32 New Features and Changes for Your iPhone on iOS 17.4

The iOS 17.4 update, as well as iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, and watchOS 10.4, include PQ3, Apple’s new post-quantum cryptographic protocol for iMessage.

Existing messaging apps with encryption use complex mathematical problems to keep chats private — problems believed to be too computationally intensive for today’s computers to solve. But with advancements in quantum computing, computers may one day be able to crack the code, putting our private chats at risk. Attackers can even save encrypted data today and decrypt it later when they gain access to powerful enough quantum computing.

In another visual change to keep things consistent across its apps, Apple finally updated Podcast’s Now Playing view bar to match Music’s. So instead of an extension of the tab bar at the bottom, it’s now a thin floating controller with a shadow. And you can long-press the bar to view the context menu or tap it to open the full Now Playing view, just like you could before.

As stated in Apple’s release notes, the iPhone’s music recognition feature now lets you add identified songs to your Apple Music Playlists and Library, as well as Apple Music Classical.

On movie and TV pages in the Apple TV app, the How to Watch section now lists up to three apps vertically, and you can swipe left to view more options. Before, the streaming services would show up as cards, and you could only see a few at a time before having to swipe to reveal more. So you can see more options at a glance before swiping for the rest.

In Settings –> Siri & Search, the “Automatically Send Messages” menu has been renamed “Messaging with Siri” on iOS 17.4. This is because there’s a new option in the menu to have Siri read messages in languages other than your primary.

Tap “Add Language” to choose the languages you want. Once you add a language, you can tap its name in your installed list to choose from varieties and voices if available.

Siri will also read messages using the languages in this list. This will not change the primary language Siri listens to and responds in.

A business with an Apple-verified business name, logo, and department name may now appear on the caller identification screen, letting you know that it’s indeed the business in question and not a voice phishing (also known as vishing) call.

In Settings –> Messages, the old hyperlinked text for “About Messages for Business & Privacy” at the bottom of the preferences is now a new “Messages for Business” submenu. Tap it, and you’ll see the same hyperlinked information as “Messages for Business Privacy,” as well as a new toggle for “Business Updates.” This switch allows you to “get updates on your orders and other transactions if you’ve chosen to receive them on a business’s website.” These updates can include order status, flight notifications, fraud alerts, and other updates you opt into receiving.

Apple updated the App Store on iOS 17.4 with improvements in the Accounts view. In the app, tap your profile picture, and you’ll see menu options for “Apps” and “Purchase History.” The Apps menu shows all the apps installed on your iPhone and the ones you’ve installed previously but aren’t currently on your device. This is what was visible in the old “Purchased” menu.

The Purchase History menu shows your actual purchase history, such as iCloud and Apple TV subscriptions, in-app purchases, etc.

The Files app on iOS 17.4 now shows the updated iCloud icon in the Browse tab’s list of locations. Before, it looked like an app icon with a white background and clouds of blue shades. Now, it’s just the no-fill iCloud symbol with a blue outline of clouds and a transparent background, matching the symbol style for On My iPhone.

With iOS 17.4, you can now set a virtual card number for your Apple Cash account. This means you can use your Apple Cash wherever Apple Pay isn’t accepted since it works like a debit or credit card. New security codes for your card are generated every time you open Wallet or use AutoFill in Safari, and each code expires after 24 hours. If you ever think your virtual card number is compromised, you can request a new one in seconds.

In the U.S., the iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates let us drop the “Hey” in “Hey Siri” in English to call Apple’s voice assistant. So all you need to do to ask Siri something hands-free is start with “Siri.” Now, the iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 updates open this up to French, German, and Spanish speakers, not just English.

Apple’s next generation of CarPlay is expected to be released in new vehicles sometime in 2024, but Apple has already started prepping for it. There are eight new apps, listed below, and car owners can adjust the appearance of the CarPlay theme and color and even customize which gauges show in the instrument cluster design. When the vehicle turns off, CarPlay will display a “goodbye” message on the screen.

• Auto Settings: Manage paired iPhones and customize vehicle settings, such as notifications.
• Car Camera: View your vehicle’s rear camera feed.
• Charge: View your electric vehicle’s battery level and charging information, such as when charging initializes, when it’s in charge mode, how much time remains until fully charged, and the charge limit.
• Climate: Adjust your vehicle’s climate controls, such as the temperature for your heating or cooling system, fan speed, heated seats, and defrost setting.
• Closures: See alerts for when your vehicle’s doors, hatch, and other openings are opened or waiting to be closed.
• Media: Access FM radio, AM radio, and SiriusXM channels, or select from music and podcast genres such as Classic Rock, Science, Nostalgia, Light Classical, and Social Affairs.
• Tire Pressure: View the air pressure for each of your vehicle’s tires and warnings for when there’s not enough air pressure, too much air pressure, a deflating tire, or a flat tire.
• Trips: View instrument cluster information, such as average speed, odometer, trip meter, fuel or energy efficiency, and trip duration.

