Apple Pushes Out Second iOS 18.4 RC Build With Full Release Notes
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Earlier this week, Apple pushed out an iOS 18.4 Release Candidate that hinted at an imminent public release. However, that “RC build” had one interesting wrinkle: the release notes that are typically included were conspicuously absent.
As the name implies, a Release Candidate is a semi-final software build distributed to developers and beta testers to ensure it’s suitable for public consumption. It’s technically not a beta at that point, and if all goes well, it’s supposed to be bit-for-bit identical to what goes out to everyone else later. That’s why RC builds also include the release notes — they’re essentially a “trial run” for the public release.
For years, it was rare for Apple to push out a second RC build. Whether for the iPhone, iPad, or Mac, we’d typically get a single Release Candidate followed by the general release a week later. However, that’s changed with the iOS 18 cycle; today, Apple released a second iOS 18.4 RC build.
Perhaps we should have seen this coming since the first build was clearly labeled “iOS 18.4 Release Candidate” — a suffix we’ve never seen before. It’s unclear what’s changed in today’s release, but this one is named with the more typical “iOS 18.4” — without any modifiers — and includes the release notes.
It’s possible this is the only reason for this new build — it’s unclear if there are any other changes — but at least now we get to see if there are any other surprises in store for us. We already covered the highlights of iOS 18.4 based on what we’ve found in the betas, but the full release notes reveal a few things we weren’t expecting.
We’ve shared the full release notes below, but, notably, Apple makes no mention of visual intelligence coming to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. This was added in iOS 18.4 beta 2 after the iPhone 16e gained the ability to trigger visual intelligence with the Action button rather than the camera control. iOS 18.4 brings that ability to all Apple Intelligence-capable devices, along with a new button for it in Control Center, also providing alternatives for iPhone 16 users. This is all still here, as far as we can tell, so we assume it’s an oversight.
The Photos app is also getting some small but helpful improvements in iOS 18.4, but the release notes reveal an additional security feature that we’re sort of surprised wasn’t there before: protecting hidden photos from being imported to a Mac or PC when the Hidden album is locked behind Face ID or Touch ID.
Beyond those two things, the release notes reveal most of what we expect for iOS 18.4, including the tentpole features like AI-driven Priority Notifications, a new Sketch Style option in Image Playground, Food section in Apple News, and the promised support for robot vacuums. Apple Intelligence also expands to ten additional languages, including two new English dialects for India and Singapore, and should officially launch in the European Union when iOS 18.4 arrives next week. Here are the full release notes:
Apple Intelligence (All iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max)
- Priority notifications appear at the top of your notifications, highlighting important notifications that may require your immediate attention
- Sketch is now available as an additional style option in Image Playground, allowing you to create gorgeous sketch drawings
- Apple Intelligence features support 8 additional languages and 2 additional English locales, including English (India, Singapore), French (France, Canada), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), Simplified Chinese, and Spanish (Spain, Latin America, US)
Apple Vision Pro App
- The new Apple Vision Pro app, automatically installed for users with Apple Vision Pro, helps you discover new content, spatial experiences, and quickly access information about your device
Apple News+
- Recipes from some of the world’s best recipe publishers are now available on Apple News+
- Recipe Catalog allows you to browse or search to find the perfect dish and save it to your Saved Recipes
- Cooking mode lets you easily follow step-by-step directions
- The Food section also includes stories about restaurants, kitchen tips, healthy eating, and more
Photos
- New filters to show or hide items that are not contained in an album, or synced from a Mac or PC, in the Library view in Photos
- Reorder items in the Media Types and Utilities collections in Photos
- Consistent filtering options in all collections, including the ability to sort by oldest or newest first in Photos
- Option to sort albums by Date Modified in Photos
- Ability to disable “Recently Viewed” and “Recently Shared” collections in Photos Settings
- Hidden photos are no longer included for import to Mac or a PC if Use Face ID is enabled in Photos settings
This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:
- Safari recent search suggestions help you quickly get back to previous search topics when starting a new query
- Setup Assistant streamlines steps parents need to take to create a Child Account for a kid in their family, and enables child-appropriate default settings if parents prefer to complete setting up a Child Account later
- Screen Time App Limits persist even after a child uninstalls and reinstalls an app
- App Store includes summaries for user reviews so you can get helpful insights from other users at a glance
- Pause and resume of an app download or update on App Store without losing progress
- New widgets for Podcasts including a Followed Shows widget to track your favorite shows and a Library widget to get to your most used sections, such as Latest Episodes, Saved, and Downloaded
- Ambient Music offers the ability to instantly play music from Control Center, giving access to a set of hand-curated playlists that offer soundtracks for daily life
- Apple Fitness+ Collections can now be added to Library
- Matter-compatible robot vacuum cleaners can be controlled in the Home app as well as be added to scenes and automations
- Support for 10 new system languages including Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu
