Apple gets into AI: all the news on iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and more – The Verge

These robot vacuums are getting upgraded to support Apple Home

2025-03-31T18:28:12-04:00

Several companies, including iRobot, have announced updates and support for Apple Home through Matter. | Image: iRobot

The release of Apple's iOS 18.4 on Monday includes good news for robot vacuum owners. The update includes support for controlling robot vacuums and adding them to automations and scenes in the Apple Home app via the Matter protocol. With the official rollout of iOS 18.4, companies like Roborock, iRobot, and Ecovacs are introducing firmware updates so their robovacs will be fully compatible with Apple Home.

Roborock's firmware update "enhances the implementation of the Matter protocol across several of its premium robot vacuum models," according to a press release from the company. Roborock models that will be getting this expanded Matter s …

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iOS 18.4 is out now with Apple Intelligence-powered priority notifications

2025-03-31T15:45:07-04:00

Apple has released iOS 18.4, and one of the biggest features is priority notifications, which use Apple Intelligence to highlight "important notifications that may require your immediate attention," according to Apple's patch notes.

The priority notifications will appear at the top of your notification stack on your Home Screen, as shown in the picture below from Apple's website.

The update (as well as the just-released iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4) also expands the availability of Apple Intelligence to "many new languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified) - …

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The iOS 18.4 beta brings Matter robot vacuum support

2025-02-22T18:00:23-05:00

The Switchbot S10 is one robot vacuum with Matter support.

Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 18.4 yesterday, which users have since discovered contains support for robot vacuums in the Apple Home app through Matter.

As spotted by 9to5Mac, Smart Home Centre confirmed the functionality using a Switchbot S10, which offers its own beta support for Matter. (Switchbot first added Matter robot vacuum support last year, but it required a hub and was kind of a hack.) Apple Home screenshots shared in the story show the robot vacuum's Home widget (complete with a little robot vacuum glyph) along with a control screen featuring a start / stop button, options for choosing between "Vacuum" and "Vacu …

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The first iOS 18.4 developer beta is here, with support for Priority Notifications

2025-02-21T15:33:39-05:00

Apple just released its first developer betas of a new round of software updates, and early testers have spotted support for Priority Notifications in the iOS 18.4 preview. It's an Apple Intelligence-powered feature that uses on-device processing to try to detect which updates are especially important and sort them into a separate section above your other notifications.

According to 9to5Mac, the Priority Notifications feature is turned off by default in this first developer beta, but you can enable it with a toggle in the notifications area of the settings menu.

What we haven't seen yet, however, are details about an upgraded Siri. Amid r …

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Apple Intelligence might turn itself back on with the latest software updates

2025-02-11T10:27:40-05:00

Updating a newer iPhone, iPad, or Mac to the latest software could have an unintended side effect of re-enabling Apple Intelligence. Users who turned off Apple's AI features in iOS / iPadOS 18.3 or macOS 15.3 - the first set of updates to enable the features by default - have reported that the software suite turned itself on again after they updated to iOS 18.3.1 or macOS 15.3.1, which were released yesterday with notes about fixing a security flaw on iPhones and iPads.

Reports from MacRumors and on Reddit note that those who see the Apple "Welcome" screen after updating find they have to turn Apple Intelligence off again afterward, even if …

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Apple releases security updates to block iPhone passcode hacking tools, again

2025-02-10T14:40:50-05:00

Apple released iOS 18.3.1, iPadOS 18.3.1, and iPadOS 17.7.5 today to address a zero-day exploit that might allow attackers to access data on a locked device.

The update patches the OS against an attack on USB Restricted Mode, which Apple first implemented in devices with the release of iOS 11.4.1 in 2018, to prevent attempts to bypass device passcodes and get around the encryption safeguards that protect user's data. According to Apple, the exploit reported by Bill Marczak of The Citizen Lab "may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals."

Apple has patched flaws in USB Restricted Mode b …

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iOS 18.3 is out with tweaks to AI notification summaries

2025-01-27T13:44:25-05:00

iOS 18.3 is here, and it's bringing changes to AI notification summaries on your iPhone. In iOS 18.3's release notes, Apple says it has temporarily disabled notification summaries for news and entertainment apps.

The change, which was first spotted in the iOS 18.3 beta, comes after the BBC called out the feature for incorrectly summarizing one of its headlines. If you opt-in to the feature, Apple will notify you once it becomes available again.

For Apple devices that support Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro and later, iPads and Macs with the Apple Silicon M1 chip or later, and the most recent version of the iPad mini), today's updates wil …

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Apple Intelligence is enabled by default in iOS 18.3

2025-01-21T15:48:43-05:00

Apple Intelligence will be switched on by default, starting in iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS 15.3. In release candidate notes spotted by 9to5Mac, Apple says it will switch on AI-powered features automatically for new users or those upgrading to the latest versions of its operating systems.

The AI update will only apply to devices that support Apple Intelligence, including the iPhone 15 Pro and later, iPads and Macs with the Apple Silicon M1 chip or later, and the most recent version of the iPad mini.

For users new or upgrading to macOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence will be enabled automatically during Mac onboarding. Users will have access t …

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Apple says it will ‘clarify’ AI summaries after botching BBC headlines

2025-01-06T18:26:57-05:00

The BBC reports Apple will change how iPhones and other devices display Apple Intelligence-summarized notifications to make it clearer to users when its AI tech has adjusted the words. Not long after the still-in-beta feature launched in the UK in December, the news organization complained about how it rewrote a headline about the UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect, incorrectly suggesting that the BBC reported Luigi Mangione shot himself.

Since then, according to the BBC, Apple's summaries had incorrectly rewritten notifications from its app to name a PDC World Darts Championship winner before the event even started and falsely claiming that …

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Apple’s App Store is inviting me to ‘search the way you talk’

2024-12-17T18:47:03-05:00

I opened the App Store today to find an emulator I'd read about, and a new prompt appeared under the search bar inviting me to "search the way you talk." I hadn't seen the prompt before on my iPhone 13 Pro Max, and quite frankly, I had missed the iOS 18.1 update note about it.

As it describes, Apple's update in October added, "App Store search lets you use natural language to find what you're looking for more easily." It's also not the only place Apple is adding natural language search with iOS 18, in addition to Photos, Music, and Apple TV.

While some others had seen a splash screen in October, I'd only spotted the same simple search prom …

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