Apple made available today the third beta releases of the upcoming iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4 updates to developers for testing purposes. This software arrives one week after the beta was released to developers.
See also: Everything new in iOS 26.4 Beta 2
Registered developers can download beta builds from the Settings app on their iPhone or iPad, by going to the General and selecting Software Update.
iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4 add multiple new features to the iPhone and iPad, but the first beta did not contain indications of new Siri capabilities.
A new feature in Apple Music, Playlist Playground, lets you create songs for any idea, mood, feeling, or activity using a text command. There's also a feature to find local concerts, as well as a redesigned view for albums and playlists with full-page artwork.
See also: iOS 26.4: CarPlay support for ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini
Apple Podcasts gains native video-podcasting capabilities that will facilitate the creation, distribution and monetization of video content through the Podcasts app. Video episodes will be integrated with the existing features of Apple Podcasts, such as personalized recommendations and syntactic suggestions.
Apple is testing end-to-end encryption for RCS, which will ultimately bring full encryption to text conversations between Android and iPhone users. Apple is testing RCS with conversations from iPhone to iPhone and from iPhone to Android.
The first two betas did not include new emojis, but we saw indications for them in the code, so perhaps we will see them in the third beta. The new update is also expected to include new emoji characters, such as trombone, treasure chest, orca, landslide and Bigfoot.
See also: iOS 26.4 adds average sleep time measurement
Stolen Device Protection is enabled by default, there's a new ambient music widget, new average sleep time metrics in the Sleep app, and more. All of the iOS 26.4 features can be found in the iOS 26.4 beta feature guide.
