Apple Seeds First iOS 17.4 Public Beta With EU App Ecosystem Changes, Re-Releases Dev Beta

Tuesday January 30, 2024 10:12 am PST by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 updates to public beta testers, allowing non-developers to test the software ahead of its release. The public iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 betas come a week after Apple released the betas for developers. Apple has also re-released the first beta of iOS 17.4 for developers with a new 21E5184k build number, which is the same build number used for the public beta.

iOS 17
Public beta testers can get the beta by opening up the Settings app, going to the Software Update section, tapping on the "Beta Updates" option, and toggling on the iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 Public Beta. Signing up on Apple's beta testing website is required.

The iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 betas introduce a whole slew of changes for users in the European Union, allowing for alternative app stores and alternative payment methods.

There are new options for choosing a default browser, NFC has been opened up to banks and other financial institutions, and browsers aren't mandated to use WebKit.

Along with these changes, the update also brings new emoji characters, Podcast transcripts, tweaks to Safari, hints of what we can expect from the next-generation CarPlay, and more.

Full details on what's included in iOS 17.4 beta 1 can be found in our features guide.

Related Forums: iOS 17, iPadOS 17

Popular Stories

Here's What Apple's Apps Look Like on the iPhone Duo

Tuesday October 20, 2026 11:12 am PDT by Juli Clover

With just three days to go until the iPhone Duo is released, Apple is getting ready for the launch. Behind the scenes, the App Store now has screenshots of Apple's built-in apps running on the Duo. We've seen some apps in marketing materials, but images of the ones we haven't seen give us an idea of what it will be like using the iPhone Duo day to day. Many apps are shown in landscape...

• 116 comments

Apple Pulls Keynote, Pages and Numbers From App Store [Update: Back]

Thursday October 22, 2026 11:01 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple has temporarily removed Keynote, Pages, and Numbers from the App Store, just after releasing an update that added iPhone Duo support and a new Intelligent Assistant. It is not clear if the apps were removed intentionally, or if it is a bug. Apple has not said when the apps will be reinstated, but if it was in error, they should return soon. Update: The Mac versions are back without...

• 64 comments

RIP, MacBook Ultra

Monday October 19, 2026 9:37 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple today sent out invites for an experience in Los Angeles on Wednesday, October 28, and the "Pro and tell" tagline on the invitation likely means that the rumored MacBook models with touch-enabled OLED displays will stick with MacBook Pro branding instead of the once-rumored "MacBook Ultra" name. The long-rumored "iPhone Ultra" ended up being named iPhone Duo, so speculation that Apple...

• 165 comments

Top Rated Comments

cupcakes2000

36 months ago

Some folk would rather their own democratically elected government had a say on the matter, rather than have an unelected organisation make 27 countries minds up for them.

The “unelected organisation” are voted for proportionally by each member countries citizens, during the elections. Each country has a specific amount of mp’s.
Then, when or if the EU want to make a law, each elected member state government decides to either agree or veto the vote. If even one country vetos the vote, the law as it stands, wouldn’t pass.

Just thought I would mention it as you clearly don’t know how it works, or you can google it to find out. Either way, don’t just make stuff up and post it as fact. 👍

Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Unami

36 months ago

Some folk would rather their own democratically elected government had a say on the matter, rather than have an unelected organisation make 27 countries minds up for them.

Oh, it's not unelected, there are European parliament elections on June 6th-9th. In fact, the EU workings are more democratical than most countries.

Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jdavid_rp

36 months ago

Does that mean the whole world gets bloaty software on their phones to accommodate EU code?

Well, in EU we already had “bloated” software with all the code, images and whatever for the Apple Card, the ID on wallet feature, Apple Pay Cash and surely other features we haven’t seen yet

Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)

bsolar

36 months ago

Except that's not true. The EU Council (which makes the rules including the DMA) is not elected by the citizens. The EU parliament is. And they (the EP) only get to vote on regulations created by the EC.

So the EU is only indirectly a "democracy". As a citizen you don't have any way to get the EU to make or change any legislation.

First of all, the EU Council is composed by the heads of state of the State Members, which are democratically elected as the State Members are democratic countries themselves. This means the EU Council is a democratic representation of the State Members' citizens.

Second, representative democracy is the only form of democracy which exists in practice, with various degrees of semi-direct power given to citizens, but typically it's the representatives that either propose or vote legislation, not the citizens themselves.

As with basically any representative democracy, a citizen that wants something done needs to elect the right representatives. In the case of the EU Council by electing their own head of state, in the case of the European Parliament by electing their parliament representatives.

Details aside, at a fundamental level how is this different from any other democratic country exactly?

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)

mystery hill

36 months ago

Settings > General > About: IDENTIFIABLE_REGION now displays the region that the device ‘belongs’ to.

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)