Updated March 24 with further details pointing to an exact date for iOS 18.4’s release.
Apple’s next big iPhone update will be iOS 18.4, unless there’s a bug-squishing exercise to sort out a recent software problem, an iPhone 16e issue or a mild nuisance with Apple Intelligence before then. Apple almost never says when an update is coming, but this time around, it’s dropped a lot of hints. And now the Release Candidate of the software had landed, which may clarify things further: details below.
First The Month: April
I broke the news in February that Apple had quietly revealed that iOS 18.4 would be released in April, through a Newsroom update about another product, Apple Vision Pro. One element of that release confirmed the iPhone software was set for release in April.
Now, Which Part
We can pin it down further. Apple had previously said that extra languages would be supported for Apple Intelligence, but hadn’t said which release would include it.
However, the iOS 18 page at apple.com has information, buried in a footnote: “Additional features and Chinese (Simplified), English (India, Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish language support available in early April, with more languages coming over the course of the year, including Vietnamese. Some features may not be available in all regions or languages,” it says.
Early April, huh? Surely, this must mean the first half of the month, no? I mean, I’d say anything from about April 12 onwards would count as mid-April, but let’s not be picky. Which means what, exactly?
Apple iOS 18.4 Release Date
This is a big, scheduled mid-cycle update and Apple always plans to release these on a Monday or Tuesday. The company has tended towards Mondays recently, which gives us a tight range of dates.
Earliest would be Tuesday, April 1, which is less than two weeks away, but we’re not quite as advanced in terms of beta versions to suggest this—the fourth public beta is the current state of affairs.
Which leaves Monday, April 7, Tuesday, April 8, Monday, April 14 or Tuesday, April 15.
Things have now slightly changed as on Monday, March 24, Apple gave us what’s called the Release Candidate, likely the last update before the general release. That makes the very first of those dates, Tuesday, April 1, suddenly more likely—if the release candidate wasn’t here now, it would probably have arrived next week.
While it’s always more than a few days between release candidate and general availability, it’s often as little as a week or so, hence the reappearance of Tuesday, April 1 in the list of possible dates.
The joys of not making an announcement is that Apple has the wiggle room to move things up to and including the release date, so things could change.
However, while the prospect of iOS 18.4 as soon as April 1 is an enticing one, I still think the week after is the most likely. In other words, though this could chance, for now I believe Apple will release iOS 18.4 on Monday, April 7 or the day after, Tuesday, April 8.
Not long to wait.
