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Apple today seeded the fourth betas of upcoming iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 to developers for testing purposes, with the updates coming one week after Apple seeded the third betas.

iOS-17.4-Feature-Orange.jpg

Registered developers are able to opt into the betas by opening up the Settings app, going to the Software Update section, tapping on the "Beta Updates" option, and toggling on the iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 Developer Beta. A free or paid Apple ID associated with a developer account is required to download and install the beta.

iOS 17.4 introduces sweeping changes to the way the App Store and apps operate in the European Union, paving the way for alternative app marketplaces, alternative payment systems, third-party browser engine support, and NFC access for banks and third-party payment providers. These features are limited to the EU, and won't be available in other countries.

There are, however, changes to gaming apps, and with the launch of iOS 17.4, Apple will be allowing cloud gaming apps like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce NOW. Mini games, chatbots, and plug-ins are also now able to use the in-app purchase system.

Along with these updates, iOS 17.4 adds new emoji characters, transcripts for podcasts in the Podcasts app, support for using SharePlay with the HomePod, Stopwatch Live Activities, and more. Full details on everything new in iOS 17.4 can be found in our iOS 17.4 features guide.

Article Link: Apple Seeds Fourth Betas of iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 to Developers [Update: Public Beta Available]
 
Last edited:
To Devs today
  • iOS 17.4 beta 4 (21E5209b) - February 20, 2024
  • iPadOS 17.4 beta 4 (21E5209b) - February 20, 2024
  • macOS 14.4 beta 4 (23E5205c) - February 20, 2024
  • tvOS 17.4 beta 4 (21L5222a) - February 20, 2024
  • visionOS 1.1 beta 3 (21O5197a) - February 20, 2024
  • watchOS 10.4 beta 4 (21T5213a) - February 20, 2024

General

Known Issues

  • Default browser choice screen might not show up when intended and apps requiring certain managed entitlements might not install or show an error. (121566625)
    Workaround: Open Settings and navigate to Privacy & Security > Location Services. Toggle location services off for 10 seconds, and then turn it back on.

App Store

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Certain App Store product sheets will show a “Cannot Connect to iTunes Store” error. (121523272)

Apple Maps and CarPlay in vehicle instrument clusters

New Features

  • In iOS 17.4, with supported CarPlay vehicles, Apple Maps will present a new instrument cluster experience with information about upcoming maneuvers. Users will be able to swap the desired display type between the main and instrument cluster screen by tapping the map configuration button on the upper right of the Maps main screen. (122833170)

BrowserEngineKit

Resolved Issues

HomeKit

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Viewing HomeKit camera live video might not work when away from home. (121166796)

Maps

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: MapKit SwiftUI apps might show incorrect map mode for walking and cycling routes. (121085728)

Messages

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Stickers (Memoji and 3rd party) might appear blank. (120994483)

Object Capture

New Features

  • A new manual bounding box flow is now initiated if automatic object detection fails to find an object, particularly in cases where there is no salient ground plane. In this flow, the user is expected to utilize the standard manual bounding box controls to indicate the bounding box of the object to capture by adjusting the provided starting box placed in the world in front of the user. You can determine if this mode has been activated by observing for the new element .objectNotDetected, which will be added to the ObjectCaptureSession’s Feedback set when the manual flow has been activated. You can use this to provide notification and/or instructions to the user about this manual box flow as desired. (113474123)

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed an issue where an ObjectCaptureView was incorrectly rotating the point cloud view in landscape UI orientations. (114248688) (FB13030239)
  • Fixed: PhotogrammetrySession creation on iOS is now significantly faster. (114458164)
  • Fixed a memory leak when ObjectCaptureSession was used in a SwiftUI Environment or was torn down without waiting for cleanup to finish. (114481678) (FB13057864)

Passkeys

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Registering passkeys might not work on certain websites. (122217903)

Podcasts

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Tapping on a podcast show from Recently Searched occasionally returns you to the Recently Searched view instead of the podcast show product page. (120915925)

Setup Assistant

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Pairing might fail when using Quick Start to set up a new device. (120982013)

Shared iPad

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Users might be greeted with a “Loading” screen in the Files app immediately after log in on a Shared iPad. (122092017)

StoreKit

New Features

  • In StoreKit testing in Xcode, a billing error StoreKit message will be sent when a subscription tries to renew while the Enable Billing Retry on Renewal setting is enabled in the StoreKit configuration file. Use the messages listener API to control when StoreKit messages are displayed in your app. (101869442)
  • productDescriptionHidden(_:) API can be used to configure the visibility of product descriptions in ProductView, StoreView and SubscriptionStoreView instances within a view hierarchy. When building with Xcode 15.3, the view modifier can be used even if your app is running on iOS 17.0, iPadOS 17.0, macOS 14.0, tvOS 17.0, watchOS 10.0, visionOS 1.0, or later.
    When implementing a product view style, it can support this new view modifier by checking the descriptionVisibility property on the configuration value. (110414819) (FB12261973)
  • You can use SubscriptionStoreView to present promotional offers by adding the subscriptionPromotionalOffer(offer:signature:) modifier.
    If you’re already using inAppPurchaseOptions(_:) modifier to support promotional offers for StoreKit views, you should adopt the new API instead when your app is running on iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, tvOS 17.4, watchOS 10.4, visionOS 1.1 or later. Do not use both APIs to apply a promotional offer for the same view. (115358806)

