iOS 18.4 Beta 4 ― Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements

[metsi]

For me, it feels smoother and more refined than 18.3 with way fewer glitches. There is only a Notification Center bug where opening a stack of notification does a weird jump, very unappealing.
Battery life is okay, nothing exceptional (not that we can expect that in beta), but not bad either. I used 50% yesterday with 3h42min SoT and 1h20min SiT. Battery health is 90%.

 

[adrianlondon]

Newest issue: Calendar widget (Outlook, Calendar) won’t show upcoming appts / events unless they are “Today”. Prior to this update I was able to see upcoming events. Proton Calendar continues to work well.

I use the 4x2 widget and - despite my usual moan that it refuses to show events currently in progress* - it's correctly showing events for tomorrow.

*To get around this issue I use Calendar 366 which has the widget option "show started events".

 

[ibookemo]

I’d used beta 2 and found it ok, but not quite up to the standard for daily use - so I jump back to 18.3.1/2.

I’m now on beta 4 and I must say, it’s rather good. For my uses, which include reminders, calendars, email, messages, Safari and a LOT of photography and photo editing/sharing, it’s solid.

I have Apple Intelligence turned off as I find it akin to a dumpster fire 🔥 The best Apple Intelligence feature Apple added was the ‘off’ switch. If they removed that, I’d seriously consider moving to a Pixel, it’s that s**t.

Otherwise I’m finding 18.4 super 👌🏻

I should add for context, I quite like Google Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT. The apps are splendid on iOS 18. Apple need not waste energy in this area as the competition have it covered quite well. It’s like Apple building a web search engine, completely unnecessary.

 

[mg51015bb]

I’d used beta 2 and found it ok, but not quite up to the standard for daily use - so I jump back to 18.3.1/2.

I’m now on beta 4 and I must say, it’s rather good. For my uses, which include reminders, calendars, email, messages, Safari and a LOT of photography and photo editing/sharing, it’s solid.

I have Apple Intelligence turned off as I find it akin to a dumpster fire 🔥 The best Apple Intelligence feature Apple added was the ‘off’ switch. If they removed that, I’d seriously consider moving to a Pixel, it’s that s**t.

Otherwise I’m finding 18.4 super 👌🏻

I should add for context, I quite like Google Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT. The apps are splendid on iOS 18. Apple need not waste energy in this area as the competition have it covered quite well. It’s like Apple building a web search engine, completely unnecessary.

Agreed about Gemini and Claude and ChatGPT. I think the use case that no one has fully cracked (Gemini on the Pixel is closest) is the ability for LLMs to seamlessly interact and understand what’s on screen and the context. This was the “cool” factor Apple talked about with Siri and would be a game changer.

Gemini on Pixel handles this by taking screenshots and analyzing the screenshot. Otherwise, Gemini is largely baked into Google apps which means you can get like 95% of its value regardless of the device you use.

 

[Jakimo]

Agreed about Gemini and Claude and ChatGPT. I think the use case that no one has fully cracked (Gemini on the Pixel is closest) is the ability for LLMs to seamlessly interact and understand what’s on screen and the context. This was the “cool” factor Apple talked about with Siri and would be a game changer.

Gemini on Pixel handles this by taking screenshots and analyzing the screenshot. Otherwise, Gemini is largely baked into Google apps which means you can get like 95% of its value regardless of the device you use.

A quick note many I've talked to haven't realized: Perplexity Pro is free for one year if you use Xfinity, they'll provide a code

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

View attachment 2494401

Should you update to iOS 18 Survey

1. Do you want blank spaces on your home screen or darker, almost neon icons?
2. Do you want to edit Control Center?
3. Do you want text effects in Messages (bold, italic, etc.)?
4. Do you want a separate app for managing passwords?
5. Do you want a history feature in your calculator?

If you answered yes to more than one of those:

• Are you willing to put up with a slightly reduced battery life?
• Are you willing to put up with changes to the Maps app and Photos app that you may not like?
• Are you willing to use another app other than the stock Mail app? (or at least put up with its semi-broken state)

Actually, RCS and the ability to see timers that are set on my HomePod mini are tempting me to update. As well as security enhancements. The rest I couldn't care less about.

 

[dk001]

I use the 4x2 widget and - despite my usual moan that it refuses to show events currently in progress* - it's correctly showing events for tomorrow.

*To get around this issue I use Calendar 366 which has the widget option "show started events".

Same. Deleted widgets and replaced. Same issue for both Calendar and Outlook.
Crazy.

 

[adrianlondon]

Same. Deleted widgets and replaced. Same issue for both Calendar and Outlook.
Crazy.

That's weird.

I've just done some testing. I have one event for today (it's Sunday here now) and two on Tuesday. None on Monday.

My Apple calendar widget is showing today's event on the left, and on the right it's showing both my Tuesday events and telling me I have 2 events on Wednesday. In other words, it's working as it should.

Have you accidentally deselected some calendars from showing in the widget, or do you have a focus mode set which hides them?

 

[Rastapopoulos]

No disrespect. But maybe don’t run the betas? At least not on your daily driver.

The bug he’s talking about is also present in the current non beta version. So wouldn’t make a difference.

 

[ManuCH]

Hm.. I figured most people used Spark or Superhuman by now. They're both so good!

