The official release of iOS 18.3 is coming next week and it contains quite a few new features. But they are not available for everyone.
iOS 18.3 is coming next week with these features: but not all of them for you
The next update to iOS 18 is already on its way. Because iOS 18.3 will (if all goes well) be available on your iPhone next week. Any iPhone that currently has iOS 18 can then update.
It is not a very big update, but it does add a number of nice features. Unfortunately, we will not be able to use many of those functions (yet).
Apple has mainly improved some AI functions in the update. Unfortunately, Apple Intelligence is still not available in the Netherlands. This will probably happen sometime in April. But even then, you have to set the iPhone to English first before you can use AI.
Still, it is interesting to know what improvements Apple Intelligence will receive (and what else is included in the update for all devices). Ultimately, Apple’s AI will also become fully available in the Netherlands.
Here are the improvements and new features coming to Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.3:
Create automatic summaries
In iOS 18.3, the function to automatically create summaries of notifications will be available again. The function was temporarily disabled, because the function sometimes made rather strange sentence constructions. Now the function is available again, but unfortunately only on iPhones with support for Apple Intelligence.
Visual intelligence improvements
With Visual Intelligence you can point the camera at a subject and your iPhone will provide more information about it. iOS 18.3 adds some nice features. You can now point the camera at an event poster and the date will automatically be added to your calendar. In addition, the function can now also identify plants and animals.
Visual Intelligence is only available on iPhone 16 models with Apple Intelligence.
These new features in iOS 18.3 are also coming to all devices:
Calculator regains function
The Calculator had a function removed that will return with iOS 18.3. For example, if you typed 2 x 2 and pressed the equal sign, you would get the answer (4). If you then pressed the equals sign again, the answer 8 appeared. This is because the Calculator app then multiplied the answer again by (in this example) 2.
It was a useful feature if you had to make the same calculations regularly. You can use this feature again in iOS 18.3.
Unity 2025
It is not certain, but Apple may do something with it again Black History Month. In previous years, this meant a new strap for the Apple Watch, a new watch face and a new wallpaper for the iPhone.
‘UNITY25’ clues have been found in the Release Candidate for the Apple TV. But in iOS 18.3’s RC, every trace is missing. If Apple does anything with it, it will be sometime next week.
Other updates
Apple also fixed a few minor issues with Siri and Apple Music:
- Fixed an issue where the keyboard would sometimes disappear when typing a Siri command;
- With Apple Music, the music would sometimes continue to play even when the app was closed. That has now been resolved.
In addition, Apple has also added support for robot vacuum cleaners to the Home app, but this feature is not yet available. This probably won’t be until iOS 18.4.
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