iOS 26.4 brings a bunch of great new features to your iPhone, and it should arrive very soon<\/a>.<\/p>\n It adds eight all-new emoji \u2014 a couple that I\u2019ll definitely start using often (in addition to a few weird ones, as always). Apple Music also receives several excellent new features, like concert listings coming up in your area, in addition to a refined user interface. And the Apple Podcasts app gets a big video upgrade.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Those come in addition to tons of other interface tweaks. Here are all the new features you can look forward to in iOS 26.4.<\/p>\n iOS 26<\/a> got off to a rocky start, with lots of bugs and complaints about its radical new Liquid Glass<\/a> interface. Now that Apple has had more than six months to make things stable, performance and crashes are much improved. And there are plenty of settings that allow you to tone down the appearance<\/a>, if you so choose.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While the new and improved Siri is nowhere to be found<\/a>, there are plenty of other new features added in iOS 26.4 to check out. Here\u2019s the complete list.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are new emoji<\/strong> coming in iOS 26.4:<\/p>\n Other new additions include skin tone variations for the People Wrestling (\ud83e\udd3c) and People With Bunny Ears (\ud83d\udc6f) emoji.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Although these emoji were officially unveiled last September<\/a>, Apple typically waits until the .4 update to add new emoji to iOS. Emoji act as a big incentive to get people to update their phones, so Apple waits until the version seems stable after plenty of months for bug fixes.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are five new features and tweaks in the Apple Music app in iOS 26.4:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Apple reinvents how video podcasts work in iOS 26.4. Rather than hosting them as a separate feed that downloads gigabyte-size videos in their entirety (like the Apple Events feed<\/a>), these will stream like YouTube.<\/p>\n You can also seamlessly switch between the audio and video versions of the podcast by tapping a button on the video player. This lets you start watching with a single tap during a more visual segment of the show, and switch back to audio when you\u2019re ready to do some chores or work out.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Only a select number of podcast hosts support the new feature, so all<\/em> your favorite shows may not roll out a video version right away. Read more about how it works here<\/a>.<\/p>\n iOS 26.4 comes with a few minor tweaks and features in other built-in apps:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Three accessibility features come in iOS 26.4, two of which improve legibility of the Liquid Glass interface:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a bit late updating from iOS 18, you should brush up on the many new changes in iOS 26 and later:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n D. Griffin Jones<\/strong> is a writer, podcaster<\/a> and video producer<\/a> for Cult of Mac<\/em>. Griffin has been a passionate computer enthusiast since 2002, when he got his first PC \u2014 but since getting a Mac in 2008, he hasn\u2019t turned back. His skills in graphic and web design, along with video and podcast editing, are self-taught over 20+ years. Griffin has a bachelor\u2019s degree in computer science and has written several (unpublished) apps for Mac and iOS. His collection of old computers is made up of 40+ desktops, laptops, PDAs and devices, dating back to the early \u201980s. He brings all of these creative and technical skills, along with a deep knowledge of Apple history, into his work for Cult of Mac<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\nEverything new in iOS 26.4<\/h2>\n
Table of contents: New features in iOS 26.4<\/h3>\n
\n
New emoji<\/h3>\n
Image: Emojipedia<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
Five new features in Apple Music in iOS 26.4<\/h3>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.cultofmac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Apple-Music-Features-1440x1472.jpg\" "\\"Apple")
<\/a>
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones\/Cult of Mac<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
Video in Apple Podcasts<\/h3>\n
![\"podcasts\"](\"https:\/\/www.cultofmac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Apple-Podcasts-enables-video_big.jpg.large_2x-1440x811.jpg\" "\\"Apple")
<\/a>
Photo: Apple<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNew features in other apps<\/h3>\n
![\"Urgent](\"https:\/\/www.cultofmac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Tweaks-in-Apps-1440x1472.jpg\" "\\"Tweaks")
<\/a>
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones\/Cult of Mac<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
Accessibility tweaks<\/h3>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.cultofmac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Accessibility-Features-1440x1472.jpg\" "\\"Accessibility")
<\/a>
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones\/Cult of Mac<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
Other recent software updates<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1cdcbb4a566ce956a5031cda07408d0024ce4570f488d98db96bd66e91c34e21?s=121&d=mm&r=g\")