Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. Learn more.
Apple is improving iPhone notifications, but not in the way people want
- Apple has introduced AI-driven notification management in iOS 18.
- Apple’s AI will offer notification summarization, summing up key information from conversations.
- It will also enable iPhones to extract important insights from notifications, such as upcoming appointments.
As expected, Apple’s WWDC kickoff keynote focused on the Apple Intelligence features coming to all Apple products. Apple announced a slew of exciting updates for iOS 18, and notification management has also improved slightly.
Traditionally, iOS users have grappled with a horrible notification management system that is objectively subpar compared to Android’s more intuitive approach. With iOS 18, Apple is addressing these concerns (or at least trying to) by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence.
The big change coming to iOS 18’s notification management is the introduction of AI-driven notification summarization. Unlike the existing system, which merely prioritizes important alerts at the top of the notification stack, the new AI-powered summarization goes above and beyond.
By analyzing the content of notifications, Apple’s AI will be able to provide users with concise summaries of their notifications, distilling key information from lengthy conversations or threads. This functionality was demonstrated through examples such as extracting the main talking points from a group chat about an upcoming trip or summarizing discussions from social apps like Reddit.
Apple’s AI will also be able to understand important details from text notifications, such as upcoming appointments or reservations, and display them prominently on the lock screen without having to open the message itself. Apple also talked about the ability to intelligently reduce interruptions by hiding unimportant notifications while still keeping you informed about time-sensitive tasks, such as picking someone up.
While these features seemed useful in Apple’s demos, it doesn’t look like the improvements go far enough to address the platform’s underlying shortcomings. For what it’s worth, this is at least the one new iOS feature announced today that’s not already on Android.
The first wave of the newly announced Apple Intelligence features will begin rolling out this summer for US English users. It’s worth noting that not all iPhones will be eligible for all the new Apple Intelligence features.