Apple’s iOS 15.4 update for iPhone is out after 46 days of beta testing, and it comes with some cool features you won’t want to miss. Here’s everything you need to know about the new software.
iOS 15.4 software has been available to developers since January 27, 2022, and to public beta testers since January 28. The release candidate, the latest phase of beta testing, was released following the Apple Peak Performance event on March 8, where the company unveiled its new iPhone SE, among other things. Apple released the final build of iOS 15.4 as well as iPadOS 15.4 for iPad on Monday, March 14th.
You can download and install the update manually via Settings -> General -> Software Update or wait for the automatic update at night if you have it configured. If you’re not quite ready yet, check out the features below to see what you’re missing out on!
Over 100 new emojis
The last big emoji update for the iPhone was almost 11 months ago in iOS 14.5, but the new emoji were available in the Unicode 14.0 standard even before Apple released iOS 15.0. Apple is finally bringing the missing emoji to life in iOS 15.4. There are 37 new characters in total – 112 if you count all skin tones – and they’re also coming to iPadOS 15.4 and macOS 12.3.
Highlights include “Melting Face”, “Welcoming Face”, “Face Holding Back Tears”, “Lip Biter”, “Pregnant Man”, “Pregnant Woman”, “Man with Crown”, “Troll”, “Coral”, “Lotus, Empty Nest, Nest with Eggs, Low Battery, Bubbles, and various hand gestures, including a handshake emoji picker that allows you to select different combinations of skin tones. Head over to our new iOS 15.4 emoji guide to see all the emoji and skin tone options.
Apple has also updated its Face with Hand Over Mouth emoji with a smile, smiling eyes, and flushed cheeks, which is more in line with how other platforms have used it. The old design was changed to “Face with open eyes”and “Hand over mouth”, which was added in Unicode 14.0 for all platforms.
- See Them All: New Emoji in iOS 15.4, iPadOS 15.4, and macOS 12.3
Use Face ID with a mask
Apple previously added mask-related updates in iOS 13.5 and iOS 14.5 to make it easier to unlock iPhone while wearing a face covering, but they pale in comparison to iOS 15.4’s new “Use Face ID with Mask”feature for iPhone 12 and later. means you don’t need to enter passcodes or have an Apple Watch.
The new Face ID mode hones in on the unique features around your eyes as the mask hides the rest of your face. It’s less secure than a full face scan, but about a thousand times more convenient, especially since it also works with Apple Pay, password autofill, and third-party app logins.
In my experience, this works very well when unlocking your iPhone, but can be a bit buggy during the installation process. The latest update includes a “Look Down to Unlock”message on the screen to let you know that you need to see better around your eyes in order to authenticate. Read our full guide to the new “Using Face ID with a Mask”feature in iOS 15.4 to learn more.
iCloud Keychain Notes
If you prefer iCloud Keychain over LastPass or another third-party password manager, iOS 15.4 has finally added notes to password entries. You can’t add notes the first time you enter your password, but once it’s in your iCloud Keychain list, you can click Add Notes to write down something about the website or account.
iCloud Keychain Security Best Practices
Apple includes security guidelines for iCloud Keychain that encourage you to change your password when it’s at risk of being compromised. Some of these situations involve easy-to-guess passwords, passwords that come from data breaches, reusable passwords, and passwords that contain common words.
If you don’t want to change your password, iOS 15.4 lets you hide these recommendations on a per-site basis. Just click the X next to the security advisory and click Hide. You can view all the “Security Recommendations”hidden in the settings, as well as reset them all.
Add custom email domains
Apple added custom email domain support for iCloud Mail in iOS 15, but you could only add your domains through iCloud.com. iOS 15.4 has an easier way that allows you to add domains from your iCloud settings. Tap your Apple ID at the top of Settings, then go to iCloud -> iCloud Mail -> Custom Email Domain to get started.
iCloud mail menu in settings
To make room for custom email domains, as shown above, Apple moved the Mail menu in iCloud settings from the bottom to the top, where the iCloud Mail toggle used to be. The toggle now appears inside the menu, including everything from the old Mail menu. Go to Settings -> [Your Apple ID] -> iCloud -> iCloud Mail to check it out.
