Apple Seeds Second Public Betas of iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 With Universal Control, Face ID With Mask Support and More

Wednesday February 9, 2022 9:12 am PST by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 updates to public beta testers, with the software coming a week after Apple seeded the first public betas.

iOS App Store General Feature gray blue
iOS and iPadOS 15.4 can be downloaded over the air after the proper profile from Apple's public beta testing website has been installed on an iPhone or iPad.

iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 are major updates. iOS 15.4 brings a new feature for unlocking your ‌iPhone‌ with Face ID even when wearing a mask, and iPadOS 15.4 introduces Universal Control. When paired with a Mac running macOS Monterey 12.3, ‌Universal Control‌ allows multiple Macs and iPads to be controlled with a single cursor and keyboard, and it's super simple and intuitive to use. ‌Universal Control‌ requires macOS Monterey 12.3, which does not yet appear to be available for public beta testers.

The second beta introduced support for the "Tap to Pay on ‌iPhone‌" feature that is designed to allow NFC-compatible iPhones to accept payments through Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets, without requiring additional hardware.

Code for Tap to Pay on ‌iPhone‌ is in the iOS 15.4 beta, but it does require third-party providers to add support, so it is not yet available for use. There are no outward-facing signs of it that are visible to end users, but there's a new "PaymentReceived" sound file and images that show off the Tap to Pay interface.

There are signs that Apple may be planning to roll out support for digital IDs and driver's licenses in iOS 15.4. There isn't a ton of evidence for this at the current time, but there was a mention of the feature in the PassKit code in beta 2. "Find out when your driver's license or state ID is ready to use and get important updates about your ID," it reads.

The betas also bring new Emoji 14 characters, an Apple Card widget, a keyboard brightness Control Center option on ‌iPad‌, support for on-device custom email domain setup, easier access to SharePlay, and tons more.

We have a full list of everything new in iOS 15.4 available in our iOS 15.4 features guide. Apple has also released the second tvOS 15.4 public beta.

Related Forum: iOS 15

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Top Rated Comments

R3k

49 months ago

The world is opening up, people celebrating, pandemic over.
Apple: FaceID works with a mask on!

Don’t think the pandemic or general mask usage is going away anytime soon.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

AhRiHmAn

49 months ago

The world is opening up, people celebrating, pandemic over.
Apple: FaceID works with a mask on!

Their goal was to sell watches to unlock the iPhone maybe…

Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Realityck

49 months ago

Important

iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) and iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) can only update to iPadOS 15.4 beta 2 from iPadOS 15.4 beta 1.

[HEADING=3]Known Issues[/HEADING]

* iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) and iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) won’t be able to update to iPadOS 15.4 beta 2 via IPSW; this issue will be resolved in a later release.

Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)