CarPlay UI Improvement, More Apple Intelligence, Other New Features Found in iOS 18.4 Public Beta

Apple is likely to release iOS 18.4 soon, with a public beta already available. Early testers have reported seeing many changes and improvements, particularly with Apple Intelligence for compatible devices. The final release of iOS 18.4 is not expected till early April, so things might still change and additional beta updates might be released for early adopters to test between now and then.

One small but notable change is an update to the CarPlay UI which has been requested by several users. Instead of two rows of icons on the homescreen, CarPlay will be able to show three rows. This takes advantage of the larger displays now found in many cars, and makes more features available to drivers and passengers with a single tap rather than having to swipe to the second page of icons. Some beta testers have seen the third row on displays larger than 14 inches, but Apple has not yet released documentation defining the threshold for what it considers large enough.

It is likely that Apple is thinking more deeply about the CarPlay UI on larger screens, but as of now, iOS 18.4 does not introduce any other design changes, and there are no other tweaks to how maps or other information is displayed. There’s still no sign of the fully customisable "next-gen CarPlay" experience that Apple had stated would be available in cars on the road by the end of 2024.

Apple previously announced that Apple Intelligence would work in more languages including English with Indian localisations, beginning with iOS 18.4. Other languages joining the club include English (Singapore), Chinese (simplified), French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean. iPhone and iPad users in the EU will get Apple Intelligence for the first time, following Apple’s efforts to comply with local regulations around privacy and personal data protection. 

More recently, with the launch of the iPhone 16e, Apple confirmed that users in India will be able to set their iPhone’s primary language to Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, or Urdu.

Apple Intelligence features rolling out with iOS 18.4 include priority notifications, which can surface your most important alerts more prominently on the lock screen. Image Playground gets a new Sketch style for AI-generated images. 

Apple Music will have an Ambient Music feature for background atmosphere. Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing are the first four moods, and each one can be launched with a dedicated Control Centre button. These act like radio stations, and while users can’t choose what to play, tracks can be skipped. 

In countries where it is available, Apple News+ will have a dedicated section for food, nutrition, eating out, and recipes. Tens of thousands of recipes are said to be available. Users in some countries will be able to choose their own default apps for navigation and translation.

As with most iOS releases and their iPadOS counterparts, there will be several small UI improvements and feature additions. Indicators for camera and mic usage have been made more prominent and the Mobile Data widget now shows signal strength. Some animations have been tweaked, and there are new Shortcuts variables, home screen widgets, and Siri voices in some languages.