GoKawiilApple released iOS 26.4 on March 24, about a week after the tech giant released 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 slew of features to your iPhone, including new emoji and video podcasts, plus more than two dozen bug fixes and security patches.
You can download the latest iOS version and these features now by going to Settings and tapping General. Next, select Software Update, tap Update Now and follow the prompts on your screen.
Here are some of the new features iOS 26.4 brings to your iPhone.
New emoji
All the new emoji iOS 26.4 brings to your iPhone. Apple/CNET
With iOS 26.4, your iPhone gets eight new emoji:
The Unicode Consortium is responsible for creating emoji, and it approved these eight in September as part of Unicode 17.0. But this is the first time the emoji are showing up on iPhones.
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Video podcasts come 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 top right corner of the title card. Once you're listening, open the media player and tap the Turn Video On button near the podcast's progress bar. The podcast's artwork will be replaced with the video. To turn the video off again, tap Turn Video Off and the podcast's artwork will return.
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