iOS 26 packs a surprisingly long list of Apple Intelligence upgrades, including the return of the most controversial AI feature Apple ever shipped: notification summaries for News and Entertainment apps.
News summaries were Apple Intelligence’s biggest initial misstep
The topic of AI seems intrinsically tied to controversies of all sorts. From ethical issues around LLM training practices to fears over job displacement, and the spread of misinformation and deepfakes.
When Apple Intelligence launched last year, it largely seemed to avoid major controversy—at least for a while.
AI image creation tools like Image Playground successfully deployed guardrails that prevented the same missteps made by other companies.
But one feature did bring notable negative buzz: notification summaries for news.
BBC News in particular took issue with Apple’s AI tools incorrectly summarizing content for notifications. One especially egregious example claimed that Luigi Mangione had shot himself—which the false summary attributed to the BBC in the notification.
Apple’s response at the time was to disable notification summaries entirely for two categories of apps: News and Entertainment.
Presumably, the latter category was disabled because apps like Podcasts and YouTube will often have news headline-style notifications, just like a news app might.
But in iOS 26 last month, the feature returned.
iOS 26 restores notification summaries for News and Entertainment apps
Apple hasn’t been particularly forthcoming on what’s changed with news summaries in iOS 26. However, the company clearly feels comfortable reenabling the feature for all users.
It appears that Apple’s underlying summarization models have received improvements intended to make the prior errors less common.
Additionally, UI changes now make more clear than ever that summaries may introduce errors. For example, the first time you enable summaries for News and Entertainment apps, red text appears on-screen to warn you of possible errors.
You’ll also see a new ‘Summarized by Apple Intelligence’ footer in summarized news notifications.
So far in the month that they’ve been re-enabled (plus the extra time they were available in iOS 26’s beta), notification summaries appear to be performing better than before.
With strong iPhone 17 sales, and the amount of time that’s passed since Apple first disabled the feature in January, the number of AI-capable devices has grown substantially since the feature was last available.
Yet despite that user growth, I’ve seen zero reports on AI summaries creating controversy in iOS 26. Maybe they’re out there, but I’ve struggled to find any.
Anecdotally, summaries have been far more accurate for me personally in iOS 26 overall.
In iOS 18, I would encounter about one inaccurate summary per week across all my apps. But in the months since the feature was reinstated, I can’t recall spotting any errors at all.
It’s good to see that things seem to be going better so far for summaries in iOS 26. When I first tested notification summaries in iOS 18, I found them one of the most useful AI features at the time.
How have iOS 26’s notification summaries been working for you? Do they seem more accurate than before? Let us know in the comments.
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