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iOS 18.4: Apple Intelligence Reaches New Languages
Apple announced that iOS 18.4 is scheduled for an April release — a significant update that expands Apple Intelligence's language support, introduces new AI-driven features, and continues the gradual buildout of Siri's capabilities.
The update will be available across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
- Apple Intelligence language expansion
- Notification prioritization
- Image Playground: the new Sketch style
- What's still coming: Siri's roadmap
- How to try the public beta
Apple Intelligence: Expanded Language Support
iOS 18.4 adds Apple Intelligence support for French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. This is a meaningful expansion — it extends access to EU users for the first time, alongside a significant portion of the global user base that has been waiting for their primary language to be supported.
Apple's stated mission is to make AI technology useful to people broadly, and language support is a direct constraint on that. As Apple Intelligence reaches more languages, more users will be able to use Writing Tools, Priority Notifications, and Image Playground in their native language.
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Notification Prioritization: AI-Sorted Lock Screen
iOS 18.4 introduces AI-powered notification prioritization. When enabled, time-sensitive notifications — delivery alerts, event invitations, and similar high-urgency items — are surfaced to the top of the lock screen.
Users can swipe up to view all notifications. Because the AI assesses notification importance rather than simply sorting by recency, the most recently received notification is not necessarily the first one displayed.
The practical effect: fewer missed time-sensitive alerts, and less time spent scanning through low-priority notifications to find what actually matters.
Image Playground: New Sketch Style
iOS 18.4 adds a new style to Apple's image generation tool Image Playground: Sketch. The Sketch style generates full-color images with the appearance of colored-pencil drawings on paper — distinct from the existing Animation and Illustration styles.
This addition expands the creative range available in Image Playground, which is designed to let users generate images directly within apps like Messages and Notes.
Additional Features in iOS 18.4
- Ambient music from Control Center: Play background music directly from Control Center without opening a separate app
- Apple News+ Food section: A dedicated section for recipes, with the ability to save and view them within the News app
Siri: What's Still on the Roadmap
iOS 18.4 is a significant update, but not everything Apple announced for Siri has shipped. Apple has been releasing capabilities incrementally, and several higher-complexity features remain ahead:
Personal context: Siri will be able to draw on information from your own messages and email to answer questions. The example Apple has used: ask "What was the address Yoko mentioned?" and Siri searches your conversations to find it. Or receive a street address in a message and ask Siri to add it to the right contact.
Cross-app actions: Siri will be able to perform tasks that span multiple apps — not just responding within a single context but taking action across the device based on a single request.
These features require more complex integration and are being rolled out over the coming months rather than all at once.
How to Try the Public Beta
The public beta for iOS 18.4 is available to developers now. If you want to try the new features before the full release, you can enroll through Apple's beta program. Note that beta versions may contain bugs — back up your device before installing.
Summary
| Feature | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Language expansion | French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese — including EU |
| Notification prioritization | AI surfaces time-sensitive alerts to top of lock screen |
| Image Playground: Sketch | New colored-pencil style for image generation |
| Ambient music | Playable from Control Center |
| Apple News+ Food | Recipe section with save functionality |
| Siri personal context | Coming in future update — cross-app, message-based actions |
iOS 18.4 is the most consequential Apple Intelligence update so far in terms of global reach. The language expansion effectively unlocks AI features for a large portion of Apple's user base that has been waiting. The notification prioritization and new Image Playground style are practical additions. And the Siri roadmap, while still in progress, points toward a much more capable on-device assistant than what currently ships.
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