While Apple Intelligence shows promise, its notification summaries feature is one I recommend disabling. Although it was introduced with iOS 18.1 and has seen updates in iOS 26, it still falls short of expectations.
Notification summaries aim to condense multiple messages into a brief overview, allowing users to prioritize important notifications without needing to read each one. However, I find that I often still check the original messages because the summaries can be unreliable.
Why I Turn Off Notification Summaries
The concept of notification summaries is appealing, as it could reduce the time spent on my phone, especially when dealing with lengthy group chat messages. Unfortunately, I often find myself reading the original messages anyway, as the summaries frequently fail to capture essential details.
After its initial launch, Apple disabled summaries for news apps due to significant errors in summarizing news content. Although the feature was re-enabled with iOS 26, it remains inconsistent, with the updated UI indicating that errors may still occur.
In my experience, the summaries often miss crucial information, leading me to read both the summaries and the original messages, which ultimately consumes more time than simply ignoring the feature altogether.
Despite my frustrations, I remain hopeful that future updates will enhance the reliability of this feature, and I plan to revisit it when new versions are released. For now, I keep notification summaries turned off.
How to Turn Notification Summaries Off
If you've previously enabled notification summaries, turning them off is straightforward, though searching for 'notification summaries' in the Settings menu may not yield results.
To disable the feature, follow these steps:
- 1. Open Settings
- 2. Tap Notifications
- 3. Select Summarize Notifications
- 4. Toggle the Summarize Notifications option off
Pro Tip: Customize the Feature Instead
While I generally keep notification summaries disabled, you can customize them to summarize only specific types of notifications. For instance, you might choose to exclude news apps while allowing summaries for social media notifications.
To customize, go to:
- 1. Open Settings
- 2. Tap Notifications
- 3. Select Summarize Notifications
On this screen, you can toggle the feature for individual apps or categories, making it easier to manage which notifications you want summarized.