Apple switches off glitchy new iPhone notification feature after wave of complaints
APPLE has pulled a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature after it gave iPhone owners inaccurate news alerts.
The feature was supposed to give condensed AI-generated summaries of several news notifications.
However, the notifications were pushed with the logo of the reporting news outlet – making it look like they were coming from within the organisation’s app and not via AI.
Apple had received criticism from the BBC over the faulty feature, which the news organisation said should be “urgently” addressed weeks ago.
Several AI summaries of BBC news stories were given false headlines, including that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.
Others falsely claimed that Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay and that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship before it even began.
“These AI summarisations by Apple do not reflect – and in some cases completely contradict – the original BBC content,” the BBC said in a statement in late December.
“It is critical that Apple urgently addresses these issues as the accuracy of our news is essential in maintaining trust.”
Several other news organisations, including the New York Times and Washington Post, had also complained about the AI alerts.
Outlets and press groups had warned that the feature was not ready and that AI-generated errors were feeding misinformation.
The tech giant had initially said it would work on the software to “further clarify” when notification summaries had been made by AI.
Apple will continue to work on the feature, but has said it will suspend it until it is ready.
“With the latest beta software releases of iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3, Notification summaries for the News & Entertainment category will be temporarily unavailable,” an Apple spokesperson told the BBC last night.
“We are working on improvements and will make them available in a future software update.”
Apple rolled out its first AI features in late October, under the umbrella Apple Intelligence.
A second tranche, which included the AI summaries tool, followed in December.
Currently, the AI features are only available on iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max handsets.
The tools, which include a smarter Siri and a new emoji generator, have been met with a largely positive reception.
However, Apple has admitted that its Apple Intelligence features are still “in beta” – meaning they may contain flaws that need to be ironed out in future iOS updates.