All the New Features the Massive iOS 26.4 Update Brings to Your iPhone

Apple released iOS 26.4 on March 24, about a week after the tech giant’s release. iOS 26.3.1(a)the company’s first background security improvement update. While the background security improvement fixed an issue in WebKit, iOS 26.4 brought a host of features to your iPhone, including new emoji and video podcasts, as well as more than two dozen bug fixes and security patches.

You can download the latest version of iOS and these features now by going to Settings and typing General. Then select Software updatefaucet Update now and follow the prompts on your screen.

Here are some of the new features that iOS 26.4 brings to your iPhone.

New emoji

With iOS 26.4, your iPhone gets eight new emoji:

The Unicode Consortium is responsible for creating emoji and approved these eight elements in September as part of Unicode 17.0. But this is the first time the emoji has appeared on iPhones.

Watch this: iPhone in space: the many Apple products that have left Earth

06:40

Video podcasts are coming to Apple Podcasts

The iOS 26.4 update also brings video to your Podcasts app. To view these video podcasts, open the Podcasts app and start listening to an episode with the video player icon in the upper right corner of the title card. Once you are listening, open the media player and press the button Enable video button near the podcast progress bar. The podcast illustration will be replaced by the video. To turn off video again, tap Turn off video and the podcast illustrations will return.

Reduce some liquid glass effects on your device

Apple’s iOS 26.4 update adds another setting to minimize liquid glass effects on your device: reduce brightness effects. Here’s where to find this setting.

1. Faucet Settings.
2. Faucet Accessibility.
3. Faucet Display and text size.
4. Scroll the menu to find Reduce light effects.

Apple says the setting will minimize highlighting and blinking when interacting with on-screen elements, such as buttons or the keyboard. So, if you find certain Flash elements annoying, you can now disable them.

Playground playlist in Apple Music

The iOS 26.4 update also introduces a playlist generator for Apple Music subscribers called Playlist Playground. Apple says the feature can create a playlist based on your description. Once you enter your description, a playlist will be created with a title, tracklist and general description.

To access Playlist Playground, you must first be an Apple Music subscriber. Next, open Apple Music and navigate to your library. In your Library, you will see a new icon at the top of your screen with a plus sign and some lines next to it. Tap it and you’ll be asked to describe your playlist.

Apple notes that this feature is still in beta, so it could create unexpected results. You could ask for a good gym mix and end up with some Whitney Houston – but who’s to say Whitney isn’t good gym music?

Find nearby concerts with the aptly named Concerts feature.

iOS 26.4 brings Concerts functionality to your Apple Music app.

“Concerts helps you discover shows near artists in your library and recommends new artists based on what you’re listening to,” Apple writes in the update’s description. This way you can easily find shows nearby.

To find concerts, tap the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of your Apple Music screen, then tap Concerts. The feature may ask you for your location the first time you use it. After that, you will see popular shows nearby, along with their dates, times, and locations. By accessing one of these shows you get more information about the show, as well as a link to purchase tickets.

Shazam works offline, sort of

With iOS 26.4, the Shazam app in your Control Center can work in several ways. Now, if you’re not connected to the Internet and use the Control Center app to identify a song, the app will eventually tell you the identity of the song once you’re back online.

Ambient Music Home Screen Widgets

Apple introduced two new Ambient Music widgets for your home screen with iOS 26.4. These widgets allow you to easily access the four Ambient Music playlists: Sleep, relaxation, productivity And Well-being. You can quickly turn on a relaxing playlist to unwind after a long day, or a playlist to help you focus on the task at hand.

Apple introduced these playlists to your iPhone at the same time iOS 18.4 in 2024. However, you could only access these playlists from your Control Center back then.

Let the other adults in your family pay for it themselves

In iOS 26.4, other adults in your Family Sharing group can now use their own payment method instead of depending on the group organizer’s payment method. This means that if you’re an adult and have a Family Sharing group with your own parents, siblings, or other family members, you can now buy a game, movie, or something else with your own information instead of using someone else’s information and then refunding them.

This can be a useful feature that allows you to avoid having to reimburse someone else for using their payment information. And if you’re the person whose card is always in use, this can be a good way to ensure that others pay for their own stuff and don’t free charge you.

More subtitle options when watching videos

With iOS 26.4, you can easily change the style of subtitles when watching content in certain apps, like Apple TV.

To see these options, start playing a video, then tap the speech bubble icon in the lower right corner of your screen to open the subtitles menu. Faucet Style, and you will see the subtitle options Classic (the default setting), Large text, Plan text And Transparent background. So if you and a few others are watching something on your iPhone and want to make sure everyone can see the subtitles, you can choose Large text.

More control over wallpaper collections

The iOS 26.4 update also gives you more control over the wallpaper collections that are on your iPhone. Now if you go to Settings > Wallpaper > Add new wallpaper, you can type Get under Collections such as Weather and Astronomy.

If you want to delete a collection from your device, tap the check mark to the right of the downloaded collection and the option Remove from gallery appears. Tap it to delete the collection from your iPhone, saving you valuable space.

Here are the release notes for iOS 26.4.

Apple Music

• Playlist Playground (beta) generates a playlist from your description, completed by a title, description and tracklist.
• Concerts helps you discover shows near artists in your library and recommends new artists based on what you’re listening to.
• Offline music recognition in Control Center identifies songs without an Internet connection and automatically provides the results when you come back online.
• The Ambient Music widget for sleep, relaxation, productivity and well-being brings curated playlists to the home screen.
• Full-screen backgrounds make album and playlist pages look more immersive.

Accessibility

• The Reduce Light Effects setting minimizes flashes of light when you press items such as buttons.
• Subtitle and caption settings are available from the subtitle icon when viewing media, making them easier to find, customize and preview.
• The Reduce Motion setting more reliably reduces Liquid Glass animations for people who are sensitive to on-screen movement.

This update also includes the following improvements:

• Support for AirPods Max 2.
• Eight new emoji, including an orca, a paper clip, a landslide, a ballet dancer and a distorted face, are available in the emoji keyboard.
• Freeform benefits from advanced image creation and editing tools, as well as a library of premium content, joining Apple Creator Studio.
• Mark reminders as urgent from the quick toolbar or by long-pressing, and filter urgent reminders into your smart lists.
• Shopping Sharing allows adult members of Family Sharing groups to use their own payment method when shopping, without relying on the Family Organizer.
• Improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly.

For more iOS news, check out the features included in iOS 26.3 And iOS 26.2. You can also view our iOS 26 Cheat Sheet for other tips and tricks.