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Jason Hiner/ZDNETApple’s iOS 18.4 update offers a variety of new and improved features, but the star of the show may be priority notifications and expanded Apple Intelligence. Although the company’s AI-powered technology has received some criticism, Apple remains focused on improving its reach and capabilities. Here are the biggest changes coming to your iPhone and iPad, plus what’s new in other software updates rolling out to Apple devices.1. Priority notificationsFirst up: Apple Intelligence will now display urgent or important notifications in a separate section on the Lock screen, so that you can more easily see what you may have missed. To view all your notifications, simply swipe up on the screen. To control this feature, head to Settings and select Notifications. From there, you are able to turn it on or off and choose which apps you want included.2. EU gets Apple IntelligenceApple Intelligence has added support for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, and localized English for India and Singapore. Also: Forget Siri: Apple Intelligence’s true potential on iPad and Mac lies in third-party appsEven further, iPhone users across the EU will now have access to Apple Intelligence for the first time. This means that the AI will be available in many of the major languages and regions around the world.3. Visual Intelligence via Action ButtonVisual Intelligence is another AI-powered skill that’s reaching more iPhone users. Serving up information on the objects you view through the camera, this capability was previously available only on the iPhone 16 lineup through the Camera control. Now, it’s accessible via the Action button, which means that iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max, and iPhone 16e users can take advantage of it. 4. Additional AI changesThe update adds a couple of other AI-based changes. The Image Playground app now offers a Sketch style along with the Animation and Illustration styles. Plus, Apple has added the word “Genmoj” to the Genmoji icon on the keyboard, so you can better identify it. 5. Photos app updateThere’s more to the update beyond Apple Intelligence. The much-maligned Photos app is one example. Also: How to use the Photos app on your iPhoneYou can now show or hide photos that aren’t in an album or synced from your computer. You are able to reorder the different categories in the Media Types and Utilities collections. Sorting your photos by oldest or newest first is now consistent across all collections. Plus, you can choose not to display recently viewed and recently shared photos. 6. Apple News+ recipe directionsFoodies who subscribe to Apple News+ will find a few new items. Also: Need a news app? Here are my top 5 across Android, Linux, and iOSThe app now provides recipes and step-by-step directions for preparing tasty meals. The new recipe catalog helps you find and save your favorite recipes. A food section adds news and information about restaurants, healthy eating, and more. 7. Vision Pro upgradesWhat else is there? Vision Pro users now have their own dedicated iOS app to download apps, find tips, set up a guest mode, and otherwise manage the headset. 8. Control Panel optionsA new Ambient Music option in Control Panel lets you choose different sound categories such as Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing. Also in Control Panel is a new Apple Intelligence section with three options: Talk to Siri, Type to Siri, and Visual Intelligence.9. Podcast app widgetsUsers of the Podcasts app will find a couple of new widgets. Also: Everything you need to start a podcastThe Library widget displays all saved episodes from your library, while the Shows widget will show you all the episodes from a specific show. CarPlay will now reveal an extra row of icons on the screen if your display is large enough. Subscribers of Google Fi and certain T-Mobile MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) will now be able to use RCS in their text conversations with Android users. 10. Security patchesAside from these and other enhancements, iOS 18.4 also carries with it a host of security patches, more than 60 in total. The patches fix bugs in such apps and features as Calendar, Focus mode, Journal, Maps, Photos, Safari, and Siri. More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways NixOS is an open-source operating system that is available to install and use for free. It offers several desktop environments to choose from, is as rock-solid as any OS on the market, and performs quite well. However, there’s a fairly steep learning curve for installing non-free software. –> Before we get […] More

Over the last year, I’ve used fitness wearables to dial into my workout regimen, and they have totally improved my health journey. Smartwatches and smart rings have helped me track my progress over time, monitor my vitals, better understand my post-workout recovery, and stay motivated to keep my activity streaks alive. If you’re honing into your fitness routine or want to learn more about your daily activity patterns, a health tracker is worth trying — especially if it’s on sale. Also: The best Amazon Spring Sale deals still availableAmazon’s Big Spring Sale is in full swing, and we’ve already seen record-low savings on the latest health and sleep trackers. The e-commerce giant kicked off its annual sale event last week, and today is the final day of deals. Whether you’re investing in your first-ever Apple Watch for step-counting or upgrading that Garmin Forerunner to the latest generation, I’ve rounded up some of the hottest deals on health trackers that you can take advantage of right now. Shop these deals before they’re gone. The best smartwatch, smart ring, and fitness tracker deals for Amazon Spring Sale 2025Oura Ring 3 More

Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Strong encryption is the foundation of just about every security and privacy-related feature in the modern computing landscape. Your smartphone is encrypted by default, so its contents are only available when you unlock it with biometrics or a PIN. Your Windows PC is encrypted with BitLocker, and your MacBook […] More

milan2099/Getty Images It’s a jungle out there. And by “out there,” I mean in the online world, where scams, data breaches, and outright thievery are a depressing fact of life. For those of us who have a reasonable technical background, it’s usually easy to spot the markers of an online attack. But if you’re like […] More

Hisense/ZDNETThe TV launch season is here, and while the latest sets from Samsung, LG, and Sony will surely bring the appeal (and premium price tag), consider this Hisense model if you want both an immersively large screen and affordability. Following Amazon’s Spring Sale event, you can still save up to $1,100 on the brand’s flagship U8 series TV More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways The Eufy Security Video Doorbell E340 is normally available for $180 but is currently on sale. This doorbell features two cameras to give you complete visibility of the person at your door and any packages left on your porch, all with no monthly fees. Although the doorbell comes with 8GB of […] More

Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET via HARTSince the release of DALL-E in 2021, the first AI image-generating model to popularize the tech, much progress has been made in the AI text-to-image generator space with improved quality, speed, and prompt adherence. However, even the fastest image generators typically take a couple of seconds to create an image — except this one. Also: Apple’s AI doctor will be ready to see you next springHART, short for Hybrid Autoregressive Transformer, is an AI text-to-image generator developed by MIT, Nvidia, and Tsinghua University. It features unprecedented speed and generations with 3.1 to 5.9 times lower latency than state-of-the-art diffusion models. The key difference? How HART was trained. Without getting too technical, instead of using a diffusion model, which is the training method employed by most popular AI image generators, including OpenAI’s DALL-E and Google’s Imagen 3, HART is an autoregressive (AR) visual generation model, the same as OpenAI’s recently released GPT-4o image generator. More