Apple released the third public betas of the impending iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 upgrades to public beta testers today, a week after seeding the second public betas.
After installing the appropriate profile from Apple's public beta testing page on an iPhone or iPad, iOS and iPadOS 15.4 can be downloaded over the air.
Both iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 are significant releases. iOS 15.4 adds a new feature that allows you to unlock your iPhone with Face ID while wearing a mask, while iPadOS 15.4 adds Universal Control. When coupled with a Mac running macOS Monterey 12.3, Universal Operate lets you to control numerous Macs and iPads with a single cursor and keyboard, and it's extremely straightforward and intuitive to use. Universal Control necessitates macOS Monterey 12.3, which does not appear to be accessible for public beta testers at this time.
The second beta included support for the "Tap to Pay on iPhone" feature, which allows NFC-compatible iPhones to take payments via Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets without the need for extra hardware.
The code for Tap to Pay for iPhone is in the iOS 15.4 beta, but it requires third-party providers to add support, thus it is not currently usable. There are no obvious indicators of it to end users, however there is a new "PaymentReceived" sound clip and graphics that demonstrate the Tap to Pay interface.
There are indications that Apple intends to include support for digital IDs and driver's licences in iOS 15.4. There isn't much proof for this at the moment, however the functionality was mentioned in the PassKit code in beta 2. " Learn when your driver's licence or state ID will be ready for use and receive essential updates.
The betas also include new Emoji 14 characters, an Apple Card widget, an iPad keyboard brightness Control Center option, support for on-device custom email domain setting, simpler access to SharePlay, and a slew of other improvements.
In our iOS 15.4 features guide, we have a complete list of everything new in iOS 15.4. Apple has also published the third public beta of tvOS 15.4.
