iOS 18.4 beta: Apple Intelligence rehearses the German launch
Apple Intelligence can speak German and can be used in the EU – in a first pre-release version. iOS 18.4 brings further innovations.
(Image: Sebastian Trepesch)
Apple made the first developer beta of iOS 18.4 available for download on Wednesday evening, and pre-release versions of iPadOS 18.4 and macOS 15.4 Sequoia are also available for testing. The operating system updates will activate Apple Intelligence directly on iPhones and iPads in Germany and all other EU member states. The general release of iOS 18.4 is scheduled for the beginning of April. Apple Intelligence has been activated by default since iOS 18.3, and this should also apply to the new countries.
Until now, Apple's AI functions in the EU could only be activated via a workaround on the iPhone. Apple originally did not want to activate the integrated language models in the EU due to "regulatory uncertainties" – apart from macOS, which, unlike iOS and iPadOS, is not subject to the stricter competition rules of the Digital Markets Act.
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Apple Intelligence in German and in the EU
The EU launch is accompanied by significantly expanded support for languages: from iOS 18.4, Apple's AI models are also designed for German-language content for the first time, as well as French, Italian and Spanish. Previously, the system worked purely in English and required the language of the entire operating system to be changed accordingly.
With iOS 18.4, Apple wants to bring all previously known AI functions to the EU. These include the options to use ChatGPT via Siri, edit texts and generate images and emojis. Summaries of emails and messages also work with German-language messages.
Another new feature in iOS 18.4 is the automatic prioritization of messages, which is designed to give priority to particularly important or time-critical messages. Apple Mail already offers this functionality for emails, but until now even spam and phishing emails were sometimes marked as a priority. Apple wants to offer developers further interfaces to integrate Apple Intelligence functions into their own apps, including generated replies to messages ("Smart Replies").
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Siri: Improvements are still pending
Apple's Siri voice assistance system has hardly been improved by AI so far; the innovations are largely limited to a new user interface and the option to address Siri by text input instead of voice commands, which is active by default. According to Apple, the system will also be able to use contextual information from the user, recognize screen content and better control third-party apps in the future. These important functional enhancements will only follow in the coming months, so apparently not yet with 18.4. A complete Siri relaunch based on voice models is not expected until 2026.
Apple Intelligence is also making its debut on the Vision Pro with the first beta of visionOS 2.4, but only in US English at the start. However, the VR headset apparently lacks particularly relevant functions such as "visual intelligence", which provides information on objects in the physical environment.
Whether and when the functions previously blocked by Apple in the EU, such as iPhone mirroring ("iPhone synchronization"), will be activated also remains to be seen.
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