Examples of notification summaries for Apple News on an iPad.
Notification summaries are once again working with news app headlines in the fourth iOS 26 developer beta, though it is too early to tell if it will actually work properly this time.
One of the less prominent Apple Intelligence features, notification summaries in iOS 18 were intended to sum up a number of notifications into one brief notification. However, after an outcry from publishers over accuracy, it was disabled for news apps in January.
With the introduction of the fourth developer beta of iOS 26, Apple has re-enabled notification summaries so they work with news apps once again.
Developers updating to the fourth developer beta on Tuesday will be greeted with options to choose the notifications to summarize after rebooting their iPhone. One of the options is “News & Entertainment,” which covers popular news apps installed on the iPhone.
While you can select News & Entertainment alongside Communication & Social and All Other Apps options, it is the only one with a warning.
“Summarization may change the meaning of the original headlines. Verify information,” the option states in red text. This doesn’t bode well for a feature that relies on accuracy.
Making up headlines
The iOS 18 incarnation of notification summaries was called out by the BBC in December 2024, when it complained to Apple about how the feature misinterprets news headlines. It had a tendency to combine multiple headlines into one, resulting in notifications that didn’t make any sense or were factually wrong.
For example, it inferred a November story about the Israeli prime minister being the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant as “Netanyahu Arrested.” “Luigi Mangione shoots himself” was another mistake, as the man arrested for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was very much alive.
In January, it insisted that a well-known darts champion had won a world championship the day before the tournament’s final.
It also managed to confuse stories about Brazilian gay tennis player Joao Lucas Reis da Silva with one about Spanish player Rafael Nadal. The resulting headline erroneously declared “Brazilian tennis player Rafael Nadal comes out as gay.”
While a headline said “Nikki Glaser killed as host of the Golden Globes,” the feature interpreted it as Glaser being killed at the awards ceremony.
Though it is too early to tell whether Apple has actually fixed the feature to ward off complaints from media organizations, the warning text at least indicates that Apple knows it had problems in the past and that it could have issues once again.
Other iOS 26 changes
The return of news headline summarization is arguably the biggest change in the fourth developer beta, but there are others.
During the third developer beta, Apple tweaked Liquid Glass to be made even more toned down than the second beta. In the fourth, Liquid Glass has been improved again with more tweaks to translucency.
Apple has also added a new Dynamic wallpaper option, which will shift in color throughout the user’s day.
The Call Screening feature of iOS 26 has also been updated to include an option to silence unknown callers. The feature disappeared during earlier betas, but is back in the fourth beta.
