Everything New in iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4: Face ID With a Mask, Emojis, Apple Card Widget, Universal Control and More

[nicho]

Yeah, I hated I had to go into Screen time every time the phone rebooted to turn notifications off for shortcuts. I have tons of automations running so this is the new feature for me in 15.4 haha

Very welcome:

 

[duanepatrick]

What an amazing update! Now, let's prepare ourselves for some sneaky bugs. ?

 

[igb2000]

The Scribble Feature on iPad now works in Korean!! Plus, you can find Korean written text in Notes app, either!!

 

[svish]

Some really useful features. FaceID update is good. Ability to turn off notifications for personal automation is also very good.

 

[cdcdoc]

This is such a great update. It fixes a lot of the annoyances I had before.

- no more fiddling in settings to adjust the magic keyboard brightness.
- I can actually put some context with some password (like security questions or email used) and it’s making my migration from 1Password come faster. I hope they expand it into a full app in iOS 16.
- the “Running your automation“ personally ruined a lot of shortcuts for me, I didn’t need to be double notified when my power goes down a certain threshold and I’m thrilled it’s been finally fixed.
- EU covid vaccination certificate support is long overdue but this is great and I’ll take it. I don’t want to rely on 3rd parties to generate a pkpass with my sensitive information and storing the pdf was just clunky, even with a shortcut.

I have tried the EU certificate support and it does add it to Health but it also says it cannot be added to Wallet as it is not verified. I live in Switzerland.

 

[leepalisoc]

Stop the face recognition band-aids. Just put Touch ID in power button like the iPads.

You're acting like Touch ID will magically appear on existing Face ID devices via software update.

 

[jdavid_rp]

Except the vast majority of people keep their phones in a case and last I checked, most cases don't have an open slot for a power button.

Well, why would they have an open slot if it's not a need yet? Before the Apple Pencil magnet charger iPads didn't have any open area in the border and now they do, same with the smart connector

 

[paffko]

Apple woke up and decided to "make it easier" for Europeans. Funny. As mass restrictions are slowly being lifted in Europe and the EU Digital Covid Certificate is slowly losing its relevance, Apple has allowed it to be added to the Apple Wallet. Fortunately, I added it to Wallet a long time ago thanks to an external application.

 

[paffko]

Vaccination Records in the Health App

Does this work for people in the EU automatically or does the country/app of that country have to enable that?

The European Union has agreed on a uniform format for the EU digital covid certificate, including a QR code. More on the European Commission's website.

 

[srbNYC]

too bad no features like faster performance or longer battery life

Not sure what problems you're having there. Both are good in those departments for me. Longer battery would always be better, but can't complain with current situation. And I can't really imagine needing my iPhone any faster.

 

[minimo3]

You're acting like Touch ID will magically appear on existing Face ID devices via software update.

That’s not totally inconceivable. Currently FaceID takes a 3D image map of the face, conceptually touchID could be implemented to let it take an image of and recognize fingerprints instead. The user would hover their thumb/finger above the FaceID camera at a certain distance. Now of course the underlying deep learning model (I’m assuming they’re using some kind of convolutional neural net to do classification) would have to be totally retrained to use a different set of identifying features, but no new hardware is required.

Is this a hack? Yes. Is it perfect? No. But it’s workable and I for one wouldn’t mind having it.

 

[justperry]

Vaccination Records in the Health App

Verifiable health records now support adding vaccination records in the EU Digital COVID Certificate format to the Health and Wallet apps, so those in the EU can add their vaccine cards to the Wallet app for easy access

In this article Federico Viticci said it doesn't show up in Wallet, I just imported my data, it is both available in Wallet and under immunisations in the Health App.

So, you might update the article, I have proof that it works, but I am not posting personal data here.

 

[MrChurchyard]

Vaccination Records in the Health App

Does this work for people in the EU automatically or does the country/app of that country have to enable that?

It’s just a QR code and there are ways of adding a card with said QR code to the Wallet already, e.g. https://covidpass.marvinsextro.de/ implements an option to do so. So purely technically there is nothing holding Apple back to allow it EU-wide. Question is more procedural: whether the people who have to check and scan will make a fuss about it and require or just scan the QR code and see what they need to see

 

[CNebs]

Driving Focus turns on automatically even if not connected via Bluetooth or CarPlay. Speed dependent based upon detected motion. Turns on at ~20mph during testing. Interestingly enough the driving focus icon does not show up on the dash, but can be seen on the iPhone lock screen.

 

[nicho]

Driving Focus turns on automatically even if not connected via Bluetooth or CarPlay. Speed dependent based upon detected motion. Turns on at ~20mph during testing. Interestingly enough the driving focus icon does not show up on the dash, but can be seen on the iPhone lock screen.

I see nothing on that screen that wasn't in 15.0

 

[CNebs]

I’ve never seen it activate on it’s own before, so maybe the language hasn’t been updated on that screen. It activated on its own just sitting on the passenger seat. I do not have my iPhone paired with my car’s Bluetooth and I never used Driving focus before. So this is definitely a new behavior in 15.4. Maybe this screen is different?

 

[nicho]

I’ve never seen it activate on it’s own before, so maybe the language hasn’t been updated on that screen. It activated on its own just sitting on the passenger seat. I do not have my iPhone paired with my car’s Bluetooth and I never used Driving focus before. So this is definitely a new behavior in 15.4. Maybe this screen is different?

No different. Not new.

 

[CNebs]

Behavior is new from all indications.

 

[nicho]

Behavior is new from all indications.

I used to use "do not disturb when driving", the precursor to this, and it worked exactly as you describe even back then. There is nothing new here in the behaviour.

The only "new" thing possibly is that Apple turned it on for people who don't have it configured during the 15.4 update.

 

[TechSavvy234]

For the Notes part, there’s already that feature. Is it just in a new spot instead of being under General → Gestures?

 

[No_comment]

Fix the camera app for iPhone 13 models so that HDR can be optional, skintone being not orange/red on bright skin tones! As it is now it takes the worst pictures I’ve ever seen of people.

 

[GermanSuplex]

I’m not sure if it’s because the last few versions of iOS have bordered on mundane or what, but this almost seems like it be a full version update.

Not complaining, mind you. iOS is a pretty mature operating system, so massive feature updates every year aren’t to be expected. But for a mid-point release, it sounds like 15.4 is pretty feature-rich.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

I’m not sure if it’s because the last few versions of iOS have bordered on mundane or what, but this almost seems like it be a full version update.

Not complaining, mind you. iOS is a pretty mature operating system, so massive feature updates every year aren’t to be expected. But for a mid-point release, it sounds like 15.4 is pretty feature-rich.

I am liking this strategy. Better than promise-packing a ton of features at WWDC only to delay, delay until after the Fall. Apple was obviously having issues with pushing certain things out the door just to hit their promised September release and it showed.