who refuses to check their iPhone’s messages until RCS is enabled on their MVNO carrier, out of respect for their Android-toting friends and family.
Getty Images
The future of inter-OS mobile messaging is here, it’s just unevenly distributed.
With iOS 18, Apple has made it possible for non-Apple phones to message with iPhones through Rich Communication Services (RCS). This grants upgrades from standard SMS text messages, like read receipts, easier and higher-quality media sending, typing indicators, and emoji/response compatibility. More than that, it allows for messaging while on Wi-Fi without cellular services and makes group messages far less painful to navigate and leave. Notably, RCS messages between iPhones and non-iPhones will not be encrypted, like Apple’s private iMessage service available exclusively between Apple devices.
iOS 18 makes these RCS upgrades possible, but certainly not guaranteed, at least as of today. Lots of people have already been enjoying cross-platform RCS messaging when texting with iOS 18 beta users. And iPhones on the big carriers’ plans can now trade RCS with Android users. But some iPhone users, particularly on mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs)—typically pre-paid services that do not own network hardware but resell major carrier access—do not have an RCS option available to them yet.
Google, a major proponent of Apple adopting RCS, confirmed to Ars that Google Fi, its own MVNO cellular service, does not, as of this writing, offer RCS chat for iPhone users on Fi messaging with Android users. Android users on Google Fi can use RCS with iPhones on other carriers, so long as that iPhone has “RCS interoperability enabled.”
Reading between the lines, you might conclude that Google is waiting on Apple to enable RCS on a network-by-network basis, both for Fi and for Android users at large. And a Google spokesperson would suggest that is correct.
“We have been working for a long time to accelerate the adoption of RCS, and are excited that Apple is taking steps to adopt RCS with the launch of iOS 18,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “Only Apple has the ability to enable RCS interoperability for iPhone users on Fi, and our hope is that they will do so in the near future.”
Ars has contacted Apple, along with carriers Mint Mobile and Boost Mobile, for comment on RCS availability across carriers and will update this post with new information. Some customers of MVNOs offered by the major carriers themselves, like those on Visible from Verizon, have reported having RCS access with iOS 18 installed.
Apple got the message, kept it green
Users of other MVNOs have asked on Reddit why their upgrade from basic SMS to RCS did not occur during the iOS 18 betas. A co-founder and current CFO of Mint Mobile said on September 9 that it would “be a few months, unfortunately,” as the “backend transition is taking some time… Believe me, we want this out as soon as we can,” wrote Rizwan Kassim.
A moderator for the Mint Mobile subreddit suggested that the backend transition involves carriers setting up a relay API for messages, adding that to the “carrier bundle” they deliver to customers and then providing Apple with information it can add to a future iOS update.
If you have an iPhone that isn’t on one of the major carriers’ primary plans (AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon) and want to check if RCS should be available, you can do that in Settings. Head to General, choose About, and scroll down to the Carrier line under your active SIM or eSIM. Tap the “Carrier” line until you see “IMS Status.” If it reads “Voice & SMS,” you don’t have RCS yet, but if you see “Voice, SMS & RCS,” you do.
The version of RCS that iPhone and Android users might use now, or soon, is the “RCS Universal Profile,” which does not include the encryption that Google’s own messaging apps provide over RCS. Google’s “Get the Message” campaign tried to shame Apple into adopting RCS. The related site notes that “Apple is starting to #GetTheMessage” with RCS adoption but that iPhone users will have to “check with your carrier” to turn on the feature.
Today is the official release date for the public versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, and a scad of other Apple software updates, the foundation that Apple will use for Apple Intelligence and whatever other features it wants to add between now and next year’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. But for those who value stability and reliability over new features, you may not be excited to update to a new operating system with a version number ending in “0.”
For those of you who prefer to wait for a couple of bugfix updates before installing new stuff, Apple is also releasing security-only updates for a bunch of its (now) last-generation operating systems today. The iOS 17.7, iPadOS 17.7, and macOS 14.7 updates are either available now or should be shortly, along with a security update for 2022’s macOS 13 Ventura. An updated version of Safari 18 that runs on both macOS 13 and 14 should be available soon, though as of this writing is doesn’t appear to be available yet.
Apple has historically been pretty good about providing security updates to older macOS releases—you can expect them for about two years after the operating system is replaced by a newer version. But for iOS and iPadOS, the company used to stop updating older versions entirely after releasing a new one. This changed back in 2021, when Apple decided to start providing some security-only updates to older iOS versions to help people who were worried about installing an all-new potentially buggy OS upgrade.
Eventually, iOS and iPadOS users will need to install iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 to keep getting security updates. But for the handful of older iPads that can’t run iPadOS 18, Apple will usually keep supporting those specific devices with security updates for a year or two. Apple was still providing new security updates for 2022’s iOS 16 as recently as August, keeping older devices like the iPhone 8 and the first-generation iPad Pros reasonably secure even though they were incapable of running newer operating systems.
