5 iOS 18.4 features I am excited about

iOS 18.4 will be one of Apple’s biggest updates to iOS 18 since the operating system’s public release last September. It will pack plenty of changes and improvements, like a Vision Pro app, Apple News+ Food and new emoji.

That all sounds great, but these are the five iOS 18.4 features that I am most excited about.

5 great features coming in iOS 18.4

After iOS 18 arrived in September 2024, Apple released three major point builds. While iOS 18.1 and iOS 18.2 introduced several new features, iOS 18.3 came in light on changes. iOS 18.4, however, is shaping up as another big update, bringing several additions to the growing suite of AI features known as Apple Intelligence. It also improves Apple’s Shortcuts and Wallet apps.

Still, among all the features that Apple will debut on iOS 18.4, these are the five I am most excited about. They should prove useful in daily life and improve my workflow.

Table of contents: 5 great features coming in iOS 18.4

• Visual Intelligence
• Priority Notifications
• More powerful Shortcuts actions
• Pause App Store downloads
• Change the default translation app

1. Visual Intelligence

As an iPhone 15 Pro Max user, I am excited that iOS 18.4 will bring an iPhone 16-exclusive feature — Visual Intelligence — to my device. Visual Intelligence will allow me to point the iPhone’s camera at an object in the real world and get more information about it. For more details, I can ask ChatGPT or do a reverse search to find similar products on Amazon and other shopping sites.

But that’s not it. I can point my iPhone’s camera to an event flyer and trigger Visual Intelligence. The feature will automatically detect the event details and provide an option to add it to my calendar.

Likewise, if I point the camera at a business or restaurant’s picture, Visual Intelligence will pull up navigation directions from Apple Maps. And if you are a nature nerd, you can use Visual Intelligence to identify plants.

On the iPhone 16, you can enable Visual Intelligence by pressing and holding the Camera Control. Since the iPhone 15 Pro lacks this capacitive button, I’ll trigger it via the Action button. Alternatively, I can also add a Control Center toggle for it. iOS 18.4 also will add the option to trigger Visual Intelligence through the Action button on iPhone 16.

2. Priority Notifications

Most of the Apple Intelligence features rolled out so far seem underwhelming. With iOS 18.4, Apple will introduce another AI feature that actually sounds useful: Priority Notifications, which Apple first showcased at WWDC24. The feature will prioritize notifications based on their content, displaying high-priority notifications separately on the iPhone’s Lock Screen. This way, you can quickly go through your important notifications, tending to the less important ones later in the day when you are free.

The first iOS 18.4 beta only contained an option to turn Priority Notifications on or off. With the second beta, Apple refined the feature, enabling you to turn Priority Notifications on/off on a per-app basis. This will provide greater flexibility, allowing me to turn off the feature for some important apps while keeping it on for the rest.

As someone who uses an Android phone as a daily driver, I am not a fan of the iPhone’s Notification Center and how it handles notifications. There’s no way to block a specific type of notification from an app; it is all or nothing. Hopefully, Priority Notifications will effectively address this shortcoming by intelligently highlighting important alerts while keeping less critical ones in the background.

3. More powerful Shortcuts actions

Shortcuts is one of the most powerful preinstalled iPhone apps. I set up several useful Shortcuts and automations with the app, saving me from unwanted repetitive tasks and just making my life easier in general.

iOS 18.4 will make the Shortcuts app even better by adding granular support for more actions in first-party apps. For example, I can create Shortcuts with actions like getting my upcoming calendar events, editing an existing alarm, or setting a new alarm or timer.

Other useful new actions include closing Safari tabs, changing the tab layout, and tweaking the voice recording quality in Voice Memos.

As a heavy Shortcuts user, I am excited about the new actions and the additional automation options it opens.

4. Pause App Store downloads

Following the release of iOS 13 in September 2019, Apple allows you to download apps and games over 200MB in size using cellular data.

This feature proves especially valuable to me as someone frequently on the move, often finding myself in areas with strong mobile coverage but no available Wi-Fi. However, there have been times when, in the middle of downloading an app, I’ve moved to a different location, resulting in a drop in mobile data speeds. This becomes a major issue when downloading large apps and games, often leaving me with no choice but to cancel the download and restart it later.

iOS 18.4 will address this frustration with a new feature that lets you pause App Store downloads. Admittedly, if you always have access to high-speed Wi-Fi, this may not seem like a big deal. For me, this feature will be a game changer, ensuring I can pause large app and game downloads when mobile network speeds drop, then resume them later without starting over.

5. Change the default translation app

All iPhones ship with Apple’s Translate app, featuring Conversation Views and Auto Translate. While Apple’s translation app offers its own advantages — with its bubble-like Conversation view and deep iOS integration standing out — I prefer Google Translate. I have found Google’s translation to be better across a wide variety of languages (plus, it supports many more languages).

iOS 18.4 introduces the ability to set Google Translate or any other third-party app as the default translation tool, replacing Apple Translate. While this may seem minor to some, it’s a handy change for me. It’ll save me a few taps by automatically opening Google Translate instead of Apple Translate for text and speech translations.

Other noteworthy changes in iOS 18.4

I am not heavily into cooking, but if you are — and you’re an Apple News+ subscriber — you should like the new Food section coming to Apple News+ in iOS 18.4. It will give you access to a new cook mode, displaying step-by-step, full-screen recipe instructions. Plus, you can get restaurant reviews and check various eating and buying guides.

iOS 18.4 also will bring a significant update for iPhone users in Europe, finally allowing them to use Apple Intelligence — nearly six months after the AI suite’s launch. This will give them access to features like Writing Tools, custom emoji creator Genmoji and AI image generator Image Playground.

Apple will release iOS 18.4 in April, likely around the beginning of the month.

Rajesh Pandey

Rajesh has been closely following and writing about the latest happenings in the world of mobile for nearly a decade now. While he prefers Android, he does not deny the superiority of Apple’s products and ecosystem.