iOS 18.3 Public Beta 3 Reels In the AI Notification Summaries

Apple released the third public beta of iOS 18.3 to developers and public beta testers on Thursday. The release comes more than a week after the company released iOS 18.2.1. While Apple squashed a few bugs with that update, the latest beta introduces a few improvements to the iPhones of developers and beta testers, including some updates to Apple Intelligence notification summaries. 

Read more: An Expert’s Guide to iOS 18

Since this is a beta, I recommend downloading it only on something other than your primary device. Because this isn’t the final version of iOS 18.3, the update might be buggy and battery life may be short, so it’s best to keep those troubles on a secondary device.

Note that the beta is not the final version of iOS 18.3, so there could be more features to land on your iPhone when iOS 18.3 is released. There’s no word on when Apple will release iOS 18.3 to the public yet.

Here’s what iOS 18.3 could bring to your iPhone soon. And just a reminder that only developers and beta testers who have an iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max or the iPhone 16 lineup can access any Apple Intelligence features for now. If you have any other iPhone, you won’t have access to those features.

AI notification summary updates

The iOS 18.3 beta makes some adjustments to Apple Intelligence notification summaries. With this feature, some of your apps can give you summaries of notifications on your Lock Screen, and the feature is on by default in most cases. But according to the BBC, one of the publication’s headlines was summarized inaccurately.

With the beta, this feature no longer works for the News app, and there’s a disclaimer in the Summarize Notifications menu in Settings that reads, “Summaries may contain errors.” According to 9to5Mac, notification summaries are temporarily disabled for apps in the News & Entertainment category.

The beta also italicizes AI notification summaries on your Lock Screen to distinguish them from other notifications. You can turn off AI notification summaries for certain apps from your Lock Screen, too, by slightly swiping left on the notification, tapping Options then tapping Turn Off Summaries.

Repeating operations in Calculator

One thing developers and beta testers can do in the iOS 18.3 beta is repeat operations in the Calculator app without entering the equation again. This isn’t new, but Apple removed this ability from Calculator when the company released iOS 18 in September.

Now, developers and beta testers can continue to double something, for example, just by pressing the equal sign multiple times instead of entering an equation again and again. 

While there aren’t many changes in the update, this is just the third public beta of iOS 18.3. There will likely be more betas before the OS is released to the public, so there’s plenty of time for Apple to add new features and improve on others. As of now, there’s no word on when Apple will release iOS 18.3 to the general public.

For more on iOS, here’s what to know about iOS 18.2.1 and iOS 18.2. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet. 

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