iOS 26.4 ― Bug Fixes, Changes, and Improvements

[n-evo]

I’m running basic apps like Facebook or instagram, nothing taxing by any means but scrolling and general app performance is ass, scrolling the Home Screen occasionally is laggy switching pages, very basic apps show significant lag or frame rate stuttering, why did my previous S24+ Snapdragon have zero stuttering or any kind of lag but my top of the line iPhone does, it’s upsetting.

Odd. I experience no such lags on my iPhone 17 Pro on iOS 26.4.

 

[uhaas]

well, sometime between me installing RC and getting a chance to install the final release, it seems that my 14 Pro Max bit it hard! I’ve since ordered a decent looking 15 Pro Max


When my ”new” iPhone arrives I will test doing a complete restore/upgrade to 26.4 with Apple Devices

Good luck.

 

[MrRom92]

in case it’s worth mentioning, I was on 26.4 rc and proceeded with a battery swap I planned to do.

Full story - I already swapped my battery with a 3rd party replacement about 3 months ago, and it was fine at first! Though after a couple of months I noticed the battery draining faster again, and at one point last week the battery actually jumped from 100% to 1% charge, and refused to charge or stay powered up for more than a couple of minutes even when plugged in. Just in an infinite cycle of booting and shutting down. My immediate thought was that it must be this 3rd party battery and I need to change it to an authentic OEM apple battery ASAP.

Within the hour or so it took me to locate and order an Apple battery, my phone was left plugged in and actually managed to boot up and stay on. It seemed to be behaving as normal again, however I still planned to swap the battery asap lest that weird booting/shutdown issue happened again. But for the most part I was using my phone totally normally throughout the week as if nothing happened.

On Friday I was feeling comfortable enough to attempt installing the RC using Apple Devices, which went off without a hitch. I also completed a backup right before installing 26.4 RC. I continued to wait for my battery to arrive and figured I would have time to install it on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning, I allow my “old new” battery to drain to 0 and when my phone shuts down I proceed with the battery swap, exactly the same as last time.

When I plug in the phone again to power it up, something is immediately wrong. The always on display Lock Screen is not dim like it normally is, it is actually at full screen brightness. And the phone began getting incredibly hot. Burning hot, impossible to hold or use, in fact it triggered the temperature warning and locked the phone down.

As I tried to use the phone it ended up just shutting off, black screen, and that was it. No more phone. I couldn’t power it back up again no matter what I tried. Plugged in, unplugged, disassembled it and put the old battery back in - no dice.

Not sure how this could have happened as I am confident I didn’t screw something up in the procedure and it is a procedure I executed successfully only a few months ago. Given the odd behavior of the device (always on display at full brightness) I would not rule out that there may be something wrong with iOS 26.4 RC, somehow triggered by a battery swap, unless somebody has any alternative theories.

I was going to backup and install the new build after the battery swap, but this was not meant to be.

It’s possible the battery was defective but I don’t see how that would affect the display’s dimming behavior.

 

[The Aletheophile]

3.8 GB update on my 17 Pro Max, and I have Apple Intelligence turned on.
Anyway, am I the only one that suddenly has the old Siri UI from iOS 17?

 

[ab2c4]

Wasn't this release supposed to improve typing? It sure seems worse to me. I just had it auto suggest a word for the word it put in for me and when I would choose the correct word that should be used it kept changing it to other things. This happened four times in a row and finally I just manually typed it and it finally didn't change it to something else.

Horrible.

 

[StumpyBloke]

Wasn't this release supposed to improve typing? It sure seems worse to me. I just had it auto suggest a word for the word it put in for me and when I would choose the correct word that should be used it kept changing it to other things. This happened four times in a row and finally I just manually typed it and it finally didn't change it to something else.

Horrible.

Typing has been improved but spellcheck, grammar check and auto correct/auto suggest is still an utter abomination.

 

[Bones402]

Got a random update last night through the Settings app on PB, or was I having a nightmare

 

[Artemiz]

in case it’s worth mentioning, I was on 26.4 rc and proceeded with a battery swap I planned to do.

Full story - I already swapped my battery with a 3rd party replacement about 3 months ago, and it was fine at first! Though after a couple of months I noticed the battery draining faster again, and at one point last week the battery actually jumped from 100% to 1% charge, and refused to charge or stay powered up for more than a couple of minutes even when plugged in. Just in an infinite cycle of booting and shutting down. My immediate thought was that it must be this 3rd party battery and I need to change it to an authentic OEM apple battery ASAP.

Within the hour or so it took me to locate and order an Apple battery, my phone was left plugged in and actually managed to boot up and stay on. It seemed to be behaving as normal again, however I still planned to swap the battery asap lest that weird booting/shutdown issue happened again. But for the most part I was using my phone totally normally throughout the week as if nothing happened.

On Friday I was feeling comfortable enough to attempt installing the RC using Apple Devices, which went off without a hitch. I also completed a backup right before installing 26.4 RC. I continued to wait for my battery to arrive and figured I would have time to install it on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning, I allow my “old new” battery to drain to 0 and when my phone shuts down I proceed with the battery swap, exactly the same as last time.

