15+ Exciting Changes in iOS 17.4 You Have to Know About

New Emojis Are Here

There are a bunch of new emojis available in iOS 17.4. You'll have access to 28 unique new emojis, and if you count the skin tone variations, that's actually a total of 118 emojis for you to choose from. 

Some of the emojis that stand out the most are the couple of heads shaking vertically and horizontally, a broken chain, and a phoenix.

Your iPhone's Battery Health Is Getting Better

Apple also changed your iPhone's Battery Health feature that's available in the Settings app. Unfortunately, however, this change is only available for the iPhone 15 models. 

With this change, you'll get more information about your overall battery health. For instance, instead of just being able to see your battery's maximum capacity, you'll also get information about your battery's overall performance and the cycle count, which is the number of times your iPhone has been fully discharged and recharged.

Moreover, there is a new Charging Optimization menu where you'll find features like Optimized Battery Charging, Clean Energy Charging, and the iPhone 15-exclusive ability to always stop charging at 80%.

Podcasts And Apple Music Get Design Changes

Apple has also made a couple of small updates to its Podcasts and Apple Music apps.

One of the biggest changes is that the media player on the Podcasts app now resembles the one on Apple Music. This means that, it now looks like it's a sleek player that's hovering near the bottom of your screen.

Another change for both Apple Music and Apple Podcasts is that the Listen Now tab is now called Home.

As we said, these are pretty small changes, but they're still welcome.

The Podcasts App Now Has Transcripts

What actually is a huge change in the Podcasts app is the new ability to access transcripts. 

As you can probably guess, this feature shows you a transcript of the podcast episode you're listening to in real time.

These transcripts work a lot like the Lyrics feature in Apple Music — even the button to bring them up is in the same place. You can also follow along with the words highlighted as they're spoken and tap any sentence in the transcript to have the Podcasts app jump to that point in the episode. 

What's even cooler is that you can also search for a specific word or sentence. That way, you don't have to read the whole transcript to find the part you want to listen to.

Note that Apple is generating these transcripts on its servers rather than directly on your iPhone. This means that it may take a few hours before a newly released episode gets a transcript. They also may not be available on older episodes yet, as Apple has quite a back catalog to work through.

Siri Can Read Messages in Other Languages

With iOS 17.4, Siri is also getting a cool new improvement. Now, Apple's virtual assistant is capable of reading messages in several different languages.

This way, even if your iPhone's preferred language is English, you can still hear a message in Spanish without that weird accent.

You can add many different languages, including Spanish, French, German, and others. Keep in mind that this will not change your primary language.

New Stolen Device Protection Features

It's better to be safe than sorry, which is why Apple is making Stolen Device Protection even better than before.

Introduced in iOS 17.3, Stolen Device Protection is an optional feature that improves security by requiring Face ID or Touch ID to be used before key security information can be changed, such as your passcode, Apple ID password, or Find My settings.

Now, to give you an extra layer of protection, Stolen Device Protection has the option to enforce a one-hour "security delay" when you try to change critical settings such as your passwords before those changes take effect.

In iOS 17.3, this delay would only be required when you tried to make those changes away from a "trusted" location such as your home or workplace. However, iOS 17.4 lets you enforce it no matter what.

That way, even if somebody at your workplace manages to point your iPhone at your face to unlock it before running away with it, they'll have to wait before they can change your security settings, giving you a chance to wipe your iPhone remotely or recover it.

More CarPlay Apps Are in the Works

CarPlay will get some major changes in the near future. The next generation of CarPlay will be available later this year, but Apple is already working on amazing new apps that we can't wait to try.

As a matter of fact, iOS 17.4 already has code that lists eight new apps that are coming to CarPlay in the future. These are:

• Auto Settings: An app that will let you control the settings of both your vehicle and the iPhones that are paired with it.
• Car Camera: This app will let you access and see your car's rear camera.
• Charge: A pretty straightforward app that will let you check your electric car's battery level and other important information when it's charging.
• Climate: This app will let you control the temperature inside your car, including heated seats and an air conditioner.
• Closure: This app is said to let you see when your car's doors are open. 
• Media: A basic app that will let you access and control both FM and AM radio stations.
• Tire Pressure: As you can guess, this app will let you see the current air pressure in each of your tires and also send notifications when you have a flat tire or low pressure in one of them.
• Trips: An app that will show you information related to your recent trips. You'll be able to see your average speed, fuel or energy efficiency, or the distance and time it took to get to your destination.

Keep in mind that these apps will require a new vehicle that supports Apple's "CarPlay 2.0" capabilities, but they're exciting changes if you'll soon be in the market for a new car.

New Clock Widget

This is a small new change, but now you can get a new digital clock widget called City Digital Clock, a useful variation on the standard digital clock introduced in iOS 17.2.

Reactions Can Be Turned Off By Default

With iOS 17, Apple introduced video reactions, a feature that lets you do a small animation by making a hand gesture when you're on a video call.

