Should I Update my iPhone to iOS 16.4?

The much-anticipated iOS 16.4 update finally began rolling out on 27 March 2023. iOS 16.3.1 was publicly released on 13 February, and it was a minor update that was focused on bug fixes.

The update was also responsible for fixing app crashes and stability problems. Apple rolls out security updates usually every other month, and there are occasional feature drops, too.

iOS 16, which came out with the iPhone 14 series last year, got some of the biggest changes to iOS yet. A complete overhaul to the lockscreen, lock screen widgets, improvements to drag and drop, Focus Mode linking, etc.

iMessage finally got the option to edit and delete messages. Apple also brought Live Text support in videos. Some of these features are exclusive to a couple of the latest models, but this was the biggest iOS update in years.

It’s no surprise that the consecutive updates weren’t significant, but there were still some new features. iOS 16.1 brought the shared photo library feature to iCloud. We also got Live Activities or live notifications.

The Freeform app and Apple Music Sing were headline features for iOS 16.2. Freeform gives you a flexible, whiteboard-like canvas for creativity, drawing, and rough sketches. It even has the option to collaborate with others for projects.

Advanced data protection was another major security feature. If you want to, you can enable end-to-end encryption for your iCloud data. iOS 16.3 was largely a stability update with plenty of bug fixes that Apple listed in the official changelogs.

Finally, we’re at iOS 16.4 now, which does add some practical features. We’ve used it for a day, and here’s all you need to know about it.

What’s new with iOS 16.4

New Emojis

There are a total of 21 new emojis. Three new colors for the heart emoji, a couple of new objects and hand gestures, one new facial expression about vibrations, and a couple of birds.

Notifications

Many people use Web Apps on their phones to either save storage space or minimize distractions. Sometimes, the web app functions better than the app. This update adds notifications from the web app to your home screen.

Web apps

You also get support for notification badges for web apps on your home screen. Along with that, you can also add home screen web apps via third-party browsers now. Previously, it was only possible with Safari.

Voice Isolation & UI redesigns

It’s a major and impressive new feature. With iOS 7 in 2013, Apple added noise cancellation to distinguish your voice and make it sound a bit louder in comparison to the background.

However, this feature was dropped beginning from the iPhone 13 models for normal cellular calls. Though many were claiming that it made no difference, it upset many people since background noises were really distracting in calls.

Voice Isolation is not new on iOS, and you can already use it with FaceTime, Zoom, and other conferencing apps. However, iOS 16.4 now lets you use it even for regular cellular calls.

In our limited testing, it blocks out ambient noise extremely well and is excellent at amplifying your voice. It works much better than the previous noise-cancellation feature.

Apple Music Design: The Apple Music app has five tabs at the bottom. Earlier, your profile icon only used to appear on the main home tab. It’s now accessible from any of the five tabs.

Podcast UI: There’s a new profile icon for the Podcasts app, and there are some UI changes, too. You can access Playback Controls from the Up Next section.

Miscellaneous

There are some reports online that Face ID got much faster with iOS 16.4, and we could notice improvements in unlocking speed in broad daylight or under harsh backlight situations.

Apple made some changes to the Beta program with iOS 16.4. Until recently, you had to install developer beta profiles for beta software manually. With 16.4, there’s a new submenu that says Beta Updates. You can now directly opt-in from the Settings app.

You can choose to opt into developer betas or public betas. Conventionally, the developer betas will be worse in stability, though both of them won’t offer the same experience as a stable version.

This new system of updates is much more simple. It eliminates the need for Beta profiles.

This also means that the only way to install a beta is by subscribing to Apple’s beta program for 99$ a year. The configurations method no longer works.

There are other tiny changes like improvements to duplicate photo detection, voice-over support for Maps in the Weather app, crash detection optimization, and improvements to accessibility settings.

CarPlay now adds a Podcast discovery section and also has some UI changes like a new profile icon. The Apple Books app also brings back the page-turning animation. There’s a new AOD filter for focus modes, too.