In all my glancing at the updates Apple has introduced to Mail with iOS 18 and macOS 15, I haven't been swayed at all to make much use of it

Superhuman is so FAST, and all the new AI tools inside of it (especially for Mac) - make it by far the best email client I've ever come across. Yep, it's worth every dime

Never heard of Superhuman before, but the price is definitely over the top for private use. Starting from $25/month for an email client, when you can basically have the whole Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 plan for only slightly more, makes absolutely no sense to me. Also the whole website looks too enterprise-y, full of "Talk to sales" buttons and corporate speech. Hard pass for me.

 

[dk001]

That's weird.

I've just done some testing. I have one event for today (it's Sunday here now) and two on Tuesday. None on Monday.

My Apple calendar widget is showing today's event on the left, and on the right it's showing both my Tuesday events and telling me I have 2 events on Wednesday. In other words, it's working as it should.

Have you accidentally deselected some calendars from showing in the widget, or do you have a focus mode set which hides them?

Show you how crazy it is, I just opened my Calendar and it is showing last week. If I want to add an event, it jumps to Mar 17.

Going to play around with it today and see what I can find…. Thanks fully I mostly use Calendar for reminders and birthdays.

Now Outlook … the Calendar works great. Just the widget that is wonky.

 

[srbNYC]

Newest issue: Calendar widget (Outlook, Calendar) won’t show upcoming appts / events unless they are “Today”. Prior to this update I was able to see upcoming events. Proton Calendar continues to work well.

I thought that is just how they work. I use Calender366 to see upcoming appointments.

 

[adrianlondon]

I thought that is just how they work. I use Calender366 to see upcoming appointments.

I use 366 too, as it can show events which are already in progress.

Imagine you have a party from, say, 9pm until 3am, and you weren't planning on attending at 9.

Around 9:15pm you check your phone, and Apple's widget happily tells you that you're a loser with no friends and nothing to do. Go home, go to bed.

Calendar366 will tell you that the party is still happening, go out and have fun (or go home, and go to bed, but knowing you've skipped the party).

 

[Isamilis]

View attachment 2494401

Should you update to iOS 18 Survey

1. Do you want blank spaces on your home screen or darker, almost neon icons?
2. Do you want to edit Control Center?
3. Do you want text effects in Messages (bold, italic, etc.)?
4. Do you want a separate app for managing passwords?
5. Do you want a history feature in your calculator?

If you answered yes to more than one of those:

• Are you willing to put up with a slightly reduced battery life?
• Are you willing to put up with changes to the Maps app and Photos app that you may not like?
• Are you willing to use another app other than the stock Mail app? (or at least put up with its semi-broken state)

I dont need ios 18 until I got AW10 which requires ios 18 at minimum.

 

[lindros2]

Apple Intelligence broke after a restart.
Frustrating "downloading models" nonsense
I give up on this crap

 

[illyb2000]

What’s the black circle beside the Dynamic Island ?

 

[Stiille]

What’s the black circle beside the Dynamic Island ?

That supposed to be the Dynamic Island, and will normally only be visible when you use the phone to call somebody or record audio messages- they implemented it like that - but seems like yours was buggy at that special moment

 

[ghostface147]

Hmm, every now and then while on a call, swiping home results in stuttering. As in the refresh rate I think. Looks more like 30hz. As far as smoothness for me, beta 1 was still the best. 16 Pro Max

 

[illyb2000]

That supposed to be the Dynamic Island, and will normally only be visible when you use the phone to call somebody or record audio messages- they implemented it like that - but seems like yours was buggy at that special moment

Still doing it now I’ll do a reboot.

 

[uandme72]

Thanks for posting. Was looking just for this. Was going to update if it fixed the mail issue in 18.3.2. Sounds like it doesn't.

what is the mail issue?

 

[RSmith2023]

Hm.. I figured most people used Spark or Superhuman by now. They're both so good!

In all my glancing at the updates Apple has introduced to Mail with iOS 18 and macOS 15, I haven't been swayed at all to make much use of it

Superhuman is so FAST, and all the new AI tools inside of it (especially for Mac) - make it by far the best email client I've ever come across. Yep, it's worth every dime

Don’t those both require your password to be stored on their servers? That’s the primary reason I quit using Spark..

 

[RSmith2023]

Is it okay to update yet? I'm still on iOS 17 and everything is working flawlessly and I don't wanna wreck it.

Once ios19 is in beta it should be safe.. 🤣

 

[Jakimo]

Don’t those both require your password to be stored on their servers? That’s the primary reason I quit using Spark..

For Spark:
• When using Gmail, Spark stores an application-specific token, not your actual password.
• You can revoke this access token at any time from your Gmail account settings.

For Superhuman:
• Superhuman uses OAuth for authentication, which allows limited access without storing passwords.
• The company states that they don’t store emails or other data on their servers.

 

[ibookemo]

Y'know, I think notifications in general are a little borked for me under beta 4. I noticed they weren't so great in the last full release either but the beta seems a little more hit and miss.

I do hope that Apple polish this area in the GM as they are something I really count on my iPhone & Watch for throughout the day.

Otherwise I'm liking 10.4.

 

[Mlrollin91]

what is the mail issue?

Email push is not working for iCloud emails. You have to manually open Mail and refresh.