iOS 18.4 Beta: Apple Intelligence rehearses the start of Germany

Apple provided a first developer beta of iOS 18.4 for download on Friday evening, and previous versions of iPados 18.4 and MacOS 15.4 Sequoia are also available for the test. The operating system updates unlock Apple Intelligence without detours to iPhones and iPads in Germany and all other EU member states. The general release of iOS 18.4 is scheduled for early April. Apple Intelligence has already been activated by default since iOS 18.3, which should also apply to the new countries.

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So far, Apple's AI functions in the EU can only be activated by a workaround on the iPhone. Apple did not originally want to unlock the integrated voice models in the EU because of “regulatory uncertainties” – apart from MacOS, which, in contrast to iOS and iPados, does not fall under the stricter competition rules of the Digital Market Act.

Apple Intelligence in German and in the EU

A significantly expanded support for languages ​​goes hand in hand with the EU start: Apple's AI models are designed for the first time for the first time for German-language content, as well as for French, Italian and Spanish. So far, the system has worked purely in English and assumed to change the language of the entire operating system accordingly.

With iOS 18.4, Apple wants to bring all the previously known AI functions to the EU. Among other things, this includes the options for using chatt via Siri, editing texts and generating images and emojis. Summaries of emails and communications also work with German-language messages.

New in iOS 18.4 is also an automatic prioritization of messages that should focus on particularly important or time -critical news. Apple Mail already offers this functionality for emails, but so far, however, spam and phishing emails have been marked as a priority. Apple wants to offer developers further interfaces to integrate Apple intelligence functions into its own apps, including generated answers to communications (“Smart Replies”).

Siri: Improvements are still pending

Apple's voice assistance system Siri has so far hardly been improved by the AI, the innovations are largely limited to a new user interface and a standard option to address Siri by text instead of voice command. According to Apple, the system should also use the user's context information in the future, recognize screen contents and better control third apps. These important functional extensions should only follow in the coming months, so apparently not yet on April 18. A complete Siri new run based on voice models is only expected in 2026.

With the first beta of Visionos 2.4, Apple Intelligence also makes its debut on the Vision Pro, but only in US English at the start. Here, particularly relevant functions such as the “visual intelligence”, which provides information on objects in the physical environment, the VR headset is apparently missing.

Whether and when the functions previously blocked by Apple in the EU such as iPhone-Mirroring (“iPhone synchronization”) are activated is also open for the time being.