When I plug in the phone again to power it up, something is immediately wrong. The always on display Lock Screen is not dim like it normally is, it is actually at full screen brightness. And the phone began getting incredibly hot. Burning hot, impossible to hold or use, in fact it triggered the temperature warning and locked the phone down.

As I tried to use the phone it ended up just shutting off, black screen, and that was it. No more phone. I couldn’t power it back up again no matter what I tried. Plugged in, unplugged, disassembled it and put the old battery back in - no dice.

Not sure how this could have happened as I am confident I didn’t screw something up in the procedure and it is a procedure I executed successfully only a few months ago. Given the odd behavior of the device (always on display at full brightness) I would not rule out that there may be something wrong with iOS 26.4 RC, somehow triggered by a battery swap, unless somebody has any alternative theories.

I was going to backup and install the new build after the battery swap, but this was not meant to be.

It’s possible the battery was defective but I don’t see how that would affect the display’s dimming behavior.

Blaming them for AD is one thing even though you refuse to check or rectify any other variables but now it’s Apple’s fault that you installed a cheaper battery too?

I think it’s time you find someone else to blame besides Apple for all your woes since you’re not taking any responsibility yourself.

 

[Artemiz]

Typing has been improved but spellcheck, grammar check and auto correct/auto suggest is still an utter abomination.

In their defense, they didn’t mention anything about fixing any of those.

 

[MrRom92]

Blaming them for AD is one thing even though you refuse to check or rectify any other variables but now it’s Apple’s fault that you installed a cheaper battery too?

I think it’s time you find someone else to blame besides Apple for all your woes since you’re not taking any responsibility yourself.

Did you even read the post? The cheaper battery worked, mostly, aside from a brief 1-2 hour glitchy period. I replaced it with an authentic OEM Apple battery to avoid this happening again. The Apple battery immediately triggered a catastrophic failure and destruction of the device. I’m open to criticism here but ideally it’s from someone who bothers to get the facts straight first.

 

[cigz]

I’m running basic apps like Facebook or instagram, nothing taxing by any means but scrolling and general app performance is ass, scrolling the Home Screen occasionally is laggy switching pages, very basic apps show significant lag or frame rate stuttering, why did my previous S24+ Snapdragon have zero stuttering or any kind of lag but my top of the line iPhone does, it’s upsetting.

Yeah, same. I can definitely see and feel micro stutters over the whole OS and different apps, especially when scrolling.
Also some animations are still rendered in 30fps, the obvious example is the pop-up animation when tapping trash icon in photos app.
I really can't stand when I tap on a photo I get from someone in messages app, I close it, tap the text field, the keyboard pops up and it immediately closes.
Every single graphical glitches I had on 26.3/26.3.1 are not fixed in this version.
Regarding android - I have a cheap OnePlus Pad 2 and sometimes the refresh rate and smoothness feels like on another level compared to iOS. I still prefer the way iOS handles scrolling but it's way smoother in chrome on OnePlus than in Safari on my 17 Pro, and OnePlus Pad has and LCD screen...

 

[Artemiz]

Did you even read the post? The cheaper battery worked, mostly, aside from a brief 1-2 hour glitchy period. I replaced it with an authentic OEM Apple battery to avoid this happening again. The Apple battery immediately triggered a catastrophic failure and destruction of the device. I’m open to criticism here but ideally it’s from someone who bothers to get the facts straight first.

I read it fine.
By your own account AoD was fine until you changed the battery. This says you missed something in the process. Apple didn’t change your battery, you did. So, you can’t blame iOS here.

 

[sbailey4]

I resolved to keep OS18.3 on my 13mini until the advent of at least OS27.

But my phone started random glitching.

So I finally gave in and upgraded to OS26.4.

Gotta say … it’s not awful. Which is to say it’s OK so far. I have noted a number of really obvious and irritating user experience choices that Apple has made… to which a rational person would have said in the dev and UAT stages, “don’t code it that way.” They are very irritating but not deal breakers. And I will say that beyond the recent glitch prone nature of 18.3, I had not ever had many OS irritations with iPhones. I will just hope they are resolved in .5, .6, etc.

So 18.3’s glitchiness is gone and I’ve got nice stability in normal web use. And, the most shocking thing is, this 13mini now flies. FLIES, I say. It zips through everything like it’s running an M5 chip and a better modem. In this regard, it feels like I have a new phone. Not a new 13mini - no. Feels like I have a new 16 or 17e or such.

The only regret I have is that this OS sucks battery 3x or 4x faster than 18 did. A new battery is cheaper than a new phone…. Such is life.

Your battery should settle after a day or two. 26.x has been fine with battery. Mine dropped a little after the 26.4 release but has since seems to be getting back to normal.

The system downloads all the files it might need and then deletes the redundant files during the “preparing update” stage.
Next time, check the storage during the preparing stage and you’ll notice it’s usually about 2GB or less.

The actual space taken up by iOS is more or less the same and can be checked anytime in the storage section.
Enough with the conspiracy theories.