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: The isEligibleForIntroOffer property and isEligibleForIntroOffer(for:) method now reflect ineligibility in cases where a customer would otherwise be eligible for the offer if they weren’t actively subscribed. This means a customer which is not currently eligible for an introductory offer may become eligible in the future.
    Customers who redeem an introductory offer for a given subscription group will continue to never be eligible for another introductory offer in that subscription group. You can detect this case this by checking if any one transaction with a matching subscriptionGroupID has the type property on offer set to introductory. (103604770) (FB11889732)
  • Fixed an issue causing SKAdNetwork versions 2.2 and 3.0 to not accept impressions or send postbacks. (121223565)
  • Fixed an issue causing some approved Ask to Buy purchases to fail. (121249405)

SwiftUI

New Features

  • Table now supports dynamic numbers of columns with the new TableColumnForEach. (79492167) (FB9189673)
  • Popover presentations now automatically dismiss if they go outside the safe area. (100811375)

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed: Resolved an issue with programmatically present an alert or sheet simultaneously with dismissing another sheet. The new alert or sheet would not show but now it will. If you have code that presents the same sheet programmatically from multiple places in your view hierarchy at the same time, that sheet might no longer appear. Make sure that any sheet modifiers that are in the view hierarchy at the same time use distinct isPresented or item bindings. (117475214)

WebKit

Resolved Issues

  • Fixed HTML content not displaying in a Simulator, affecting projects using the web extension project template. (121338366)
 
  • Like
Reactions: roronl
At some point they gotta start getting rid of some emojis.

Just too damn many to sort through
You can turn them off all together. Maybe a compromise would to give the user an emoji picker where they can choose the emojis they would like to use, effectively hiding the others from the picker when open the keyboard.

Then again, you do have 9 favorites, focus on those
 
I was thinking the same thing. Gonna take a little time to go through some things and see what we’ve got that’s new.
 
At some point they gotta start getting rid of some emojis.
They should not, as the new emojis are part of updates to the Unicode standard and not Apple's decision. I would be surprised if there is a substantial effort to retire anything from Unicode because they have room for 1.1 million characters.

"Removing" an emoji from iOS would just mean that the user sees a blank box if they open a message or page where another user wrote the new character.
 
  • Like
Reactions: roncron
At some point they gotta start getting rid of some emojis.

Just too damn many to sort through
It'd be cool if there was a one-tap toggle to filter the emojis list down to the just ones you've ever used before, or used in the past year or something, which would immediately filter out like 90%+ of them.
 
At some point they gotta start getting rid of some emojis.

Just too damn many to sort through

Please complain to the Unicode consortium. Seriously, please do. Not that they'd listen.

Unicode is a little like IPv6, except it actually got used. And they have all this extra address space, so they decided to fill it with little pictures. Then they got bored of that, and now they're trying to see how controversial/ridiculous they can be before someone stops them. But everyone is too busy sending pictures of vegetables that vaguely represent body parts and little piles of poop with smiles on them to do anything about it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: centauratlas
iPad now asks to handoff to HomePod if it’s in the vicinity. This hasn’t been the case for me before.
 
Please complain to the Unicode consortium. Seriously, please do. Not that they'd listen.

Unicode is a little like IPv6, except it actually got used. And they have all this extra address space, so they decided to fill it with little pictures. Then they got bored of that, and now they're trying to see how controversial/ridiculous they can be before someone stops them. But everyone is too busy sending pictures of vegetables that vaguely represent body parts and little piles of poop with smiles on them to do anything about it.
IPv6 gets used, fair enugh not all last mile isps fucussing on the consumer market has it, but all public clouds have varying levels of IPv6 support, all major cdn's support it. And googles ipv6 traffic is increasing, so is the amount of IPv6 traffic across major IXes, so I suspect the "no one uses IPv6" meme needs to be retiered. Sorry if this was ot but ithe statment about ipv6 usage was so wrong I could not let it bass without commenting.
There are ofc exceptions, esp mp gaming which seams to be stuck on ipv4 well eventually they weill have to move over (or at keast to dual stack) when all the ipv4 connectivity any home user ( read mist gamers) can get is a cgnated horror
 
IPv6 gets used, fair enugh not all last mile isps fucussing on the consumer market has it, but all public clouds have varying levels of IPv6 support, all major cdn's support it. And googles ipv6 traffic is increasing, so is the amount of IPv6 traffic across major IXes, so I suspect the "no one uses IPv6" meme needs to be retiered. Sorry if this was ot but ithe statment about ipv6 usage was so wrong I could not let it bass without commenting.
There are ofc exceptions, esp mp gaming which seams to be stuck on ipv4 well eventually they weill have to move over (or at keast to dual stack) when all the ipv4 connectivity any home user ( read mist gamers) can get is a cgnated horror

Yes I am aware that technically IPv6 is supported by all operating systems and most ISPs.

But if you disable IPv6 on a network, nobody is gonna notice. Because nobody dares not provide all services over IPv4, and that shows absolutely no signs of changing.

Meanwhile, Unicode has pretty much completely replaced ASCII. And they are wasting most of the Unicode space on these stupid pictures. That's my only point.

The only comparison is to the vast amount of unused address space.
 
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