APPLE has revived a controversial AI feature that was once scrapped for feeding iPhone owners fake news.
The tech giant released the beta version of its iOS 26 iPhone update this week, which includes the contentious notification summaries feature.
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Notification summaries used Apple Intelligence – the company’s own AI software – to summarise notifications from news apps.
It was first rolled out in late 2024.
However, it was swiftly disabled on iPhones following widespread complaint from media outlets such as the BBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Several AI summaries of BBC news stories were given false headlines, including that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had committed suicide.
Other summaries falsely claimed that Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay and that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship before it even began.
The AI-generated summaries were pushed as iPhone notifications with the logo of the reporting news outlet – making it look like they were coming from within the organisation’s app and not via AI.
The BBC told Apple at the time that the issue should be “urgently” addressed.
“These AI summarisations by Apple do not reflect – and in some cases completely contradict – the original BBC content,” the news outlet said in a statement in late December.
“It is critical that Apple urgently addresses these issues as the accuracy of our news is essential in maintaining trust.”
Outlets and press groups warned that the feature was not ready and that AI-generated errors were feeding misinformation.
So Apple pulled the feature, vowing to improve it.
The feature has since returned – with some changes.
Upon installing the new update, users of compatible iPhones will be asked to enable or disable three broad categories of notifications: those for News & Entertainment apps, for Communication & Social apps, and for all other apps.
Once News & Entertainment notification summaries are enabled, Apple issues a big red disclaimer to users, pointing out that “summarisation may change the meaning of the original headlines”.
The notifications also get a special “summarised by Apple Intelligence” caption to further distinguish them from regular, unadulterated notifications.
The disclaimer makes it clear that users should expect incorrect summaries from time to time – rather than guaranteeing that summaries will always be correct.
AI-summarised notifications will be in italicised text, alongside a small icon indicating it is an Apple summary, and not an official news bulletin.
It’s worth noting that this feature, alongside other Apple Intelligence-powered features, will only appear on select devices.
Not all iPhones are compatible with Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence is only available on the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max models.
iPhone tricks to try today
Here are some of the best…
- Typing cursor – When typing, hold down the space bar to turn your keyboard into a trackpad, letting you move around words and sentences more easily
- Close all Safari tabs – To do this in one go, simply hold the overlapped squares in the bottom right-hand corner, and press close all tabs
- Delete lots of photos quickly – Hold down on a photo and then drag your finger diagonally in Photos to select lots of images at once, then hit delete
- Convert currency quickly – Swipe down from the top of your Home screen, then tap in the bar and type a currency (like €200) and it will automatically covert to your local currency
- Check if you’re due a battery upgrade – Batteries inside smartphones degrade over time. Just go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health, and check out the Maximum Capacity reading. Generally a battery is considered worn when you’re down to 80% capacity. If you’re below, you can buy a battery swap from Apple
- Move apps around faster – Hold an app until it starts wiggling, then (while still holding) tap other apps, causing them to stack so you can move them around easier