Apple Wallet now gets an option to track your orders. There are some new Shortcut action updates. Finally, Emergency SOS via satellite covers a lot more regions, and T Mobile gets standalone 5G support in the US.

If you check your Apple Care coverage in Settings, it’ll show you all your active and expired Apple Care Plus products. There’s also added support for the PlayStation DualSense Edge controller.

Should you update to iOS 16.4?

In our testing, there are a few slight animation glitches. There are a couple of inconsistencies with the lock screen, and there’s still observable lag when switching between lock and home screen combinations.

In a 12-hour overnight standby test with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS on, our iPhone 13 unit lost only 8% of its battery. This is a fairly decent standby drain.

The gaming performance and overall software stability remain more or less the same, and we didn’t observe any heating issues. The cameras didn’t get better or worse with this update.

Earlier, there were some claims that Apple would change something up with the image processing for iOS 16.4. It’s apparent in our testing that Apple made no such changes of the sort. The same amount of sharpening and noise reduction remains the same.

As for overall battery life, the phone still gets the same 7 hours of screen on time with mixed-use, including two hours of gaming, multimedia, social media apps, random browsing, and about an hour of calls. The reported battery is with mobile data on 4G.

Previous bugs like the disappearing widget bug haven’t officially been addressed. We didn’t come across any reports of major app crashes or stability and compatibility problems with this version.

Since we didn’t observe anything experience-breaking, iOS 16.4 gets a green light from our side.

How to download and install iOS 16.4

All iPhones that support iOS 16 will also support iOS 16.4. This includes all iPhones, beginning with the iPhone 8. If you have an older model from the 7 series and below, you cannot upgrade to iOS 16.4.

All iPhones launched in and after 2017 will receive the iOS 16.4 update. We recommend having a backup of essential data in case the version isn’t stable for you. Also, double-check that you have enough internal storage on your phone for the update.

Make sure your phone has over 50% battery or that you’re near a power source in case you need to plug in. We recommend updating on a stable internet connection.

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Find the General menu.
3. Tap on the Software Updates submenu.
4. Tap on Download and Install iOS 16.4. It’ll take a while, depending on the server load and your internet speed.
5. The phone will automatically restart after the download completes. To apply it, the phone will restart, or you can manually choose a specific time for that.
6. Once completed, your phone should directly boot into iOS 16.4. You’ll be prompted to enter your passcode after the restart.

What’s next for iOS?

We aren’t sure when the road for iOS 16 will end since iOS 15 got updates until iOS 15.7.4. iOS 16 is still on the 4th minor update, so we assume it’ll get updates until iOS 16.6 or 16.7 before Apple moves on to iOS 17.

There’s already some news about an iOS 16.5 Beta. We’re not sure about what it’ll offer yet, except Apple Pay Later and iMessage contact key verification.

Apple also made the Apple Music Classical app available for download on the App Store. It includes a lot of all-time classical hits.

If you don’t have Apple’s official subscription to Betas, there’s also a way to install with IPSW Restore Image. It’s not the most seamless option, and it’s not for everyone.

Unfortunately, you cannot grab a developer profile and simply update to the 16.5 Beta. You cannot download the developer beta of iOS 17 for free when it comes out, either.

There are plenty of rumors floating around about iOS 17 already. We’ll allegedly get a new control center design, more home screen widgets with redesigns to some widgets, and more home screen customization.

The update will also apparently add an option to close all of the apps in your RAM at once, a feature that Apple refused to add for a long time.

We might see Apple break open the walled garden by allowing users to install applications outside the App Store from third-party sources. Current sideloading methods are cumbersome and risky.

There are rumors about Apple adding some new multitasking features to iOS, but we’re unsure what it could be.

Conclusion

iOS 16.4 is a much bigger update than iOS 16.3 and includes many important security patches and a lot of new features to play around with. Voice Isolation during calls is a particularly very useful feature.

We recommend updating your device since there isn’t anything wrong with this version, and there aren’t any major bugs or stability problems yet. We’ll keep you updated on any further information about iOS 16.5 and iOS 17.