Apple plans to release the next versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS to the general public on September 16, the company announced via its website following its iPhone-centric product event earlier today. We should also see updates for tvOS and the HomePod operating system on the same date.
The new releases bring a number of new features and refinements to Apple’s platforms: better texting with Android devices thanks to support for the RCS standard, iPhone Mirroring that allows you to interact with your iPhone via your Mac, more UI customization options for iPhones and iPads, and other improvements besides.
What won’t be included in these initial releases is any hint of Apple Intelligence, the batch of generative AI and machine learning features that Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Apple is testing some of the Apple Intelligence features in betas of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS 15.1, updates that will be released later this fall. When Apple Intelligence does arrive, compatibility will be limited: it will require an iPhone 15 Pro or one of the just-announced iPhone 16 or 16 Pro models; an iPad Air or Pro with an M1, M2, or M4 chip; or an Apple Silicon Mac. Apple will also be withholding Apple Intelligence from devices in the EU, at least for now.
The new operating systems will run on most of the same hardware that is currently compatible with iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma, including the last few generations of Intel Macs from 2018, 2019, and 2020. But there are a handful of exceptions, like the 2018 MacBook Air and a handful of older iPads. Phones as old as 2018’s iPhone XR and XS will be able to install and run the iOS 18 update.
Apple has released multiple beta versions of each operating system since WWDC in June, and release candidate builds will likely go out to users and developers today. These will enable developers to get final versions of their apps ready for launch day. Users who want to move over to the new operating systems early can also do so—you can be relatively confident that most of the biggest bugs have been worked out over the summer betas. However, as always when installing major updates, you should ensure you have good backups of your data beforehand.
Enlarge/ Apple’s event will likely discuss Apple Intelligence, though that’s not going to launch until later in the year with iOS 18.1
Apple
For years, Apple’s September event has focused almost exclusively on new flagship iPhones and new Apple Watch models. Once in a while, other second-tier products make an appearance. And in recent cycles, the Mac and high-end iPads had their shining moment later in the year—often in October or November.
We expect the same to happen this time. You can almost certainly count on new iPhones and Watches. As for what else to expect: well, no Macs, but there are a couple of interesting possibilities.
Here’s what we expect to see next week.
iPhone 16 and 16 Pro
Gone are the days of radical changes to the iPhone; the last dramatic redesign was the iPhone X in 2017. Since then, Apple has iterated a little bit each year—never enough to drive yearly upgrades, but perhaps enough to entice consumers with phones that are three years old or so.
The iPhone 16 and 16 Pro are expected to continue this pacing, with a grab bag of improvements to existing features but nothing too radical.
The only notable design change that has been rumored is the introduction of the “Capture” button on all models; this will allow taking pictures without using the touchscreen on all models. This could be done with the Action button on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro, and that Action button is expected to come to all iPhone 16 models (not just Pro) this year.
But adding a Capture button frees the Action button up for other things, and the Capture button is expected to produce different results depending on how you press it, making it more useful.
The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus rear camera arrangement will switch to two vertically aligned lenses instead of the diagonal arrangement of the previous model. Apart from that and the new buttons, there will be no noticeable design changes in the non-Pro phones this year.
The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max will also not have noticeable design changes, but they will have slightly larger screens. The Pro is going from a 6.1-inch screen to 6.3 inches, while the larger Max version will go from 6.7 to 6.9 inches. The phones will be slightly larger, but much of the screen-size gain will come from Border Reduction Structure (BRS) implementation that will reduce the already barely there bezels a little bit.
Speaking of the screens, the Pro models will feature new panels that will provide just a bit more maximum brightness, following a trend of improvements in that area that has spanned the last few iPhones.
The general look of the new iPhones isn’t expected to change compared to these designs from last year, except for the camera arrangement on the base iPhone 16.
Samuel Axon
The Action Button, seen here on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, will reach the non-Pro iPhones this year.
Samuel Axon
That’s it for changes visible on the outside. Inside, the phones are expected to get an improved thermal design—which hopefully addresses our biggest complaint when we reviewed the iPhone 15 Pro—as well as faster 5G modems in the Pros and a new A-series chip that will probably offer modest gains in performance and efficiency over the top-tier chip from last year.
All the remaining changes that are rumored from leaks, supply-chain insights, or news reports are tweaks to the camera systems. All models will get better ultra-wide cameras that handle low light better, and the iPhone 16 Pro will go to a 48-megapixel ultra-wide camera to better match the wide-angle lens’ overall performance. Additionally, the 5x zoom telephoto lens that was reserved only for the Pro Max last year will make its way to the smaller Pro this time.
That’s all we’ve heard so far. Looking back on paragraphs of text here, it sounds like a lot, but most of these things are pretty modest improvements. Those coming from an iPhone 13 Pro or earlier may be tempted by all this, but it’ll be pretty silly to upgrade from an iPhone 15 to an iPhone 16 unless Apple has managed to keep some earth-shattering new feature a secret.