I thought he was making a joke not being serious. 😂

 

[MrRom92]

I read it fine.
By your own account AoD was fine until you changed the battery. This says you missed something in the process. Apple didn’t change your battery, you did. So, you can’t blame iOS here.

Well, we can’t rule anything out. I’m not suggesting anybody go out and change their battery while installed on 26.4 RC, but unless there is a verified report of somebody doing that and not having this issue, it can be questioned.

What do you think I could’ve possibly missed? Keeping in mind the fact that this is not the first time I’ve taken on this relatively simple procedure on this device. There are only 3 connectors. One for the battery, and 2 for the display that needs to come off to get to the inside of the phone. Aside from that, 8 screws holding on the metal shield that cover these connectors. That’s it.

My best guess is that the OEM battery may have been defective, but nothing can be definitively ruled out.

 

[upandown]

Have you tried unlocking your iPhone, as I have to do it often after an iOS update. It’s just the first time I attempt to use it with CarPlay after the update, then it settles.

Haha yes. Thank you though.

 

[Artemiz]

Well, we can’t rule anything out. I’m not suggesting anybody go out and change their battery while installed on 26.4 RC, but unless there is a verified report of somebody doing that and not having this issue, it can be questioned.

Exactly! Everyone else not experiencing any issues is doing something wrong, but you’re doing everything right and still experiencing problems.
At this point, I’m quite convinced that all your problems would disappear if you’d just set it up as new using a Mac. Barring experimenting with eBay batteries, of course.

 

[MrRom92]

Exactly! Everyone else not experiencing any issues is doing something wrong, but you’re doing everything right and still experiencing problems.
At this point, I’m quite convinced that all your problems would disappear if you’d just set it up as new using a Mac. Barring experimenting with eBay batteries, of course.

Uhhh. Again, I have to question if you read the post. The phone is no longer functional, there is nothing left to set up as new. This is not an apple devices or Windows vs. Mac issue. This has nothing to do with which operating system or program I used to update it 5 days prior to burning up.

Again, as far as I know, I am the only verified report of having this hardware swap done while on the RC, so we don’t know what the typical experience is with this firmware if there is only a sample size of 1

There were no “ebay batteries”, by the way, the battery that triggered this catastrophe was obtained through Apple’s Genuine Apple Parts Program (GAPP)

If you are going to be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative at least have your arguments somewhat based in reality

 

[Artemiz]

Uhhh. Again, I have to question if you read the post. The phone is no longer functional, there is nothing left to set up as new. This is not an apple devices or Windows vs. Mac issue. This has nothing to do with which operating system or program I used to update it 5 days prior to burning up.

I give up. You can decide if you want to change your ways and have a decent to flawless experience or keep doing what you’re doing which have proven to cause problems for you - “a verified case”.

eBay battery was in reference to the one that went bad, not the one you just purchased. Even a simple repair can be messed up when a the device isn’t designed for repairability.

A single data point is not considered evidence. So your negative experience is not conclusive of anything. It’s up to you what you like to believe.

 

[Artemiz]

Besides occasional random stuttering and one WiFi disconnect, 26.4 has been flawless on my 17P.
A bit smoother than RC as well.

I’m going to stay on this until 26.7 unless Apple knocks it out of the park with battery improvements sooner.

 

[Macx69]

I don’t know what to think about this release! The beta version was pretty good 👍

 

[Dieseldk]

Uhhh. Again, I have to question if you read the post. The phone is no longer functional, there is nothing left to set up as new. This is not an apple devices or Windows vs. Mac issue. This has nothing to do with which operating system or program I used to update it 5 days prior to burning up.

Again, as far as I know, I am the only verified report of having this hardware swap done while on the RC, so we don’t know what the typical experience is with this firmware if there is only a sample size of 1

There were no “ebay batteries”, by the way, the battery that triggered this catastrophe was obtained through Apple’s Genuine Apple Parts Program (GAPP)

If you are going to be argumentative for the sake of being argumentative at least have your arguments somewhat based in reality

Come on dude, just own that you f*cked up a battery swap.
Its a taks even pros fail from time to time.
What is more likely Apple has made a change to iOS that make iPhones burn if you swap the battery or you broke a flex cable or something?

 

[James6s]

Don’t know what happened today but I’ve been having constant app redraws on my iPhone 17 when swiping out of apps etc. hard reset seems to have sorted it out.

Also keyboard typing sounds are being intermittent.

 

[MrRom92]

Come on dude, just own that you f*cked up a battery swap.
Its a taks even pros fail from time to time.
What is more likely Apple has made a change to iOS that make iPhones burn if you swap the battery or you broke a flex cable or something?

Anything is possible, but I don’t think that’s what happened!

 

[christian.terra]

messages randomly just quit on me today - crashed straight to homescreen lol never happened to me before.

 

[muntundombe]

Tmo carrier 69.1 & Verizon 69.1.0

On my iPad, since upgrading to 26.4, Safari now crashes any time I try to use any extension.

Do you use compact tabs ?

Noir just had an update today to warn users with compact tabs of a bug in iPadOS 26.4 which causes crashes when trying to use that extension with compact tabs on.