iOS 26.4 Is Out Now With 10 New Features – BGR

After a month of beta testing, Apple is finally releasing iOS 26.4 to iPhone users. Alongside this update, the company is making iPadOS 26.4, macOS Tahoe 26.4, watchOS 26.4, tvOS 26.4, and visionOS 26.4 available to the public.

Some of the most notable features of this update include improvements to Apple Music and Apple Podcasts and the addition of eight new emojis. However, there’s plenty more in iOS 26.4 beyond these additions the wait for the long-rumored Siri powered by Gemini models continues.

During the beta cycle of iOS 26.4, Apple started to test end-to-end encryption for RCS messages, but this functionality won’t ship with the final version, which means users will have to wait a bit longer for improved communication between iOS and Android over text. Besides that, with iOS 26.3, the company also tested forwarding notifications from the iPhone to a third-party smartwatch, which is going to be exclusive to European users, but it seems the company will push this feature to an upcoming software release as well — most likely iOS 26.5.

The biggest update to Apple Music in the iOS 26 update cycle comes in iOS 26.4. Once users update to this version, they will discover that albums and playlists have a new look, as Apple brings full-screen artwork to our screens. Besides that, a new Upcoming Concerts tab lets you find upcoming shows from your favorite artists with links to buy tickets. Apple prioritizes your favorite artists, but it’s also possible to discover similar artists in this section as well.

Apple Music also brings a redesigned Profile section, which makes it a lot more convenient to manage your subscription, redeem a code, and simply access your Apple Music Profile. Another new feature is the ability to add a song to more than one playlist at a time, which should cut down on the number of times you’re tapping on your screen to bolster your playlists.

However, the biggest new feature — currently limited to U.S. users — is Playlist Playground. Powered by Apple Intelligence, you can use prompts in Apple Music to have the service create a playlist for you. Even though it’s still in beta, this is a superior integration over Apple Music with ChatGPT, as if you use Apple Intelligence, it can tap into your listening history and make more relevant suggestions, while ChatGPT doesn’t have that information available, and it usually insists on picking the weirdest album versions of songs you listen to constantly.

Early in February, Apple announced that Apple Podcasts would get an improved video podcast experience with the company’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) technology. This will head to better video quality for viewers, while also making sure creators can create new monetization opportunities. With iOS 26.4, users can switch between watching and listening to podcasts with ease. Users can download video episodes to watch later, and Apple says its HLS standard offers smooth playback regardless of whether viewers are on Wi-Fi or using a cellular connection.

For content creators, they can use platforms like Cast, ART19, Triton’s Omny Studio, SiriusXM, AdsWizz, and Simplecast to upload their HLS videos. They can also insert video ads wherever they want, and Apple says that once creators start to use this new format, everything will integrate with their current shows without impacting followers or downloads.

Apple says HLS video technology is available in more than 170 countries and regions, and users will see other features from the Podcasts app make their way to the video side, like Enhance Dialogue, changing playback speeds from 0.5x to 3x, automatically creating chapters, timed links, automatic transcripts, and more. This feature is available for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro users running the latest software updates.

As in previous x.4 updates, iOS 26.4 brings eight new emojis, including a gender neutral option for the ballet dancer, and skin tone modifiers for people wrestling and dancers with bunny ears. They were first introduced last year by the Unicode Consortium, and they’re finally making their way to the iPhone with this new software.

The new emojis include distorted face, fight cloud, ballet dancer, orca, hairy creature, trombone, landslide, and a treasure chest. While these are all fun  additions, Unicode has been lowering the number of emojis it introduces each year. For example, iOS 18.4 and iOS 17.4 had fewer than 10 new emojis each, and the last time we saw a significant number of emojis introduced at once was as part of iOS 16.4, which introduced over 30 new figures.

Even though Apple has been touting the ability for users to create their own emojis with Genmoji — and other social media platforms, like WhatsApp, bet big on stickers — emojis remain the most common way for users to express themselves. We’re willing to take a guess that the distorted face will likely be the most popular of this generation. Once users update to iOS 26.4, they will be able to find these emojis on the emoji tab on the keyboard, and they can use the descriptions above to find these new figures.

Stolen Device Protection isn’t a new feature. Available since iOS 17.3, this feature was a response to a particular iPhone theft technique, where thieves would steal the lock screen passcode of an iPhone owner to get access to their device and either erase everything to resell it or try to get access to more sensitive information.

With Stolen Device Protection, Apple delays the ability of anyone to reset the password or erase the phone for an hour if they are in an unknown location, meaning that if you’re at home, you can easily erase your device or change its password, but if you try in a different city or region, it will require you to authenticate with the same password again in an hour. While very useful, Stolen Device Protection has always been an opt-in feature. However, iOS 26.4 turns it on by default, meaning that once you update your device, Stolen Device Protection will be enabled. If you don’t want it, you need to go to Settings to turn it off.

While we do hope Apple comes up with new protection features, like the privacy display Samsung added to the Galaxy S26 Ultra, this is yet another layer of protection for iPhone users. That’s on top of other useful features, like the ability to lock every app with Face ID or hide them in a Hidden Folder.

Last but not least, iOS 26.4 adds two tweaks to the Apple Health app. Even though the company has reportedly scrapped its long-rumored Apple Health+ service, as one of the company’s top executives said the subscription wouldn’t top what users already can get elsewhere, it doesn’t mean Apple won’t continue to improve its Health app.

With iOS 26.4, the company is bringing back Blood Oxygen data in the Vitals overview. According to MacRumors, Apple redesigned this feature last August after an ongoing legal battle with Massimo, but U.S. Apple Watch users could only see this standalone metric. Now, with iOS 26.4, it can be found in the Vitals tab, which means users can have a proper look at their Health and Sleep metrics.

Speaking of sleep tracking, Apple continues to improve this feature, as users can see a breakdown of their bedtime over the last couple of weeks. This functionality is available under a new Sleep Highlight section, and you can see a few different insights about how you’ve been sleeping compared to the previous night and beyond as well.