On iPadOS 17, prior to iPadOS 17.4, you could go to Settings –> Safari on your iPad and toggle on or off the “Show Icons in Favorites Bar” switch to see both webpage icons and titles or only titles in your Favorites Bar.

A new update to WebKit lets web developers easily add interactive switches to their webpages. These switches look similar to those in the Settings app to turn on and off features. Before, web developers would have to use checkboxes and write custom code to make them appear as switches. Now, Safari supports native switches, so you may see more of these pop up when browsing the web.

Before iOS 17.4, vertical languages like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian were presented in Safari in horizontal writing mode. But now, vertical writing mode is supported, as you can see below, so you can view meter, range, progress, and other form controls vertically instead of horizontally.

26. Separator Lines in Menus on Webpages

The following features aren’t available in the U.S., only in EU countries.

Thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the European Union, Apple now allows alternative payment options in the App Store in the 27 EU countries. So apps can choose to use a payment service provider or link out to a webpage where users can complete transactions, but they can’t also use the App Store’s In-App Purchase system to prevent confusion.

Apple features like Report a Problem, Family Sharing, and Ask to Buy will not work with alternative payment options.

Apple won’t be able to assist users with refunds, purchase history, subscription cancellations and management, violations of user data privacy, abuse, or fraud and manipulation, in addition to issues that make the user experience less intuitive.

Apple is also complying with the DMA in the EU, allowing for sideloading of apps from alternative app marketplaces. Developers have had 40 days during the beta period to start building marketplaces with iOS 17.4 and over 600 new APIs. Now that the stable release is out, we’ll get to see how it works in action.

App marketplace apps allow you to install apps unavailable in the App Store, such as Fortnite, which has been unavailable on iOS since 2020. Epic Games, which develops the Fortnite game, is expected to release its Epic Games Store marketplace in the EU as soon as it wades through Apple’s daunting, largely prohibitive requirements. Other stores from Valve and Microsoft may appear as well.

Marketplace developers must abide by Apple’s stiff requirements for customer experience and support, fraud prevention, and other areas. They’ll need authorization from Apple and disclosures on alternative payments, among other things.

App developers can choose between Apple’s App Store distribution, a third-party marketplace, or both. Apple will notarize apps on third-party marketplaces for malware, viruses, other security threats, and fraud risk via automated checks and human review. Apps will need installation sheets with information about the app and developer. And iOS will include malware protection to prevent sideloaded apps from opening if malware is detected.

Users can set a preferred app marketplace on their iPhones. Still, as with alternative payment options in the App Store, Apple cannot assist users who sideload apps with refunds, subscription cancellations and management, and other issues.

The DMA also forces Apple to allow for contactless payments in the European Economic Area via third-party banking and wallet apps. The iPhone’s NFC capabilities have been largely restricted from third-party apps until now. With this change, EU users can also choose their preferred default contactless payment app when they double-click the Side button or their iPhone detects an NFC field at compatible terminals.

In Settings –> Privacy & Security, you’ll find a new option for “Contactless & NFC.” According to its description, “Applications that have requested the ability to use Contactless & NFC will appear here.”

Thanks to DMA requirements, web browsers in the EU are no longer restricted to using WebKit’s engine, so app developers can use alternative browser engines. This applies to both browser apps and apps with in-app browsing experiences. This means we may see a Chrome version that uses its Blink rendering engine, Firefox that uses Gecko, etc.

As browser engines are constantly exposed to untrusted and potentially malicious content and have visibility into sensitive user data, they’re one of the most common attack vectors for malicious actors. To help keep users safe online, Apple will only authorize developers to implement alternative browser engines after meeting specific criteria and committing to a number of ongoing privacy and security requirements, including timely security updates to address emerging threats and vulnerabilities. Apple will provide authorized developers of dedicated browser apps access to security mitigations and capabilities to enable them to build secure browser engines, and access features like passkeys for secure user login, multiprocess system capabilities to improve security and stability, web content sandboxes that combat evolving security threats, and more.

To accompany new web browser choices, iOS 17.4 prompts EU users the first time they open Safari to choose a default browser from their installed browsers or a list of the primary web browsers available in their region.

Safari had a slight change on early iOS 17.4 betas that made the URL bar wider, with the previous and next tab URL bars smaller and less noticeable. The stable version does not include this adjustment.

Though connected to the EU changes above, both EU and U.S. users could see a new data point in the beta at the bottom of Settings –> General –> About with their regional information. This was pulled and did not make it onto the stable build.