Apple Rolls Out iOS 18.3 Update for iPhone With Key Changes to AI Notification Summaries: What’s New

iOS 18.3 update for iPhone was rolled out by Apple on Monday. It is substantially smaller than the first two numbered updates which introduced notable features, most of which are part of Apple Intelligence — the company's artificial intelligence (AI) suite. However, it brings a key change to Notification Summaries following the recent criticism faced by the Apple Intelligence-powered feature for generating erroneous summaries of news headlines. It also includes other tweaks related to the Calculator app and Apple Intelligence' opt-in system.

iOS 18.3 Update for iPhone: What's New

According to Apple's release notes, the iOS 18.3 update is compatible with the existing models which support iOS 18. One of the most notable additions in the update is the changes to Notification Summaries. The feature is now turned off by default and made unavailable for the News & Entertainment category. Users who opt-in to use it will be able to do so when it is made available again.

The feature, introduced with iOS 18.1 last year, condenses information acquired from notifications to let users quickly scan through key details in a summarised format. However, the company recently drew flak, most notably from BBC, which approached Apple about false information being added to AI summaries. And while Apple did not pull down the feature or release a fix at the time, the latest update disables it by default. It now also appears with a warning that says “may contain errors.”.

Another change to notification summaries is to its presentation. Apple says it will now appear with italicised text to help users distinguish it better from other notifications.

Apple has also made Apple Intelligence an opt-out feature. Previously opt-in, users will now have to manually opt-out if they do not wish to use Apple's AI suite. This option is present in the Apple Intelligence & Siri Settings pane in the Settings app.

Visual Intelligence is also getting some tweaks. Apple says users can now add an event to Calendar from a poster or flyer. Further, it will be able to identify a wider range of animals and plants. This feature is exclusive to the iPhone 16 models and is accessible via the Camera Control button.

Meanwhile, the company has brought back a key functionality to the Calculator app. With iOS 18, Apple removed the ability to repeat the last mathematical operation by tapping the equals sign repeatedly. iOS 18.3 brings it back. Along with these changes, the update also carries fixes for bugs related to Genmoji, HealthKit, and Writing Tools.

Gadgets 360 staff can confirm that the update and its features are now available to use on iPhone.