iOS 18.4.1: Apple Releases Urgent iPhone Update, With Fixes For All Users
Just over two weeks ago, Apple launched iOS 18.4, a biggish update with plenty of new features and fixes (more on how that update brought its own problems below). And there's new information now this update has landed relating to where the fixes are aimed, and the security issues addressed here.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro
So, news of an interim update before the big release of iOS 18.5 came as a surprise when reports surfaced last week.
Here it is: full details of who it's for, how to get it and what's inside.
All versions of iOS 18, are compatible with iPhones from the iPhone Xs from 2018 onwards. That means the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone Xr from that year and every iPhone after that, including the iPhone SE in both its second- and third-generation models. And all members of the iPhone 16 series are included, right up to the latest, the iPhone 16e.
This is simplicity itself. Open the Settings app, choose General, then Software Update. Next, click on Download and Install, and the software will download. This is a smallish update, 570MB on my iPhone 16 Pro Max. Mine took less than 10 minutes from clicking on Download to full installation.
This release was something of a surprise, given that the previous update, iOS 18.4, landed just two weeks ago, on Monday, March 31 and it had new features and a slew of security fixes (more than 60 of them).
It had been thought that the next release would be iOS 18.5, but things don't always go to plan, hence this smaller update.
We knew that users had been complaining that apps they had deleted long ago had mysteriously reappeared, and that CarPlay was tending to disconnect unexpectedly, but we didn't know if those would be the feature of this update.
Apple is tight-lipped about the content here except for one specific: CarPlay. Apple says, 'This update provides important bug fixes and security updates, and addresses a rare issue that prevents wireless CarPlay connection in certain vehicles,' in its release notes.
The notes refer to wireless CarPlay — there was no problem if you plugged your iPhone into the car by cable. And it's interesting that Apple is saying that the issue is rare. I had tried to recreate it in several cars without success.
That said, if you got into your car to start CarPlay as usual and found yourself unable to connect, that is a major headache, however rare it might be. Especially if you depend on your iPhone for satellite navigation, for instance.
The update notes also specify 'bug fixes and security updates,' and these come down to two security flaws, both of which are part of the urgency of the update as they are being used in real-life attacks.
That sounds scary, but take heart that Apple specifies such attacks are thought to have been 'against specific targeted individuals,' such as journalists and politicians, for example, rather than everyone. That said, the attacks could widen.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Tom's Guide
a minute ago
- Tom's Guide
Dismissing Apple Watch notifications just got a whole lot easier — how to use the wrist flick gesture in watchOS 26
The new Apple Watch wrist flick gesture is one of the more subtle updates introduced with the latest watchOS 26 public beta release. Yet, even as features like the AI-powered Workout Buddy and refreshed Liquid Glass aesthetic garner the most public interest, I'm quickly finding Apple's latest gesture control to be my favorite part of watchOS 26. The concept behind wrist flick is simple. Rather than having to swipe away incoming notifications on your Apple Watch when they pop up on the screen, the new gesture lets you dismiss them hands-free with, as the name suggests, a quick flick of the wrist. Want to try Apple's new wrist flick gesture yourself? I'll walk you through the relatively straightforward setup process (four steps) and give you a quick overview of the ins and outs of flicking your Apple Watch-worn wrist like a pro. First, to use Apple's new wrist flick gesture, you'll need to ensure that you have a compatible Apple Watch model. The watchOS 26 public beta is for Apple Watch Series 6 devices and newer, including the newest Apple Watch SE (2022) and both Apple Watch Ultra models. However, only the Apple Watch Ultra 2, Apple Watch Series 10 and Apple Watch Series 9 are wrist flick compatible. You'll also need an iPhone 11 or newer to download and install the newest iOS software (more on that in the next step). Once you've verified that your devices are eligible for the latest software, it's time to download and install the iOS 26 public beta on your iPhone. You'll need to do this before you can install the latest Apple Watch software. With iOS 26 beta up and running on your iPhone, it's now time to download and install watchOS 26 beta on your Apple Watch 9, 10 or Ultra 2. The whole process takes about 45 minutes and is pretty simple, but if you need some help, here's a step-by-step guide to the watchOS 26 beta installation process. Once you've got watchOS 26 beta loaded up, it's nearly time to start wrist-flicking, but first, let's make sure the gesture is switched on. To do this, head to the app screen and open Settings. From there, scroll down until you see Gestures; tap on it. Once in Gestures, scroll down past Double Tap until you see Wrist Flick. Ensure the slider to the right is in the on position (showing green). You're now ready to use the new wrist flick gesture! With the feature turned on, exit the settings menu and wait for a notification to come in. When one does, glance down to read the incoming alert as you normally would, but don't touch the screen or watch buttons. When you're done reading the notification, turn your watch-worn wrist away from your body and then back toward you in quick succession. This should dismiss the notification and return the screen to the main watch face view. In addition to app notifications, the wrist flick gesture can also be used to manage incoming phone calls, alarms, timers and even the Smart Stack. Simple to master, I can assure that after a few days of flicking away notifications on your Apple Watch, you'll wonder how you ever got by without this nifty new feature. Want to learn about more cool things you can do with your Apple Watch thanks to the latest software release? Here are my five favorite watchOS 26 upgrades so far. The list includes Apple's new personalized, AI-powered Workout Buddy, the refreshed Liquid Glass aesthetic, live message translations and more. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips.
