iOS 26.4 Has Nine Reported Bugs and Every Fix That Actually Works

iOS 26.4 landed on March 24, 2026, with Playlist Playground, eight new emoji, and over thirty-five security patches. The update went live in the afternoon. Two days later, reports started flooding forums: Wi-Fi dropping mid-call, the App Store burying its update button behind an extra tap, and keyboards that still swallow characters despite Apple’s promised fix. The update is worth installing for the security patches alone, but you should know exactly what might break before you tap that Install button.

Apple’s release notes paint a clean picture: improved keyboard accuracy, new CarPlay voice apps, a Shazam-powered offline music recognition tool, and the usual “bug fixes and improvements” language. What the notes do not mention is the growing list of issues that users are reporting across Reddit, the MacRumors forums, and Apple’s own community boards. The most consistent complaints since launch day paint a clear picture, and every one of them has a workaround worth trying. If you already updated to iOS 26.4, our guide on what the update includes covers the feature side. This article covers the rough edges.

The Keyboard Fix That Split the Room

Apple specifically called out “improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly” in the iOS 26.4 release notes, which tells you how bad the problem was. In iOS 26.3, characters would register as tapped on the keyboard but never appear in the text field. That cascaded into broken autocorrect suggestions and phantom words that made no sense.

The fix works for most people. Fewer dropped characters in Messages and Notes, and autocorrect has stopped suggesting words nobody intended. But a vocal minority on the MacRumors forums says the keyboard “feels the same” or even worse, particularly when Slide to Type is enabled. If you are in that camp, try disabling Slide to Type temporarily under Settings, then General, then Keyboard. Several users report that toggling it off and back on after a reboot resets whatever internal state was causing the regression. Keep in mind that this is not an official Apple recommendation, just a pattern that appears across multiple reports.

Wi-Fi Drops and Bluetooth Stutters

This is the one that hits hardest. Multiple users report that their iPhone drops Wi-Fi after updating to iOS 26.4, sometimes reconnecting on its own and sometimes requiring a manual toggle of the Wi-Fi switch in Settings. The pattern is inconsistent: some users report that public Wi-Fi and personal hotspots work fine while their home network drops repeatedly. Bluetooth audio interruptions are showing up alongside these reports, particularly with third-party speakers and car audio systems.

Before blaming the update entirely, consider that Apple’s post-update indexing process puts extra load on the radios for the first 24 to 48 hours. Give it two full days before troubleshooting. After that window, try these steps in order: open Settings, then Wi-Fi, tap the info button next to your network, and select Forget This Network, then reconnect. If that does not help, go to Settings, then General, then Transfer or Reset iPhone, then Reset Network Settings. This wipes saved Wi-Fi passwords and Bluetooth pairings, so have your passwords ready. For Bluetooth specifically, unpair and re-pair the affected device rather than just toggling Bluetooth off and on. If you are also dealing with settings that need attention after the update, our iOS 26.4 settings guide walks through the changes worth making right away.

Battery Drain and the First 48 Hours

Every major iOS update triggers a wave of battery drain complaints. iOS 26.4 is no exception. Here is what is actually happening: the update forces Spotlight to re-index your entire photo library, message history, and app data. That process hammers the CPU and radios simultaneously, which generates heat and drains the battery faster than normal. Apple has acknowledged in its support documents that this behavior is expected and temporary.

The real question is whether the drain persists beyond those first two days. iPhone 17 Pro Max owners in particular are reporting sustained heat and lag that extends past the 48-hour window. If battery usage still looks abnormal after two full days on iOS 26.4, check Settings, then Battery, and look at which apps are consuming the most background time. Force-quit anything that looks excessive, then monitor for another 24 hours. A full restart often resolves lingering background process issues that survive the indexing period: hold the side button and volume button, slide to power off, wait thirty seconds, power back on.

Home Screen Stuttering and the Icon Redraw Bug

This one is visible from the first swipe. Flicking quickly between Home Screen pages produces a stutter that was not present in iOS 26.3. Icons occasionally go blank for a split second before redrawing, as if the system is re-rendering them on the fly instead of pulling from cache. On iPhone 15 Pro, it is subtle. Users with iPhone 13 models report it is noticeably worse, and editing wallpaper on those older devices can trigger heavy lag or outright freezes.

No workaround exists beyond waiting for Apple to patch it. Reducing Motion under Settings, then Accessibility, then Motion can mask the visual stutter slightly, but it does not fix the underlying rendering issue. If the Home Screen freezes while editing wallpaper, force-restart the iPhone by pressing and quickly releasing the volume up button, pressing and quickly releasing the volume down button, then holding the side button until the Apple logo appears.

The App Store Update Tap That Disappeared

This one is a design decision, not a bug. But it is generating real frustration. iOS 26.4 merged apps and purchase history in the App Store, and the practical result is that reaching app updates now requires two taps instead of one. The Updates section used to sit at the bottom of the profile page. Now it hides behind an additional menu.

Thankfully, there is a faster path. Long-press the App Store icon on the Home Screen and select Updates from the contextual menu. For a permanent one-tap solution, create a Shortcuts automation that opens the URL itms-apps://apps.apple.com/updates and add it to the Home Screen. That gets you back to a single tap. I find it a thoughtful compromise for a problem Apple created, though it is absurd that Apple’s own app needs a workaround to reach its own feature.

VoiceOver Bugs Worth Reporting

iOS 26.4 introduced a VoiceOver regression that affects how notifications are announced. The Notification Center no longer reads the source of incoming notifications, so the notification text plays without any indication of which app sent it. When swiping to individual notifications, VoiceOver reads the correct information roughly 88 percent of the time, which means the remaining 12 percent is silent or incomplete. During app updates, VoiceOver reads two progress bar percentages simultaneously and continues announcing “Installing” with a percentage even after the app finishes updating.

On the positive side, the VoiceOver toolbar in Mail compose that went missing in iOS 26.3 is back. While I appreciate the Mail fix, the notification regression is a step backward. If you rely on VoiceOver, updating to iOS 26.4 is still the right call for the Mail fix alone, but file a bug report through the Feedback app for the notification issue. Apple tracks VoiceOver reports carefully, and the more reports they receive, the faster the fix arrives.

Thirty-Five Security Patches You Cannot Skip

Even with every bug listed above, install iOS 26.4. Apple patched over thirty-five security vulnerabilities in this release, and several are serious. CVE-2026-28895 fixed a flaw in Stolen Device Protection that allowed bypassing biometric app locks using only the device passcode, which defeats the entire purpose of the feature. CVE-2026-28864 addressed a Keychain vulnerability where a local attacker could access stored passwords and tokens. Two kernel-level flaws could cause unexpected system shutdowns or allow privilege escalation through memory corruption.

None of these are being actively exploited yet. That word matters. The Stolen Device Protection bypass and the Keychain access flaw are exactly the kind of vulnerabilities that researchers publish proof-of-concept exploits for within weeks of disclosure. Apple’s security documentation has the full list of patched vulnerabilities. Do not wait on this update.

Quick-Action Checklist After Installing iOS 26.4

• Check battery usage in Settings after 48 hours and force-quit any abnormal background apps.
• Forget and reconnect to Wi-Fi networks if connections drop after the indexing window passes.
• Toggle Slide to Type off and on if the keyboard still drops characters.
• Long-press the App Store icon for direct access to Updates.
• File VoiceOver bug reports through the Feedback app if notification announcements are incomplete.
• Verify Stolen Device Protection is enabled under Settings, then Face ID and Passcode, then Stolen Device Protection.