Update – (04/02/25): Per MacRumors, the lossless audio firmware update for AirPods Max (USB-C) is temporarily unavailable due to an iPadOS/iOS 18.4 bug and is coming soon.
Update 2 – (04/02/25): The AirPods Max firmware update should now be available.
Apple has released iPadOS 18.4 with new features and enhancements. At one point, we thought this might be the release where we’d see the big Apple Intelligence Siri features, but of course, that won’t be happening for some time. Regardless, this is still a feature-packed update!
Mail Categorization
iPadOS 18.4 brings the mail categorization feature from iPhone to iPad. Using on-device machine learning, your messages get automatically sorted into a few predefined categories.
Primary – Messages determined to be most important to you. Some of the metrics used to determine this are time-sensitivity and if the message is from someone you know vs. an unknown contact.
Transactions – Reciepts, order confirmations and updates, and delivery messages
Updates – Things like newsletters, social media updates, and news updates
Promotions – Promotional messages like store sales and deals end up here
Tapping on the already selected category will bring you to an “All Mail” category. If you want to disable categorization, tap on the ellipsis at the top of the message list, and select the List View option.
Priority Notifications (Apple Intelligence)
Prioritize Notifications is an Apple Intelligence feature that analyzes your incoming notifications to determine what ones are high priority, and which ones can wait. These notifications will appear prominently above other notifications in Notification Center in their own section.
In Settings, Priority Notifications can be enabled or disabled on a per-app basis (Settings -> Notifications -> Prioritize Notifications).
Sketch Style for Image Playground (Apple Intelligence)
The Image Playground app introduces a new style called Sketch, complementing the existing Animation and illustration styles. Sketch enables users to create images in the style of an artist’s pencil sketch.
Expanded language support (Apple Intelligence)
Per Apple’s release notes:
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 News+ Food
If you subscribe to Apple’s News+ service, this update adds a dedicated Food section. Here, you can find curated recipes from Apple’s News partners as well as News articles related to nutrition, healthy eating, and other food related topics.
You can save recipes you like in a Saved Recipes section for easy access later.
Recipes have a “cooking mode” that guides you step-by-step through completing the recipe. The interface is reminiscent of the lyrics interface in the Music app.
New Emoji
Emojipedia covers the eight new emoji added in this update:
- Face with Bags Under Eyes
- Fingerprint
- Splatter
- Root Vegetable
- Leafless Tree
- Harp
- Shovel
- Flag: Sark
Control Center
Control Center continues to expand its capabilities with some new options.
Ambient Background Music From Control Center
iPadOS now includes Control Center toggles for playing curated playlist of Ambient music in four different categories: Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing.
Siri Toggles
The Siri section in Control Center has been renamed “Apple Intelligence & Siri”. This section also gets a toggle for triggering a Siri voice interaction (Talk to Siri) in addition to the existing Type to Siri toggle.
New Podcast Widgets
The Podcasts app gains two new widgets:
- Showing Podcasts from a list (latest episodes, recently downloaded, etc)
- Showing Podcasts from a specific show
Matter – Robot Vacuum Support
iPadOS now has support for robot vacuums via Matter. These devices can be added to the Home app and used in automations and scenes.
App Store
AI Summaries For Reviews
App listing now present AI-summaries of the reviews for an app. This feature will debut in English and only for certain apps that have enough reviews to warrant a summary. Apple intends to expend language and region support over time.
Pausing Downloads
Long downloads can now be paused and resumed later.
App Defaults
Default Translation app
Users now have the option to set their default app for performing translations.
Shortcuts
A number of built in Apple apps now surface Shortcuts for interacting with their Settings. Exposing these options will make so that Siri (at some point in the future) can use these hooks to let users control app settings.
Shortcut for opening a specific Message conversation
There’s a new Shortcut action for jumping right to a specific Messages conversation.
AirPods Max – Wired Audio Support
iPadOS 18.4 (plus a firmware update and the appropriate cable) enable low-latency audio and lossless audio support AirPods Max with USB-C.
It’s debatable whether or not you’ll be able to notice a difference in sound quality with lossless audio. What’s less debatable is the improvement this low-latency feature will provide for scenarios like gaming, where delayed audio can cause real problems in fast-paced multiplayer games.
Stability/Battery Life/General Observations
It’s not unusual for later releases in an OS cycle to be more stable than earlier ones as bugs continue to be squashed. iPadOS 18.4 is no different.
In my testing across two different iPads, I’ve not noticed any changes in battery usage and I haven’t encountered any new bugs.
I have no apprehension on upgrading my production iPad to iPadOS 18.4 as soon as its available.
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