CNN
13 minutes ago
- CNN
Microsoft has become the next $4 trillion company
Microsoft became the second company to reach a $4 trillion market valuation on Thursday, after its blockbuster earnings report on Wednesday night boosted the tech giant's shares. Microsoft's shares (MSFT) jumped nearly 4.5% after the market opened on Thursday, pushing its intraday valuation to $4.01 trillion. The company's shares have risen roughly 28% since the start of this year. The milestone comes just a year and a half after Microsoft reached a $3 trillion valuation. The company first cracked the $1 trillion mark in April 2019. It follows Nvidia into the $4 trillion valuation club, which hit the mark earlier this month. Microsoft forecast a record $30 billion in capital spending for the current fiscal first quarter to fuel its AI ambitions, and reported booming sales in its Azure cloud computing business on Wednesday. Wall Street analysts also noted that Microsoft's Copilot AI chatbot appears to have driven meaningful growth in its Microsoft 365 enterprise software business. Microsoft's move to $3 trillion was more measured than other tech giants, Nvidia (NVDA) and Apple (AAPL), with AI bellwether Nvidia tripling its value in just about a year and clinching the $4 trillion milestone before any other company on July 9. Apple was last valued at $3.12 trillion. Lately, breakthroughs in trade talks between the US and its trading partners ahead of President Donald Trump's August 1 tariff deadline have buoyed stocks, propelling the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to record highs. Microsoft, the second largest US company, has rebounded nearly 50% from its April 2025 lows, when global markets were rattled by Trump's tariff offensive. Microsoft's multibillion-dollar bet on OpenAI is proving to be a game-changer, powering its Office Suite and Azure offerings with cutting-edge AI and fueling the stock to more than double its value since ChatGPT's late-2022 debut. Armed with exclusive access to OpenAI's models, Microsoft has raced to the front of the generative AI pack — supercharging its Azure cloud business, now the company's top revenue driver, and solidifying its dominance in the tech landscape, compared to Google's cloud and Amazon's web services. Wall Street's surging confidence in the company comes on the heels of back-to-back record revenues for the tech giant since September 2022. The stock's rally had also received an extra boost as the tech giant trimmed its workforce and doubled down on AI investments — determined to cement its lead as businesses everywhere race to harness the technology. While sweeping US tariffs had investors bracing for tighter business spending, Microsoft's strong earnings have shown that the company's books are yet to take a hit from the levies. But despite its meteoric rise, Microsoft has been streamlining its workforce in recent months. The company said earlier this month that it would cut around 9,000 employees, approximately 4% of its staff, its largest reduction since 2023. Those layoffs came after the company cut 6,000 workers in May. A company spokesperson said the July cuts were, in part, a reflection of new technologies that have made employees more productive. While AI wasn't mentioned specifically, the cuts came as Silicon Valley giants deploy the technology they're building to make their workers more efficient. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said earlier this year that 20% to 30% of the company's code was being generated by AI, and it's is pouring billions into AI infrastructure investments.
