When Apple issues its next big iPhone update—iOS 17.4—it will be the most feature-packed and wide-ranging mid-cycle release ever. More revelations are emerging of what’s coming, with more features crammed in than were expected. Here are the latest details, and exactly when you can get your hands on it—the predicted release date is at the end.
February 26 update below. This post was first published on February 24, 2024.
The EU Changes
If you’re in the European Union, the Digital Markets Act is about to come into force, and to comply with the changes required, Apple will introduce alternative app marketplaces. You’ll no longer be restricted to buying apps from the App Store. Similarly, there will be easier access to different web browsers other than Safari—you can choose other browsers already, but there will be support for other browser engines and when you update, you’ll see a message asking you to choose. There will also be support for other payment methods, the capability to set default NFC and wallet apps in Apple Pay and more.
These changes are pervasive and will change the iPhone forever. Right now, they will only apply in the EU, but you can bet that British and American and other governments will be watching, and deciding if they should insist that this opening up happens elsewhere.
Home Screen Web Apps
Also as a result of the DMA, support for home screen web apps will be removed in the EU, because of issues of security and compatibility with other browser engines.
Quantum Computing For iMessage
The level of security for your messages is about to skyrocket, thanks to something called PQ3, which Apple calls, “a groundbreaking post-quantum cryptographic protocol that advances the state of the art of end-to-end secure messaging.” You can read full details of what it entails, here. Suffice it to say it’s a big deal and will future-proof your messaging against hacking that isn’t even possible yet.
New Emoji
I always love it when Apple introduces new emoji and although there aren’t that many, they’re very welcome. Best of all is the phoenix, its wings tipped with flames. Then there are two smiley faces, one shaking their head, the other nodding. There’s a mushroom which looks almost real, a similarly photo-realistic lime (so sharp, it makes you lick your lips in anticipation, and a chain that’s breaking in two. Suitable for everything from moments of freedom to celebrations of, I don’t know, divorce maybe?
Stolen Device Protection
This is one of the best new features Apple has ever introduced and it’s about to get better. It arrived in iOS 17.3—full details here—and works to limit what can be changed in certain locations, to protect the phone. But if you want it to put these limitations in place everywhere, well, with iOS 17.4, you can.
And There’s More
The Battery menu is upgraded to make it easier to see how its lifespan is doing, and Apple had surprise news for all iPhone 15 owners about this.
There’ll be a new, full-color welcome screen with your profile picture when you upgrade, as if to say, “Seriously, this is an important update!”
Apple Podcasts is adding support for transcripts, which will be great.
Siri will be able to read messages in more languages than one.
There’s an upgrade to CarPlay for certain cars (which has been promised for a long time).
German users can now say “Siri,” instead of “Hey, Siri,” although to be honest, I still always say the hey. It’s more friendly, somehow.
Release Date
So, when can you access this cornucopia of riches? Exactly when? 10 a.m. Pacific time. Oh, hold on, you want the date, too? Very well.
The reason I put the EU changes up top, even though they won’t affect all readers is it’s the DMA that is defining the release date. That law takes effect on Wednesday, March 6. So, it’s going to be then or earlier, for certain.
Given that 10 a.m. Pacific is 7 p.m. Central European Time, I think it can’t be Wednesday, March 6. I think Apple will implement the EU changes at the last possible moment, which means: Tuesday, March 5. Tuesday is Apple’s favorite release day. However, I’m still of the mind that Apple will likely do things in an orderly way and release it on its second-favorite day of the week: Monday.
Things could change, but I believe you should be ready to download this awesome update from 10 a.m. Pacific time on Monday, March 4.
February 25 update. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has just weighed in about the efficacy of iOS 17.4, thanks to the impending iMessage update. In his latest Power On newsletter, he registered the surprise that many felt at the inclusion of the new PQ3 update in the next update, saying, “It turns out that iOS 17.4 has more than meets the eye.” And if Gurman didn’t see it coming, then nobody did. As he points out, this update will be “invisible to users,” because once you’ve updated your iPhone in early March, better protection will be built in to every Message you send and receive, future-proofing our current conversations so that when smarter computers come along to hack them, they’ll stay encrypted.
His main comment was this: “The technology elevates the encryption of conversations in an effort to thwart attacks in the future from quantum computers — machines with enough power and mathematical prowess to overwhelm current defenses. While that danger doesn’t exist today, the upgraded encryption is meant to prevent future breaches and “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks. That’s where hackers steal someone’s information today and then try to crack the data open when future technology allows it.”
It is a major update, for sure. As Bleeping Computer puts it, iMessage, with its user base of almost 1 billion, has end-to-end encryption right now, so even if someone intercepts your messages, they can’t do much with them. However, it points out, “Quantum computing threatens the existing encryption schemas with nearly instant cracking.”
It goes on, “PQ3 integrates for its post-quantum cryptographic needs the Kyber algorithm, which is backed by the global cryptography community… A significant innovation within PQ3 is its periodic post-quantum rekeying mechanism, a first of its kind for large-scale cryptographic messaging protocols.”
March 4 (or March 5) can’t come soon enough. Maybe keep your messaging bland and vanilla until then.
February 26 update. It’s now looking that one of the changes coming to the iPhone for EU users, the removal of support for web apps mentioned above, may be causing some controversy. These web apps, which have been on the iPhone since the earliest days, have been blocked in the EU from iOS 17.4 in order to comply with the DMA.
However, the Financial Times has said that the EU’s competition regulators have “sent questions to developers last week seeking to determine the impact of Apple’s decision to disable so-called ‘progressive web apps’ in the EU, in a move seen as a precursor towards an in-depth probe.”
In other words, there could be an antitrust investigation as a result of Apple’s action. The company said that the reason progressive web apps were being cut off was because, as the FT explains, “ browsers other than its own Safari software would expose users to security and privacy risks that were not permitted under the law. However, the move also cuts off a route to developers seeking to avoid the 30 per cent commission fees that Apple charges for purchases made through its App Store.”
The newspaper approached the European Commission about this, who said, ““We are indeed looking at the compliance packages of all gatekeepers, including Apple. In that context, we’re in particular looking into the issue of progressive web apps, and can confirm sending the requests for information to Apple and to app developers, who can provide useful information for our assessment.”
All of which tells us that the road to satisfying the requirements of the DMA looks like being a long and bumpy one, with both the EU and Apple continuing to make changes or demands.
It’s interesting that something that might seem rather minor, progressive web apps, could become so key. As Apple has said, “We expect this change to affect a small number of users. Still, we regret any impact this change — that was made as part of the work to comply with the DMA — may have on developers of Home Screen web apps and our users.”
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