iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4
Juli Clover (iOS/iPadOS release notes, security, enterprise, developer):
iOS 26.4 adds a new Apple Music feature called Playlist Playground, which uses AI to generate playlists for you based on text-based prompts. You can ask for moods, feelings, occasions, and more when making a request.
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps.
Apple Music gets several updates in iOS 26.4, including a new fullscreen design for albums and playlists.
The iOS 26.4 attempt is a much nicer interpretation of this idea. First and foremost, it doesn’t try too hard; the foreground text colour is only ever white or black. The background is colour-matched, which injects a splash of personality and helps make the full-bleed album art blend more seamlessly with the rest of the UI. The Liquid Glass toolbars and tab bars also neatly blend in with their colourful surroundings. The design is impactful, yet refined.
iOS 26.4 expands customization tools with two settings:
- Reduce Bright Effects, which is brand new in iOS 26.4
- Reduce Motion, which has been updated in iOS 26.4
In my testing, this does exactly what you would expect. In places like toolbar buttons — or the buttons in the area of what is left of a toolbar, anyhow — the passcode entry screen, and Control Centre, the glowing tap effects are minimized or removed.
Apple has made a small but useful change to the way that Family Sharing works. Each adult member of the family can now use their own payment method for purchases, rather than being forced to share a payment method.
Apple has removed the RCS end-to-end encryption beta in the fourth beta of iOS 26.4 after testing it in the prior three betas. Apple already said that end-to-end encryption for RCS would not launch in the iOS 26.4 update, and would instead be introduced in the future.
The iOS 26.4 update […] includes improvements for the built-in iOS keyboard. In its notes for the software, Apple says iOS 26.4 offers “improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly.”
Previously:
- iOS 26.4: Stolen Device Protection Enabled by Default
- iOS 26.3 and iPadOS 26.3
- iOS 18 and iOS 26 Autocorrect
- iOS 26 Developer Beta 3
- Encrypted RCS Standard
Update (2026-03-26): Juli Clover:
The update doesn’t have the Siri feature set we were hoping for, but there are quite a few new additions like new emoji and an AI music feature.
If you use the Compact Tab Bar in Safari, then attempting to open a Safari extension popup window will crash the entire Safari app.
[…]
I personally reported this bug to Apple a month ago, on February 24: FB22044349 “iPadOS 26.4 beta: opening a Safari extension popup window crashes Safari.”
The UK is believed to be the first European market where Apple is rolling out its new age controls, which are designed to ensure that only adults can download apps rated on its App Store as being suitable for over-18s.
Following an iOS software update that was pushed out on Wednesday, adults who do not verify their age will face restrictions on web browsing, as well as “communication safety” checks to their messages and FaceTime video calls, which are designed to detect nude photos and videos.
Previously:
Update (2026-04-08): Sarah Reichelt:
I’m not loving iPadOS 26.4.
It keeps warning me that I’m running out of space but more than half is taken up with iPadOS and System Data. Plus, every app is asking for a rating at least once a day. Not the devs fault - the system is supposed to limit these.
Previously:
5 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
I didn’t experience Stolen Device Protection being enabled when updating to 26.4. There was not a welcome screen prompting me about it and looking in Settings I see it remains off.
It was force enabled for me and I do not like that.
Furthermore, I really despise this recent trend of “we’ve enabled this setting. You can turn it off later.”
But this specific setting is all about preventing the turning off of settings, including this one. I specifically did not turn it on because of that exact concern, yet here we are.
@Eric it ran through the Hello OOBE screen, and the one and only unskippable screen told me what it is, that it's now enabled, and that it can be turned off in settings (presuming biometrics work properly, which is my concern.)
So it was force enabled, and I was notified by the OOBE screen. Notably the RC did not do this.
