iOS 26.4 now available: Here are all the new features for your iPhone

iOS 26.4 is now available for everyone. The update adds a range of new features to iPhone, including upgrades to Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Messages, and more.

Here are all of the new iPhone features in iOS 26.4, plus everything else you need to know.

iOS 26.4 details

iOS 26.4 is available to everyone right now. You can head to the Settings app on your iPhone, choose General, then choose Software Update to install the update. You can choose to install the update right away, or have it installed automatically overnight.

iOS 26.4: New features

Apple Music

Apple Music is a big focus of iOS 26.4, adding multiple new features and design changes:

1. Concerts: The ability to find concerts near you and tour dates for artists in your Apple Music Library.
2. New full-screen artwork that “brings your music to life” for albums and playlists.
3. A redesigned “Profile” section with easier access to managing your account, subscriptions, and more.
4. Support for adding a song to more than one playlist at a time.

Offline Music Recognition

In Control Center, the Shazam widget now works when your iPhone is offline. Apple says:

Offline Music Recognition in Control Center identifies songs without an internet connection and delivers results automatically when you’re back online.

Playlist Playground

Also in Apple Music, iOS 26.4 adds a new Playlist Playground feature. This lets you create playlists using Apple Intelligence by simply providing text descriptions. For instance, you can type something like “sad songs from the 1990s for a rainy day” and Apple Music will automatically create a playlist based on that prompt.

Once Playlist Playground generates a playlist, you can then iterate on it with further prompts without starting the process over.

Even though it’s included in the stable iOS 26.4 release, this feature itself is still in beta, so it’s not perfect. Still, it’s an example of how Apple is integrating Apple Intelligence throughout the iPhone experience.

Read more: iOS 26.4 beta adds new ‘Playlist Playground’ AI feature for Apple Music

New emoji

iOS 26.4 adds eight new emoji to your iPhone:

• Ballet Dancer
• Distorted Face
• Fight Cloud
• Hairy Creature 
• Landslide
• Orca
• Trombone
• Treasure Chest

These emoji are part of the set approved by the Unicode Consortium last summer.

New widgets

iOS 26.4 adds a new collection of Ambient Music widgets that you can add to your iPhone’s Home Screen. This lets you convientnely start playing music for one of four moods:

• Chill
• Productivity
• Sleep
• Wellbeing

The widget is available in small and medium sizes.

Reminders app

In iOS 26.2, Apple added a new “Urgent” designation for tasks in the Reminders app. When you mark a task as generate, the Reminders app will also set an alarm to remind you of it.

iOS 26.4 builds on this by adding a new Smart List outlining all of the tasks you’ve designated as urgent.

Apple Podcasts

iOS 26.4 brings a big update to the Apple Podcasts with new “advanced video podcast capabilities.”

This refresh simplifies switching between viewing a video podcast and listening to the audio podcast. The features are powered by Apple’s HLS technology, enabling automatic quality adjustment based on network conditions.

Apple is also adding support for dynamic video ads in Apple Podcasts with iOS 26.4.

Read more: Apple Podcasts app gaining ‘enhanced video podcast experience’ in iOS 26.4

Apple Health

iOS 26.4 adds more Sleep and Vitals data to the Apple Health app. There is a new average bedtime metric, which lets you track your average bedtime along with last night’s bedtime for comparison.

Blood Oxygen readings have also been added back to the Vitals graph. This comes after Apple launched a “redesigned” version of the feature last August amid an ongoing patent dispute.

Read more: iOS 26.4 adds more Sleep and Vitals data to Apple Health

Keyboard accuracy

Apple says that iOS 26.4 improves the accuracy of your iPhone keyboard. Specifically, iOS 26.4 focuses on fixing a bug where characters on the keyboard appeared as if they were tapped, but were not actually inserted.

In these situations, those missing characters affected how Apple’s Auto-Correction feature was able to predict what you actually meant to type.

CarPlay updates

As my colleague Ryan highlighted this week, iOS 26.4 brings two new features to CarPlay:

1. Support for voice-enabled AI chatbots: Developers can now build apps for AI voice interactions. This means companies like Google and OpenAI can bring Gemini and ChatGPT voice modes to CarPlay, respectively.
2. New widgets: The aforementioned ambient music widget can also be added to CarPlay.

iOS 26.4 also lays the groundwork for video in the car via CarPlay, which was first announced at WWDC last year. The feature, however, isn’t shipping as part of iOS 26.4 and will also require adoption from automakers when it does ship.

Stolen Device Protection

Stolen Device Protection is now enabled by default in iOS 26.4. When this feature is enabled, you’ll need to authenticate with Face ID to perform certain tasks when away from trusted places like home and work. It also includes a time delay for a second biometric authentication for certain sensitive actions.

Prior to iOS 26.4, Stolen Device Protection had to be enabled manually by iPhone users.

Liquid Glass changes

iOS 26.4 adds two new ways to customize Liquid Glass on your iPhone. Both of these options are in the Accessibility menu of the Settings app.

First, there is a new option called “Reduce Bright Effects.” If you enable this, Apple says it minimizes the “highlighting and flashing when interacting with onscreen elements, such as buttons or the keyboard.”

Second, Apple has updated the “Reduce Motion” setting such that it “more reliably reduces the animations of Liquid Glass for users sensitive to screen motion.”

Family Sharing

Adult family members in Family Sharing Groups can now use their own payment method when making purchases, without relying on the family organizer.

App Store changes

In the App Store and the Games apps, Apple has moved the Search bar back to the top of the Search tab. The tab is also now integrated into navigation bar at the bottom instead of being separated in its own floating circle.

Additionally, iOS 26.4 has merged the apps and purchase history screens in the Settings app. This is also where you will find the “Updates” screen,” so it now takes two taps instead of one to view your app updates.

More iOS 26.4 features and changes

• As reported by The Verge, Apple has added age verification in the UK as part of iOS 26.4.
• Under the Camera menu in Settings, there is a new “Audio Zoom” option that lets you toggle the feature on or off. Audio Zoom adjusts the focus of the audio when recording video. It’s not a new feature, but the toggle is new.
• The Wallpaper Gallery has been redesigned in iOS 26.4 with more separation between the different categories of available options.
• The Apple Watch face gallery has been redesigned with more separation between the different options.
• When your iPhone is in Dark Mode, menu popups in Control Center will also now show with a dark background.
• Freeform Creator Studio is now live for subscribers with a new Content Hub.
• iOS 26.4 adds a new iCloud setting lets users enable a setting that lets them search for Photos and iCloud Drive content on iCloud.com.
• iOS 26.4 adds a Set Charge Limit action to the Shortcuts app.
• Chinese (Taiwan) has been added as a new options for Live Captions in Accessibility.
• Subtitle and caption settings are available from the captions icon while viewing media, making them easier to find, customize, and preview

iOS 26.4 wrap up

What’s your favorite change in iOS 26.4? What do you think of the new features in Apple Music? Let us know down in the comments.

My favorite iPhone accessories:

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