New Gender-Neutral American Siri Voice
Siri has a new gender-neutral American voice that you can set for Assistant. We last got new Siri voices in iOS 14.5, so it’s nice to have another option. Go to Settings -> Siri & Search -> Siri Voice, then select American. You will now see five options under the Voice heading instead of four.
Siri can show date and time offline
In the past, when you had a poor internet connection or turned on Airplane Mode, Siri couldn’t tell you the date or time. As crazy as it sounds, iOS 15.4 fixes this so you can get the current date and time according to your iPhone while offline. However, it only works on devices with A12 Bionic or A12Z Bionic chips or newer. This means at least an iPhone XS or iPad Pro (4th generation) respectively.
Siri cannot provide time/date when offline in iOS 15.3.1 (left), but it can in iOS 15.4 (right).
App Store notification settings
You can now turn on or off the New Features & Updates or Recommendations & Deals notifications for the App Store. Before, it was either all or nothing. To make changes, tap your App Store profile icon, then Notifications. You can also access these options from Settings -> Notifications -> App Store -> App Store Notification Settings (or Settings -> App Store -> Notifications -> “App Store notification settings).
Collapse folder trees in mail
The Apple Mail app has a small but very valuable update to the main Mailbox view, which lists all of your email accounts.
As you scroll through your inboxes, you can tap an account to see all the folders and tags you’ve created and stashed emails in, as well as junk, trash, drafts, and sent. Prior to iOS 15.4, all your custom folders and labels looked unwieldy as they automatically displayed the folder’s main directory and all of its subdirectories. So, if you had folders within folders, you would see them all.
It still does this in iOS 15.4, only now you have the option to collapse and hide subfolders and it will remember your preferences. You can then deploy them when you need to dig deeper.
Simplified text scanning in notes and reminders
Live text is now easier to work with in the Notes and Reminders apps. In the past, you had to long press on the area where you want to scan and enter text from a physical document, then select the Live Text icon to get started. Now you place your cursor in the desired location, click on the camera icon in the toolbar, and select Scan Text.
Notify on startup in shortcut automation
Shortcuts are great for automating tasks, but they contain a lot of unnecessary notifications that can visually interfere with your work. While iOS 15.4 doesn’t fix all label notification issues, it does address some automation (not to be confused with regular labels).
Now, instead of seeing the Start Your Automation warning, you won’t see anything that makes automation more of a background process that you would like it to be. The setting is related to automation, so you can save alerts with any automation you want. Check out our full article on Notification Blocking “Start Your Automation”for automation to see how it all works.
Before and after. Please note that it does not remove Click to Reply alerts.
new glyphs for action labels
If you use shortcuts a lot, you’ll notice new glyph icons for many actions. There are about 50 icon updates in the Scripts section alone, which are either completely different or have minor changes such as a new color or alternative icon design. For example, all calculator activities have separate icons, not just the Calculator app icon.
Action symbols in iOS 15.3.1 (left) and iOS 15.4 (right).
Reminders Tag support for labels
Another small but important change to shortcuts is tagging support for the Reminders app. You can now add, remove, or search for reminder tags in labels and automations.
next display options
If you save TV shows and movies in the Up Next section of the Apple TV app, you may have noticed that it shows posters for all unplayed shows and still frames from where you left off in unfinished titles. If you don’t like those still frames, you can go to Settings -> TV -> Next Display, new menu, and select Poster instead of Frame.
Still frames (left) and poster (right) for unfinished games.
