iOS 18.4 beta 2 includes Visual Intelligence for iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max
Visual Intelligence allows users to conduct a Google Search on stores, animals, plants, restaurants, and just about any item that is in front of your iPhone’s camera or seen in a photograph. You can also ask ChatGPT for more information about what you can see in your camera’s viewfinder. If this happens to be a restaurant, you’ll be able to check for its hours of operation, see a menu, make a reservation or place an order.
If you have an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and iPhone 16e and already have the Action Button opening up an app or feature and prefer not to access Visual Intelligence using the Action Button, you can add Lock Screen access to Visual Intelligence by following these steps in iOS 18.4 beta 2:
- Click the side button on the right side of your iPhone to get to the Lock Screen and long-press on the display.
- Press the minus sign (-) on the Lock Screen control you want to replace with Visual Intelligence. That should make it disappear.
- Press the plus sign (+) to view your options. Look for Visual Intelligence and tap on it. Hit the blue “Done” button in the top right corner.
- Now, you can access Visual Intelligence from the Lock Screen on your iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or iPhone 16e.
Spread the word! New emojis are coming to the iPhone with iOS 18.4. As the latest beta release reveals, seven new emoji are on the way:
- Tired-looking face with bags under the eyes.
- Root vegetable.
- Fingerprint.
- Harp.
- Tree without leafs.
- Purple splatter (think Nickelodeon).
- Shovel.
In iOS 18.4 beta 2, Apple made the Prioritize Notifications feature better by allowing users to disable it on an app-by-app basis. These notifications deemed important to you by Apple Intelligence will “show up in a separate section on the Lock Screen” so you can see important notifications that you might have missed. The version of this feature in iOS 18.3 only gives iPhone users the ability to enable or disable the feature.
Other new features that compatible iPhone users can expect to receive in iOS 18.4 include RCS Messaging support for those iPhone owners who use Google Fi for voice and data. If you’re a Google Fi subscriber, you will want to go to Settings > Apps > Messages for Google Fi subscribers and toggle on RCS Messaging. With this toggle turned on you’ll be able to get read receipts, typing notifications, send and receive high-quality pictures and videos even when messaging with someone using RCS on an Android device. This toggle is available now on iOS 18.4 beta 2.
Possibly offering a clue to what we will see from “Personal Siri” in iOS 18.5, the latest beta release adds new Shortcut actions for some of Apple’s own apps including Safari, Apple Maps, Apple News and others. The new Shortcut actions for Apple Maps, for example, include getting the halfway point between your starting point and destination, get parked car information, and more. These are questions that Siri will probably be able to answer once Apple adds “Personal Siri” to the iPhone. Apple might not be finished updating Siri until iOS 20 arrives in 2027.
If you are a member of the Apple Beta Program, you can install iOS 18.4 Beta 2 by going to Settings > General > Software Update.
