Apple has quietly reintroduced the controversial news summary feature in the latest iOS 26 developer beta, which was removed earlier this year due to significant issues. After receiving backlash from publishers in 2024 for misrepresenting headlines, the feature returns in the fourth beta with an important warning about its accuracy. 
The AI-driven summaries, which condense multiple alerts into a single notification, are available again for news apps, but Apple hasn’t fully solved the previous problems.
Initially launched in iOS 18, the notification summaries worked well for basic updates and social media alerts but failed when summarizing breaking news headlines. These errors led to major factual inaccuracies, such as the merging of unrelated articles or omitting key details. The missteps were so significant that Apple had to remove the feature from news apps earlier this year.
In iOS 26 beta 4, developers are prompted to choose which types of alerts to summarize. “News & Entertainment” is now a specific category, bringing in summaries from popular news sources. However, a red warning under this option reads, “Summarization may change the meaning of the original headlines. Verify information,” signaling that Apple is aware of the prior issues but is still cautious about the feature’s reliability.
Despite these concerns, Apple has decided to bring the feature back, likely with more transparency around the risks. Although there’s no confirmation that Apple has retrained the summarization system or implemented safeguards to prevent previous mistakes, it appears the company wants to give the feature another try.
Along with the return of the headline summarization feature, iOS 26 beta 4 brings other minor updates. The Liquid Glass interface is further refined, with adjustments to translucency effects, and a new Dynamic wallpaper that changes color depending on the time of day has been added. Additionally, Call Screening now offers an option to silence unknown callers, a feature that was temporarily removed in earlier betas.
As Apple continues to refine its artificial intelligence capabilities across iOS, features like notification summaries will need to strike a delicate balance between convenience and accuracy, especially when it comes to real-world news. While still in beta, users should proceed with caution when relying on this feature for accurate headline summaries.