Apple Wallet lock screen security improvements
Previously, when you opened the Apple Pay and Apple Wallet interface by double-clicking the side button or the Home button, all your payment and loyalty cards were displayed at once. To improve security, Apple now requires you to use Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode before showing you any cards.
sorting filters in podcasts
The Podcasts app is getting a small but important update in iOS 15.4 that brings podcast sorting capabilities. If a podcast has multiple seasons, whether you have them in your library or not, you’ll see a season selector to select the one you want. You can then filter the seasons for the podcasts in your library by all episodes, unplayed, downloaded, saved, and played.
Improved camera selection with magnifier
When you have a “Camera”control added to the interface of the “Magnifier”application, when you click on it, you can choose between “Front”and “Rear”cameras. Tapping it now automatically switches the camera on iPhone models without telephoto or macro lenses.
On an iPhone 13 or 13 Pro model, tapping it gives you the choice of Auto, Close-up, and Front. Auto mode works with wide and telephoto lenses, Close-up mode uses the macro capabilities of the ultra wide-angle camera, and Front mode uses the selfie camera. Auto has a regular camera icon, Close-up has a flower (used to have a leaf), and Front has a camera with arrows running one after another in a circle (used to have a profile icon).
Warning message during AirTag installation
On February 10, 2022, Apple released a statement that AirTags are being misused by attackers to track and stalk people instead of personal items. In it, Apple announced several upcoming software updates to prevent malicious and criminal use of AirTags, and iOS 15.4 appears to be one of those updates.
Now, the first time you set up an AirTag in the Find My app, you’ll see a different message after you name it. Instead of just saying that the AirTag will be registered to your Apple ID, it says:
AirTag is solely for tracking items that belong to you.
Using AirTag to track people without their consent is a crime in many parts of the world.
AirTag is designed to be discovered by victims and allows law enforcement to request identifying information about the owner.
Updated “Me”tab in Find My
Prior to iOS 15.4, the Me tab in the Find My app had a toggle for Item Safety Alerts. Turning it off would disable it and prompt the user “The owner of the unknown item will be able to see your location and you will no longer receive notifications when an unknown item is detected moving with you.”
This toggle is missing in iOS 15.4 and has been replaced with “Set up search notifications”and “Set up tracking notifications”links. In the first case, you will go to Settings -> Notifications -> Latitude, and in the second case, you will go to the new menu item Settings -> Notifications -> Tracking Notifications.
The Find My Me tab in iOS 15.3.1 (left) and iOS 15.4 (right).
custom tracking notification for Find My
Expanding on the feature above, you can now control what used to be the Item Security Alerts toggle in Find My. You can access the setting from the Me tab in Find My or via Settings -> Notifications -> Tracking Notifications. However, whenever you change anything in tracking notifications, the alert does not appear, as it did when you turned off the “Item safety alerts”toggle prior to iOS 15.4. This may change in future updates.
Apple Card Widget
If you have an Apple Card, iOS 15.4 provides a widget to quickly view your balance, available credit, and spending activity. You can add it to the Today screen or the Home screen.
Click to pay
If you sell products, Tap to Pay in iOS 15.4 makes it much easier to accept more types of payments. In the past, you had to rely on third-party accessories to accept debit and credit card payments on your iPhone. Now anyone with an iPhone X or later registered with the Apple Business Register can accept card payments in person without any accessories.
What’s more, it can also accept personal payments made with Apple Pay and other NFC-compatible digital wallets such as Google Pay and Samsung Pay. A third-party payment processing provider is needed, such as Stripe or Shopify, so Tap to Pay is a behind-the-scenes feature until one of those providers adds support.
Convenient search for audio content in the news
If you’re an Apple News subscriber, you can find more audio content to listen to in the Today and Audio tabs. For example, you can see Editors’ Choice in the Audio tab, Audio Preview buttons in the Today feed for those who don’t have a subscription, and other changes.
Support for HTML dialog elements in Safari
Chrome, Edge, and Firefox support the <dialog> HTML element, and Safari in iOS 15.4 finally does too. Dialog elements can be modal or modeless, where modal restricts interaction on the web page to only the modal window, while modeless still allows the user to interact with the rest of the web page content.
