We’re a month-plus into iOS 18.2, released on Dec. 11, 2024, and we know a few things about the impact on email marketing. Although the picture is complicated a bit by a slow rollout and measurement made cloudy by past iOS releases.
And now, with iOS 18.3 officially released, it’s clear that Apple is building on the email changes introduced in 18.2. These foundational updates, including inbox tabs and AI-powered features, shape how marketers approach the Apple Mail ecosystem. Understanding these changes is crucial, as they will likely inform ongoing developments in iOS’s email experience.
iOS 18.2: A quick overview
iOS 18.2 features changes that will impact email subscribers — including those on ESPs like Gmail and Yahoo — who use Apple Mail on their iPhone, iPad or Mac device. Apple Mail subscribers are 49.6% of the email market for our agency’s clients. For the world at large, that number jumps to 55.4%, as calculated by Litmus in December.
Dig deeper: How to get your email marketing ready for iOS 18
Email changes from iOS 18.2
The changes introduced by iOS 18.2 fall into two main categories:
- The expansion of AI in email.
- The introduction of tabs.
The new AI features include:
- Automatic reply suggestions.
- Email summaries (example below).
- Preheaders are being phased out of the “All Mail.”
- Message categorization.
The tabs, which should be familiar to many users from desktop email experiences, include:
- Primary.
- Transactions.
- Updates.
- Promotions.
Before I jump into why it’s hard to assess the exact impact of these changes, here’s what we’re seeing anecdotally across our client base:
- Most brands are seeing non-transactional messages go to the promotions tab instead of primary tab.
- In the Promotions tab, recent sends are included with bullets and then the subject line of each email.
- Clicking on one email lets the user view all recent emails from the sender.
- Subscribers must click “See more” to see the full email — and this click is not trackable.
- AI summaries are replacing preview text in the “All Mail” tab (example below). These summaries have varying quality, but they render much more effectively from emails with live text than image-based emails.
Dig deeper: Email marketers discuss the role of AI, iOS and the state of their channel
Complications for measuring impact
How significant an impact should you expect from iOS 18’s email updates? It’s hard to say for a few reasons:
- Adoption is relatively slow; Statcounter estimates iOS 18.2 adoption to be below 6% a month after the release.
- Open rates aren’t reliable since most impacted users have already opted into the Mail Privacy Protection in iOS 15.
- While we’ve seen muted impacts on click rate, the actual effects are difficult to isolate given external conditions, including email content, holiday messaging and behaviors, and seasonal variance.
We expect to see a decrease in click rates as adoption increases, but that data is still forthcoming.
Recommendations
Here’s what email marketers can do to mitigate iOS 18’s impact:
- Continue to focus on driving increased engagement with emails through Personalization.
- Audience segmentation.
- Journey-building and automation.
- Use of promo codes in subject lines.
- Citation of promo availability/duration in subject lines.
- Use transactional emails to drive engagement — and send this email from the same sending environment as non-transactional emails.
- Continue to focus on incorporating live text within emails and avoid using text in images.
- Update your content calendar to consider how emails may appear in succession when grouped together in your subscribers’ inboxes.
You don’t need to wait for a broader rollout to incorporate those recommendations. They’re good email practices that should help raise your engagement baseline, no matter where you are in the iOS 18 adoption stage. Keep an eye on this space for more details on the rollout as they emerge.
Dig deeper: Email marketing strategy: A marketer’s guide
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