Android Authority
31 minutes ago
- Android Authority
I tried iOS 26 as an Android user, and my biggest issue has nothing to do with Liquid Glass
Ryan Haines / Android Authority I'm a Pixel guy, have been for years — everyone knows it. So, you can imagine I was pretty pleased when Google unveiled Material 3 Expressive, and it looked like a refinement of the Pixel UI design that I already loved. And then came Apple with its new Liquid Glass interface as part of iOS 26. Simply put, I thought it looked awful. It was hard to read, and the original glass effects looked clunky. Now, though, I've given iOS 26 a shot. I've loaded it onto my iPhone 16 for a quick trip around the block and realized I was wrong. My least favorite part about Apple's latest software isn't the look, but what it's done to the navigation buttons I spent years getting used to. I'm nearly ready to go back to iOS 18, and here's why. Liquid Glass looks actually kinda cool… once you figure it out Ryan Haines / Android Authority At first, Liquid Glass threw me for a loop. It automatically applied itself, well, everywhere, and I wasn't sure how to navigate. My app icons suddenly looked like frosted glass pebbles, and most of my on-screen buttons were just a little harder to see. But after a few minutes, my eyes adjusted. I adapted to the new icons just like I had adapted when they were barely visible against dark gray backgrounds, and I quickly relearned my way around. Once I did, I began to see how Liquid Glass is an improvement over whatever Apple called its iOS 18 design. Where that styling felt like a quick, dirty response to one of my favorite Android customizations, Liquid Glass feels considered. The app icons feel textured, and the slight difference in coloring makes it much easier to pick out which app I'm looking for — I no longer get mixed up between Spotify, Find My, and Apple Fitness. Liquid Glass treats my app icons much, much better than iOS 18 ever did. Of course, Liquid Glass isn't just about recoloring app icons; it's also about spicing up widgets and reworking the folders that adorn my home screen. On both fronts, I love what Apple is going for. I keep my home screen pretty lean, with two folders at the bottom and two widgets at the top, and Liquid Glass does just enough to minimize both of them while bringing out the details in my wallpaper. I particularly like that my productivity folder — which houses Slack, Asana, and Google Authenticator — pulls from the golden evening glow of the iconic pagoda in Patterson Park and loops it around the edge of the folder as if I were looking through a slightly rounded window. There are, however, times when I'm not sure the Liquid Glass treatment is necessary. One is when I drag down from the top edge to check my notifications. Sure, it's neat that you can see the glass texture take over, acting like a wave as it descends over your apps, but it's not the most noticeable. The part of Liquid Glass that's really gotten old is when I swipe into apps like Photos. Everything is fine at first, with easily visible buttons along the bottom of my library, but when I swipe up and the glass takes over, it becomes almost impossible to find everything from Select to Search. And, now that I'm annoyed at that, let's talk about the buttons themselves. Bubbles are no good for glass, Apple Ryan Haines / Android Authority As I saw it, Apple's existing controls were good enough — maybe even great for some people. I certainly had no problem with how the buttons looked in Photos on iOS 18, and I even asked Google to copy Apple's bottom-mounted search bar from Safari to Chrome (which it later did). I would have been content for them to stay the same from one version of iOS to the next and beyond, but Apple had something else in mind. It put everything in its little bubble, making it all hard to find. Perhaps the worst example of this — and the one that inspired me — is what Apple did to its Safari controls. Previously, they were set up just right. The forward and backward arrows took up just enough space, and it was easy to read the address bar at a glance. I could jump from one tab to the next with a single button and access all other tab-related controls right from the same one. Now, though, I have to press a button to open the tab menu, then press a second button to view all of my tabs, taking a few unnecessary extra seconds to display those options. Apple's search for bubbly goodness has also led it to ruin its camera app with one simple change. It decided that Google had the right idea a few years ago with its minimalist Pixel camera interface, and now the iPhone should have the same one. On one hand, Apple always kept one tab for video and one tab for photos, but this new interface just doesn't work for me. I think my problem is that it's both bubbly and backwards. A swipe to the left makes the settings go left, while a swipe to the right makes them go right. It's exactly the opposite behavior of the previous camera interface, and now it's the opposite of how the Camera Control behaves, too. An easy fix for this is to make them swipe in the same direction, but I fear I'll be waiting impatiently until Apple realizes it. Unfortunately, Apple's hard-to-see buttons are pretty much everywhere in iOS 26. Nothing shares a safe, reliable bar anymore, and pretty much everything has been moved from its original position. New messages now start from the bottom of the interface rather than the top, the Phone app now has one unified menu, and the button to start navigating in Apple Maps practically needs its own navigation feature. It's confusing, it's a mess, and I'm ready to pack up my things and go back to my Pixel 9 Pro. I'm sorry, Apple. Maybe I'll try a future version of iOS 26 — one where I can actually find my way around. Follow
