Apple has sent out the first iOS 16.4 beta to testers. It contains some interesting updates including some new emoji support, keyboard changes for certain languages and web app notifications. This web app change will now allow website apps such as Safari and Google Chrome to send you push notifications as they do across macOS and Windows.
The new emoji support comes from Unicode 15.0 which was introduced in September. The new icons include new characters to use on iOS 16.4 including a shaking face emoji, a pushing hand one, which might signal “stop right there” and a Khanda emblem. The push hand emoji comes in various skin shades as most other hand icons do.
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The Ukrainian and South Korean keyboards are now getting autocorrect support and predictive text. Apple is also adding transliteration layouts for some South Asian languages. This means users can type words using roman letters without English autocorrect interfering with their typing.
While this isn’t the most interesting beta for iOS 16, it might be useful to those who need it. The Web Kit notification support is quite a big addition to the software. It will allow websites to push notifications to you when they update. However, I worry that this may trigger unwanted pop-ups with websites spamming users for notification requests on every visit (as they do on desktops).
iOS 16.4 beta 1 is now live for iPhone users and will likely release publically in the next few weeks. These beta tests usually run for a month or so before going public. It all depends on how many bugs and issues the software has.
You can read the full changelog of features on the Apple beta site here. It includes a bit more not-so-useful information as mentioned above.