While the JavaScript alert, confirmation, and hint methods are convenient, they are not recommended due to their script-blocking behavior. That’s why we’ve been working with other browser vendors to improve the <dialog> specification over the past few years. The most important conversations concerned accessibility.
You can find more advanced use cases like payment dialogs online. They are currently being accessed by custom solutions from frameworks such as Bootstrap. Unfortunately, they are not convenient to use and are not always available. We believe the web deserves a simple and error-free solution for these use cases… Safari 15.4.. . introduces the <dialog> element for this reason!
The best thing about Safari’s new support is that <dialog> elements are now also supported in third-party iOS browsers such as Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. If you’d like to see this in action, check out some of the demos available online to know when it’s coming. See the WebKit press release, the GreenRoots blog, and CSS-Tricks for examples.
web application push notifications
There is a “Push API”toggle in Safari’s “Experimental”Enhanced Features for iOS 15.4, which is disabled by default. While it doesn’t appear to be active yet, it will allow progressive web app developers to show you notifications, which you can choose to allow or disallow, in the Action Center, similar to how they work in Safari on macOS.
The Push API is paired with a new experimental “Inline Web Notifications”feature that arrived at the same time, only this feature is now missing in iOS 15.4. Presumably, the Push API will send information from the server to the service worker. In contrast, embedded web notifications will send that service worker’s data to the user as a push notification. Apple may have implemented this in Safari’s core code.
Augmented and virtual reality for web applications
Another exciting experimental feature in Safari in iOS 15.4 is WebXR support, which allows web app developers to provide augmented and virtual reality experiences without building an iOS app. Safari had some minor support for WebVR, but WebXR is the future of allowing web developers to use Apple’s ARKit. There are four WebXR radio buttons in Safari:
- WebXR augmented reality module (disabled by default)
- WebXR Device API (disabled by default)
- WebXR Gamepads module (disabled by default)
- WebXR manual input module (disabled by default)
Experimental features in Safari
In addition to these two known experimental Safari features described above, Apple has removed the following toggles:
- COOP and COEP Violation Reporting
- GPU Process: Canvas Rendering
- GPU Process: Media
- GPU process: video capture
- WebM Audio
- WebRTC Embedded Streams API
- WebRTC platform codecs in GPU process
- Write stream API
But more than 30 new ones have been added to play with:
- :has() pseudo-class (enabled by default)
- Broadcast source split (enabled by default)
- CSS 3D Transform Interoperability (disabled by default)
- CSS accent color (enabled by default)
- Cascading CSS layers (enabled by default)
- CSS Container Requests (disabled by default)
- CSS gradient interpolation color spaces (disabled by default)
- CSS Gradient Premultiplied Alpha Interpolation (enabled by default)
- CSS input security (disabled by default)
- CSS motion path (off by default)
- Experimental MediaSource Inline Painting (disabled by default)
- GPU process: DOM rendering (disabled by default)
- HTML <model> elements for a single document (disabled by default)
- Link Sanitizer (disabled by default)
- Opus audio decoder (enabled by default)
- Permissions API (disabled by default)
- Prefer page rendering updates around 60 fps (enabled by default)
- Push API (disabled by default)
- RequestVideoFrameCallback (enabled by default)
- Media resolution feature (disabled by default)
- Scroll to a piece of text (disabled by default)
- Service Worker navigation preload (enabled by default)
- SharedWorker (disabled by default)
- Track Configuration API (disabled by default)
- Vorbis audio detector (enabled by default)
- Custom web animation effects (disabled by default)
- Custom web animation frame rate (disabled by default)
- Web lock API (enabled by default)
- WebRTC Encoded Transform API (enabled by default)
- WebRTC SFrame Transform API (disabled by default)
- WebXR augmented reality module (disabled by default)
- WebXR Device API (disabled by default)
- WebXR Gamepads module (disabled by default)
- WebXR manual input module (disabled by default)
- inert attribute (off by default)
Reset all experimental Safari features
Speaking of Safari’s “Experimental”advanced features, there’s a lot to turn on and off. If you change more than one experimental WebKit setting, you will most likely forget which ones were changed later. Prior to iOS 15.4, it was not easy to erase all your settings. There is now a handy “Restore All Defaults”button. Tap this and everything will instantly revert to default.
