After launching the iPhone 16e and announcing that the "Apple Intelligence" service will support more countries and languages, Apple began releasing iOS 18.4 beta 1 test updates to developers. It also provided iPadOS 18.4 beta 1, macOS 15.4 beta 1, tvOS 18.4 beta 1, visionOS 2.4 beta 1 and watchOS 11.4 beta 1, which also added many features and corrections.
Apple News+ adds a "Food" section
In iOS 18.4 beta 1, Apple added a "Food" section to Apple News+, allowing users to more conveniently browse tens of thousands of recipes through this service. It also includes restaurant introductions, healthy eating, kitchen essentials and other related reports. The content is in collaboration with Allrecipes, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Good Food and Serious Eats.
Ambient music function
In the new version of the Control Center settings, an Ambient Music function has been added, along with "Sleep," "Chill," "Productivity," and "Wellbeing," allowing users to quickly access music from different options in Apple Music and use music to help them fall asleep, relax, or improve their concentration in different scenarios.
Other updates include a re-adjusted priority notification feature that makes it easier for users to find important push messages, the addition of a sketch style to the Image Playground's automatic image generation function, which previously provided animation and illustration styles, and the enlargement of the Genmoji button on the emoji keyboard to make it easier for users to generate new emojis through artificial intelligence.
Added age option to the initial settings interface
In the new version of the initial setup interface, the system will ask you to select the age range of users of the device, namely "children" aged 12 or below, "teenagers" aged 13 to 17, and "adults" aged 18 and above, so as to prompt whether to set up parental supervision and safety functions during the setup process.
More preset options
On the other hand, Apple has also added more customizable default app service options in iOS 18.4. For example, you can now set your preferred translation service in the United States and other countries, and you can set a default map navigation service in the European Union. At the same time, Apple has also quietly updated the CarPlay interface in iOS 18.4, allowing certain models to add a third row of apps to the home screen, but there seems to be no news on the new CarPlay update yet.
Apple Intelligence service adds more languages
The "Apple Intelligence" service also adds French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese, as well as localized English for Singapore and India.
As for iPadOS 18.4 beta 1 and macOS 15.4 beta 1, a new version of the Mail App has been added, and it can automatically classify received emails, making it easier for users to find important content among many emails.
Vision Pro will become smarter this April
Since Vision Pro has been confirmed to support the "Apple Intelligence" service in April this year, this may mean that the updated content will be tested first by developers and then by general consumers. The official version is expected to be released in April.
