Apple is set to launch a few new products next week. What are they? Well, no one knows for sure. There have been rumors of a new iPhone SE or perhaps something new for the Apple Vision Pro line.
But we do know of one of Apple's anticipated releases: iOS 18.4 beta, which, according to Bloomberg's Apple insider Mark Gurman, is set to roll out next week.
iOS 18.4 beta is set to bring the iPhone some new features and capabilities. Here are some of the cool things that iPhone users can expect.
New Emojis
Listen, this isn't the most innovative thing coming to the new iOS beta, but let's be honest: It's what users will be utilizing the most.
Seriously, look at this "tired face with bags under its eyes" emoji. It's very likely you'll be seeing this one everywhere in your late-night iMessage group chats. There's also a harp, shovel, beet-like rootless vegetable, purple ink splatter, and a barren leafless tree that's expected to be on the way, too.
Apple usually includes the newest emojis approved by the Unicode Consortium in its latest iOS releases, so you'll likely see these added, too.
Apple Intelligence: Siri gets smarter
Siri is poised to get an Apple Intelligence upgrade, according to Bloomberg's Gurman.
And that upgrade could very well be coming in the iOS 18.4 beta.
Apple first announced its own set of AI features, Apple Intelligence, last June. Apple was already late to the AI space with the announcement. But, even then, the company took months to officially start rolling them out. On top of all that, quite a few of those Apple Intelligence features still haven't been released more than 8 months later.
On top of that list of upcoming AI features: A smarter, Apple Intelligence-powered Siri voice assistant.
Some of these Siri features include personal context or the ability for the voice assistant to utilize your own data to answer your questions and queries. Siri could also get an on-screen awareness capability, which would allow Siri to interact based on what you're already doing on your device. Apple also previously said that Siri will have a "richer language understanding, more natural communication" and the "ability to take action in and across apps."
Apple Intelligence: Better news summaries
Here's one feature that was taken away that we're expected to get back: News summaries.
Apple Intelligence was originally launched with a feature that generated news summaries via iPhone notifications. There was one problem, though. AI can often get these types of summaries wrong, and when we're talking about breaking news and current events, getting those summaries wrong could be dangerous.
After pushing out a few blatantly false AI-generated news summaries that went viral, Apple pulled the features for the News & Entertainment category of news and added a warning that the feature "may contain errors" in the settings sections for other news categories.
Apple said the AI news summaries that were disabled would return after the company made improvements. It seems likely that Apple will reintroduce the feature in the iOS 18.4 beta.
Default Map and Translation app
As MacRumors reports, Apple has been required by the EU's Digital Markets Act to allow users to set their own default Map and Translation app instead of using the default one provided by Apple.
Based on the timeline for rolling this out, it seems likely that those settings changes will be coming in the iOS 18.4 beta. Yes, Apple is only required to do this in the EU, and other DMA-required features haven't all rolled out in the U.S. But this one seems like a feature that Apple will bring to all of its users.
Home app updates
Apple's expected robot vacuum support was nowhere to be found in the Home app for the last iOS release. Well, to be clear, as MacRumors points out, it was found somewhere: Hidden in iOS 18.3's code. Yet, the feature didn't go live with iOS 18.3's launch.
Apple still mentions the feature on its website, which allows users to control their robot vacuum cleaner functions and monitor its status. Did Apple still need some more time to fine-tune robot vacuum support in the Home app? There's a good chance you'll be able to finally use Siri to control your robot vacuum very soon, possibly in the upcoming iOS 18.4 beta.