Improved DualSense controller support
The available code snippet, GCDualSenseAdaptiveTrigger, gives game developers the ability to use the Sony Adaptive Trigger Firmware Update for the PlayStation 5 DualSense Wireless Controller. This means that overall the game gets better when using the DualSense Controller with some games on the Sony Remote Play.
Launch SharePlay from a shared sheet
Any app can tap into the SharePlay API if it wants to offer one of the hottest features of iOS 15, and iOS 15.4 gives developers another way to enable SharePlay – the ability to launch SharePlay from your iPhone’s share list. Including the GroupActivities API in all your favorite apps can take a while, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see it right away.
Launch SharePlay from Apple Music
Another new SharePlay feature is launching a SharePlay music session right from the Apple Music app. All participants require an active Apple Music subscription.
To try it, tap the ellipsis (•••) icon next to a playlist, song, or album, and then tap the new SharePlay icon. Click “Continue”on the SharePlay splash screen if it appears, select your contact or contacts and click the “FaceTime”button to start the call.
Sign in to Passkey apps on Mac and iPad
Apple’s updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey include a new iCloud Keychain passcode feature that lets you sign up and sign in to mobile and web apps with Face ID or Touch ID. You don’t have to worry about passwords as your device creates and stores unique private/public key credentials for each account.
With iOS 15.4, you can now sign in to your Mac and iPad by authenticating on your iPhone with biometric identification. For example, this is useful when you create an account with Face ID on your iPhone and want to sign into an app on your Mac or iPad that doesn’t have Face ID.
Built-in Wi-Fi support for HomePod
When connected to some Wi-Fi networks, a login screen may appear to accept the terms or log in with a username and password. Captive portals are common in hotel rooms, airports, dorm rooms, cafes, schools, and other public or common places, but there’s a big problem with them: HomePod can’t connect to them. At least until iOS 15.4. With the new firmware, your HomePod will move the Authorized Portal login page to your iPhone so you can complete the connection.
software updates via mobile data
Many users have reported seeing “Use Cellular Data to Download”or “Use Mobile Data to Download”prompts when first updating to iOS 15.4 via the Software Update page. We’ve seen this before for 4G/LTE and 5G networks, but it looks like the invitation is now showing up in more regions for both.
The options we’ve seen include “Download via mobile “, “Download via mobile network “, and “Download via Wi-Fi “. The support page , which was last updated in December 2021 on Apple’s website, states “To improve your download speed, avoid downloading other content and use a Wi-Fi network if you can,”implying that cellular networks are fair game..
It may not be new to everyone, but more and more people are seeing an opportunity for it.
new glyph icons for AirPods
When you go to Settings -> Accessibility and look at the “AirPods”option under Physical & Motor, the AirPods icon now looks like real AirPods instead of the usual picture of in-ear headphones.
Emergency SOS call set to call on hold for all users
According to Apple, “SOS emergency call settings have been changed to use call on hold for all users.”So if you had five taps set, you might see an alert at the top of “View emergency SOS call settings”where you can change the trigger back to this or continue the call on hold.
Weekly average for schedule summary
If you visit the “Schedule Summary”option in Notification Settings on iOS 15.3 and below, you’ll see “Average Daily Notification”. the Applications tab in the summary. In iOS 15.4 it’s now “Average Weekly Notification”.
coverage menu updates
A few more minor changes in iOS 15.4 can be seen in Settings -> General -> About.
