Apple launches iOS 26.4 with AI-powered playlists, purchase sharing, and more

iOS 26.4 is here, and it comes with a bunch of small but notable updates. That includes New playlist playing field It’s launching as a beta in Apple Music, which uses artificial intelligence to create a song playlist — complete with title, description, and tracklist — based on a text prompt.

Apple Music is also adding a new concert discovery feature, letting you find nearby shows featuring artists from your library, as well as new shows recommended by the app. Other updates include full-screen backgrounds for album pages and playlists, along with a new offline music recognition tool that “identifies songs offline and automatically presents results when you’re back online.”

Apple’s Family Sharing feature, which allows you to share Apple subscriptions with up to six other people, will now allow each adult Add their payment methods To make purchases (instead of just using the group organizer’s affiliate method). Additionally, iOS 26.4 adds eight new emojis, including a emoji orca, Trombone, Landslide, ballerinaand Distorted face. It also improves keyboard accuracy when typing quickly, according to Apple.

There are some new accessibility features as well, including an update to Apple’s “Reduce bright effects” setting that now reduces flashes that occur when you tap certain items like buttons. Apple is also making subtitle and caption settings easier to find, and says its “Reduce Motion” setting now “more reliably reduces Liquid Glass animations.”

apple The macOS 26.4 update was also releasedwhich introduces a new built-in tab bar option in Safari and the ability to set charging limits from 80 to 100 percent to help preserve your device’s battery life.