Here’s what’s new in iOS 18.3

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When Apple dropped iOS 18.2it caused quite a stir – especially with iPhones compatible with Apple Intelligence. The update brought dedicated image generation to iOS, including both Image playground and Genmojias well as one AI updated mail experience And more control over standard apps.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve gotten our first look at the company’s next update for iPhones: iOS 18.3. Apple rolled out the first beta for 18.3 to developers on Monday, December 16th. With this latest update, January 17th, we are at beta number three.

However, there isn’t much new. If these first three betas are any indication, iOS 18.3 won’t be a feature-rich update; Rather, it will bring some minor changes and bug fixes to iPhones. Big Siri changes, for example is expected to ship with iOS 18.4.

However, Apple may add more features and changes in subsequent iOS 18.3 beta updates. As the company continues beta testing and eventually releases the full iOS 18.3 update to compatible iPhones, I will update this article to report what’s new. In the meantime, here’s what we expect based on this first developer beta.

Support for robot vacuum cleaners in the Home app

Apple’s Home app doesn’t currently support robot vacuums, but it will soon. The company first announced support as part of iOS 18 already in Junebut then pushed back the publication. Officially, support for robot vacuum cleaners is delayed, but MacRumors employee Aaron Perris found code in iOS 18.3 Beta 1 indicates that the new update supports these vacuum cleaners:

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Currently, Apple says this about robot vacuum support in iOS 18, which it still says is coming in an update: “The Home app now supports core features of robot vacuums, such as: B. Power control, cleaning mode, vacuuming, mopping, you can also participate in automations and scenes and respond to Siri requests. Here’s how you can add it to your cleaning routine – or tell Siri to clean a few spots in the living room.

AI news summaries are out (for now).

Apple’s AI summaries have produced mixed results, particularly when it comes to news summarization. In fact, the company got into trouble last month: Apple’s AI incorrectly summarized a BBC news story and said that Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the UnitedHealthcare shooting, had killed himself in prison. Of course that wasn’t true and the BBC eventually complained to Apple about the error.

With 18.3 Beta 3, Apple seems to admit that it still has more work to do on its AI bot: With this beta AI summaries for news and entertainment notifications are disabled. This is only a temporary measure and only applies to those using the latest beta version. Apple now also warns users not to double-check AI-summarized headlines, and displays summaries in italics to make them stand out from other notifications. Finally, the beta version allows you to disable notification summaries for specific apps directly from the lock screen.

Repeated calculations are back

As 9to5Mac discoveredthe second 18.3 beta brings back something that should never have gone away – repeated calculations. For some reason, with iOS 18, Apple removed the ability to continue a calculation when you tap the equals key (e.g. pressing the equals key after five times five will give you 25, and pressing the equals key again will the equal key multiplied by five again to get 125). If you have the beta version, this feature is available again.

With 18.3 Beta 3, Apple added Genmoji to the Messages sidebar – the menu you see when you press (+). This adds another method to accessing Genmojiin addition to using the emoji keyboard.

PDF changes

As reported by MacRumorsIn 18.3 Beta 3, when you try to crop a PDF file, you will now see a warning that the cut data is not actually gone. The message itself reads: “Content outside the cropped area is not visible in most PDF viewers, but can be made visible in some apps.”

Apple may be working on an “Invites” app

9to5Mac also found code in the latest beta that hints at an “Invites” app that Apple may be preparing for a future release. In fact, the website found this code in a beta version of iOS 18.2, but Apple removed it. Now it seems to be back.

9to5Mac understands that this invitation app would act as a meeting planner and organizer. It has features with Apple’s GroupKit that can be used to track a group of potential participants, including whether or not individuals have agreed to attend a meeting. At this point it is not clear whether this will be a standalone app or whether it will be integrated into existing apps for iOS.

Provide feedback on AI image generation

Part of improving AI image generation comes from user feedback: if a model spits out an image and the user says something went wrong, the model can take that feedback into account as part of its training and hopefully return a result closer to that over time the expectation lies.

With iOS 18.3, Apple added a thumbs up and thumbs down option for image generation for both Image Playground and Genmoji. Using the beta gives you the ability to quickly tell iOS whether the image or emoji it generated is correct or whether it missed the mark.

The camera control settings icon has a dark mode option

This is one very Small change, but good for anyone who has an eye for these details. On iPhone 16 devicesthe camera control button settings icon now has a dark mode option. When you go to Accessibility Settings on iOS 18.2 and earlier, this icon is light in both light and dark modes and is different from the rest of the icons, which adjust depending on the system theme.

Bug fixes

iOS 18.3 Developer Beta 1 added two fixes for bugs in previous versions of iOS. One of them is for Genmoji and fixes an issue where a personalized Genmoji could not be generated without first selecting another person. The other fixes a bug with Writing Tools where third-party apps using the Writing Tools API would not be able to use the inline experience if the first responder is not a UIView. (This one, as you might suspect, is specifically for developers.)

Genmoji is released for macOS 15.3

This doesn’t apply to your iPhone, but if you have a Mac, it’s something you should be aware of Apple brings Genmoji support with macOS 15.3. Genmoji is probably my favorite of the Apple Intelligence features: I would literally never use Image Playground-generated images for anything, but I do enjoy creating a custom emoji to respond to a part of my current conversation . Apple isn’t bringing Image Playground to the Mac yet, but that’s okay: Genmoji support will be more than sufficient.

How to install iOS 18.3

Here too, iOS 18.3 is currently in beta and should not be installed randomly. The beta version is currently only intended for developers who want to test their apps on the new operating system and alert Apple to any errors they find. Therefore, it is not intended for general use, so downloading it to a personal device could have unintended consequences.

If you’re okay with taking these risks (please back up all important data first), installing 18.3 is now easy. All you need is an iPhone compatible with iOS 18. To install the developer beta, log in Developer.Apple.com on this iPhone with your Apple ID. To install the public beta, make sure you have registered your iPhone with beta.apple.com. Then go to Settings > General > Software Update. Tap here Beta updatesand then select one iOS 18 developer beta or iOS 18 public beta. Knock Backthen you should see after a moment iOS 18.3 Beta 3. Follow the on-screen instructions to download and install the software on your iPhone.