Whenever you select AppleCare+, Expired, or Limited Warranty, depending on your coverage status, you’ll see a new card for the Apple Support App if you haven’t downloaded it yet. You can click “Get”on the card to install the app right away. It used to be just a “Get Apple Support App”link that opened the Apple Store in the App Store.
If you already have Apple Support installed, you’ll still see the card as you did before iOS 15.4, only it says “Apple Support”instead of “Support”and “We’re here to help”instead of “Apple INSTALLED”.
Also, iOS 15.4 removed the “Get Repair or Support”heading, likely because the card itself is more than enough to start a new section. Below the card is a description that wasn’t there before, saying the following.
Schedule a visit to an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider, call or chat with a consultant, troubleshoot, and more.
EU COVID digital cards
While not particularly useful for most US users, it’s worth noting that iOS 15.4 now supports the EU’s COVID Digital Certificate Regulation format. This means EU citizens and residents can use the Apple Health app to download and store verified COVID-19 immunization records, lab results, and recovery history. They can also add them to Apple Wallet for quick access.
support for Safari translations into Italian and Chinese
The translation tool for Safari, introduced in iOS 14, now supports Italian and Chinese (Traditional) languages. When Safari Translator first appeared, it only supported English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese.
bug fixes and security fixes
- We fixed an issue resulting in third-party apps not displaying all animations at up to 120Hz on iPhone 13 models with ProMotion displays. Developers can use the UIView or UIViewPropertyAnimator block APIs to create animations.
- Fixes an issue that caused your iPhone to upload Siri and dictation recordings to Apple’s servers even if you opted out of sharing recordings and voice interactions to improve features. The previous iOS update turned off sharing for all affected devices, but iOS 15.4 displays the “Improve Siri & Dictation”setup screen again during the installation process.
- We fixed an issue that caused the keyboard to insert a period between the numbers you typed.
- We fixed an issue that prevented articles from opening from News widgets in Today View.
- Fixes an issue that prevented photos and videos from always syncing to iCloud Photo Library.
- We fixed an issue that caused the Screen Aloud Accessibility feature to quit unexpectedly in Books.
- We fixed an issue where Live Listen would not always turn off when disconnected from the Control Center.
- Fixes various security issues related to Accelerate Framework, AppleAVD, AVEVideoEncoder, Cellular, CoreMedia, FaceTime, GPU drivers, ImageIO, IOGPUFamily, iTunes, core, libarchive, markup, MediaRemote, NetworkExtension, Phone, Preferences, Sandbox, Siri, SoftwareUpdate, UIKit, VoiceOver, WebKit and Wi-Fi.
Universal Control (iPad, Mac)
While not a feature of iOS 15.4, iPadOS 15.4 and macOS 12.3 have something called Universal Control. This feature allows you to use the same keyboard, mouse, and trackpad with your iPad and Mac. For example, you can move the cursor on your Mac to your iPad, use your Mac keyboard to enter text on your iPad, or drag and drop content from one device to another. To make it work you need:
- iPadOS 15.4 and macOS 12.3
- All devices signed into the same iCloud account
- Two-factor authentication enabled for iCloud
- Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Handoff enabled on all devices
- Your devices are within 30 feet (10 meters) of each other
Unfortunately, Universal Control doesn’t work from iPad to iPad, iPhone, or Apple Pencil. Third-party keyboards and mice are supported on the iPhone, so maybe one day we’ll see Universal Control. Although I wouldn’t bet that it will happen anytime soon.
Turn off iCloud access (removed)
The first beta of iOS 15.4 has a new feature in the Password & Security settings for iCloud that allows you to disable access to iCloud on the web, which means you won’t be able to access your account through iCloud.com. It will protect all your iCloud data including email, calendar, contacts, photos, notes, reminders and files. However, it will still work with Find My if you lose your iPhone.
Apple has removed the “Share iCloud Data Online”toggle in subsequent betas and the final release, but we may see it again as the feature depends on a server-side update; Without a server-side update, including it in the beta was pointless, as it didn’t work on its own.