For instance, if you make a peace sign with one hand, balloons will start floating up around you, and if you make a heart, gestures you'll see floating hearts instead.

While this feature is useful if you're talking to a loved one, things might get a bit awkward when you're in a business meeting with your boss or in a medical consultation or online therapy session. These can be turned off, but the setting isn't in an obvious place, and you also have to set it individually for each app where you don't want to use them.

Luckily, with iOS 17.4, developers now have the option to turn off reactions from the get-go, making it safer for you to move your hands without worrying about silly animations coming up unexpectedly. You can still turn them on if you really want them in those apps, but developers can make sure they're off to start with.

Third-Party Wallet Apps Can Now Use Your iPhone's NFC

This is a big change, but sadly it's only available to those who live in the European Union. If you're in one of the 27 EU countries, you'll be able to use your iPhone's NFC with third-party wallet and payment apps. That's been exclusive to Apple Pay until now.

It's up to developers to take advantage of this in their apps, but European iPhone users will undoubtedly see this showing up soon in quite a few payment apps since it lets banks and other financial institutions bypass Apple's transaction fees by letting you make payments directly through their own apps, rather than Apple Wallet.

Alternative App Marketplaces

Another huge change in iOS 17.4 will be the ability to download apps and games from alternative app marketplaces. Unfortunately, this is also exclusively available for folks in the EU, but it'll give you the option to sideload apps to your iPhone for the first time ever.

This basically means that you are no longer forced to use Apple's App Store to install your apps. You can instead use a different app marketplace. The need to go install and use alternative marketplaces means this isn't quite the full sideloading many had hoped for, which would have allowed users to download apps from any website, but it's a start. Plus, the good news is it looks like that could be coming in iOS 17.5.

Of course, you should always be careful with what you download, but it's nice to have this option now.

Alternative Payment Options

Developers will also have the ability to use alternative payment options for people in the EU.

Instead of solely relying on the App Store, devs can now use different payment options, which means they'll likely pay lower fees for every purchase, which could translate in lower prices for customers.

For example, Apple takes a 30% cut of most purchases made through the App Store's in-app payment system. That drops to 15% for smaller developers and longer-term recurring subscriptions, but it's still a sizeable amount. Developers who opt for Apple's new terms will see those commissions reduced to 20% and 13%, respectively, or 17% and 10% if they use their own payment systems. Apps distributed on alternative app marketplaces won't have to pay Apple any commissions at all.

This basically means that EU users might see price reductions on some in-app purchases in the near future.

You Have the Option to Choose Your Own Browser

Another change coming to EU users is that, as soon as you open Safari for the first time, you'll be asked to choose which browser you want to use.

You'll be able to choose from a list of the browsers you have installed on your iPhone, or if you don't have any, you'll see a suggested list of alternative browsers available in the EU.

This differs from the default browser feature introduced in iOS 14 in that third-party browsers can also now use their own web rendering engines rather than being forced to use Apple's WebKit. This means Chrome on an iPhone will be able to work more like Chrome on your Mac.

iMessage Is Now More Secure

Security should always be a top priority for tech companies, especially big companies like Google, Meta, and Apple, which handle a lot of private conversations.

Fortunately, Apple is always trying to improve its security with each software update, and iOS 17.4 is no exception. 

With this update, Apple is introducing a new security protocol for iMessage called PQ3.

According to Apple, this is the first-ever protocol to reach "level 3 security," which the company believes has the strongest security features of any instant messaging app and is ready to handle attacks by even the most sophisticated quantum computers we can imagine.

Slight Changes to the App Store Are Here, Too

Another App Store-related change is the new purchase history options. Now, when you open the App Store and go to your profile, you'll be able to see a new option to check your purchase history.

This option shows pretty much everything you've purchased. From in-app purchases to subscription services. You'll still have Subscriptions and App options to see more specific downloads or subscriptions you've paid for.

While you've been able to access your purchase history on your iPhone for years, it previously required digging several levels deep into the Settings app. This change makes it much more accessible.

You Can Create a Virtual Card for Apple Cash

While Apple Pay is great, it's not available everywhere. Luckily, with iOS 17.4, you won't have to worry about that because you can now create a virtual card number for your Apple Cash account.

You can use this virtual card like a regular Visa debit card number, making it possible to use Apple Cash to make online purchases on sites where Apple Pay isn't available. It will even be added to Safari's auto-fill so you can plug it into an online shopping site with a single tap.

To keep things safer, this virtual card will auto-generate unique security codes each time you open the Wallet app or autofill them in Safari, and will expire after 24 hours. Plus, you can always request a new digital card number if you think someone else has gotten a hold of the one you're using.

Game Streaming Services Are Available in the App Store

While you can play many game streaming services on your iPhone, Apple's App Store restrictions meant you couldn't do these through a native app. Instead, you needed to create a shortcut to a Safari website that would let you play directly in the cloud.

Fortunately, game streaming services will now be allowed in the App Store with iOS 17.4, making it easier to play your favorite games and access cool and unique features.