Apple Releases First Round of iOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3 Betas
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It’s been less than a week since Apple pushed iOS/iPadOS 18.2 and macOS 15.2 out to the public, and now it’s already kicking off the next beta cycle for iOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3.
However, if you were hoping that these next point releases would bring some more exciting Apple Intelligence features, it looks like we may be in for a disappointment. While Apple could still add new features in future betas, reliable sources suggest that the next round of Apple Intelligence changes won’t be coming until iOS 18.4 and macOS 15.4. That lines up with Apple’s promised timeline to bring support for new languages and Apple Intelligence to the European Union, plus rumors have been circulating since last summer that the big Siri improvements also won’t likely arrive until iOS 18.4 et al.
This puts today’s betas — and the final release that will likely follow in late January or February — more in the “housekeeping” category. That’s likely a good thing, as it’s time Apple took a beat and polished things up a bit as we’ve seen numerous reports of problems in iOS 18.2 — either things that still haven’t been fixed from prior versions or new issues that some have encountered after installing the latest public release.
That begs the question: What has changed in today’s releases? For iPhone and iPad users, the answer is “not much.” However, we do have some good news for the Mac.
Genmoji Comes to macOS Sequoia 15.3
Last week, iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 introduced the new Apple Intelligence image generation features—Image Playground and Genmoji — to the iPhone and iPad. Unfortunately, the Mac was substantially left out of the latter; it only got Image Playground.
That’s not to say that macOS 15.2 users can’t participate in Genmoji conversations; you just can’t create new Genmoji from the Mac. If someone makes a Genmoji on their iPhone or iPad and uses it in a conversation, you can see it correctly on macOS 15.2. You can even use Genmoji that you’ve created on your iPhone or iPad from your Mac since these are stored and treated as Stickers, so they work the same way.
Still, the lack of Genmoji creation was an odd omission for Mac users, as Apple had specifically said it would be coming to all platforms. That made it a safe bet that it was just around the corner for macOS, and Apple has confirmed that with today’s beta.
Genmoji in the macOS Messages app works much like on the iPhone and iPad. Bring up the emoji picker by clicking the button to the right of your message compose box, and you’re asked to “Describe an emoji.”
This lets you search through existing emoji and Genmoji and prompts you to create a new one if nothing matches. However, if you want to go straight into Genmoji creation, you can click the button to the right of that search field.
Robot Vacuums
Although most folks won’t likely notice this change for a while, it appears that support for robot vacuum cleaners will be coming to HomeKit in the next update. At least that’s what code found in the first iOS 18.3 beta suggests:
As far as we know, no one has hooked up a robot vacuum to HomeKit yet to try this out, but that’s not surprising as there aren’t any robot vacuums that support HomeKit yet. In theory, robo-vacs with Matter should also work, but few models have embraced Matter.
What’s Not Here (Yet)
Sadly, that’s the marquee change for this round of betas. After Apple launched Mail Categorization in iOS 18.2, some hoped that iPadOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3 would bring the same to the iPad and Mac. Still, the Mail app on both those platforms looks precisely like it did in iPadOS 18.2 and macOS 15.2.
Again, that could change in a future beta, but it’s unclear how actively Apple is working on this. The iPadOS 18 and macOS 15 feature lists don’t mention Mail Categorization, which suggests it’s not on the roadmap. Still, on the flip side, Apple showed it off in an iMac screenshot when it announced the first round of Apple Intelligence features at the end of October. That screenshot was intended to highlight Priority Messages and message summaries, both of which arrived in macOS 15.1, but the Mail app in that graphic clearly shows Mail Categories.
That’s not necessarily just a gaffe. Last week, John Gruber shared that his sources tell him Apple is working on it for the other platforms.
I am reliably informed that the new Mail categorization features are coming soon to iPad and Mac, which I suspect means in the .3 updates. But the first .3 betas aren’t out yet.
John Gruber
This means today’s lack of Mail Categories for the iPad and Mac may simply be a “beta one” thing, and they could still appear in the next round — although we may not see those until January.
Not everyone is a fan of the new Mail Categories, so you may want to turn them off anyway. However, as I shared last week, one of the things that makes them so awkward right now is the very fact that they’re iPhone-only, creating an inconsistent feeling when you switch over to your iPad or back to your Mac.
Folks in Canada may similarly have to wait a while for the new hearing aid and hearing test features to arrive. While Health Canada approved these last week, there’s no sign of them in the first iOS 18.3 beta. That may merely be a timing issue, though; the official certification only came five days ago, on December 11, so Apple may not have had time to do whatever validation and testing is needed before flipping this feature on for Canada.
