Apple is making iOS 13.6 available to all users today. The update brings new features like improved support for downloading and installing system updates, new Apple News + Audio content, as well as the exciting CarKey feature.
To update: Now available
We’ve seen a number of new features / changes in recent months with iOS 13. Apple released support for Exposure Notifications (Contact Tracking) in iOS 13.5, while 13.5.1 brought a patch for the vulnerability that was exploited by the unknown jailbreak. .
After that, we got the beta version of iOS 13.5.5 (renamed to iOS 13.6) which brought a look at the Apple News + Audio content. Bring professionally narrated audio stories selected by the Apple News team to your device. We start with the Apple News + Audio feature after discovering it earlier.
Apple detailed the new iOS 13.6 feature in a press release today. In addition to Audio News + audio news, Apple is also rolling out a new curated local news feature, CarPlay support for the News app, and more.
“Apple News shows so much great journalism, and we’re excited to help bring it to life in new ways with Apple News + audio stories and a new daily news show, Apple News Today,” said Lauren Kern, editor-in-chief of News from Apple. “We also greatly value our many local news partners: Our new local news feature highlights their work for readers who live in and are interested in those communities.”
Another highly anticipated feature that comes with iOS 13.6 is the release of CarKey. 9to5Mac I first discovered this in February with iOS 13.4 beta. Apple announced at WWDC that the feature will come first with the new BMW 5 Series. This is a digital key that will work to lock, unlock, and start compatible vehicles. Users will also be able to easily share their digital keys with iMessage and the feature will work for up to five hours after an iPhone runs out of battery.
There is a new option in the section Software update> Automatic updates in iOS 13.6. Instead of a single switch to enable or disable automatic updates that install the latest version of iOS overnight, iOS and iPadOS 13.6 have two switches, one to choose whether you want to automatically download iOS updates and another to install updates overnight.
Another change with this version is the ability to track new symptoms in the Health app, such as headaches, chills, sore throat, and more. Finally, there are some minor tweaks to the privacy notices and links in the News app that can be found by going to Settings> News.
iOS 13.6 will be released shortly for all users, please check the Software Update section of Settings on your device to see if it is available.
Apple has also released tvOS 13.4.8, watchOS 6.2.8, and audioOS 13.4.8 for HomePod to all users today.
Here are the full release notes for iOS 13.6:
iOS 13.6 adds support for car digital keys, features audio stories on Apple News +, and contains a new category of symptoms in the Health app. This version also includes bug fixes and improvements.
Digital car keys
- Unlock, lock and launch your compatible iPhone car
- Securely delete digital keys from a lost device through iCloud
- Easily share digital keys with iMessage
- Driver-specific profiles so you can configure shared keys for full access or restricted driving
- Power reserve allows you to unlock and start your car for up to five hours after iPhone runs out of battery
Apple News
- Audio stories are professionally narrated versions of some of the best Apple News + readings, selected and produced by Apple News editors as part of their subscription to Apple News +
- Apple News Today is a new free audio briefing on the top stories of the day from Apple News publishers, also available in the Podcasts app
- New Audio tab makes it easy to find audio stories from Apple News Today and Apple News +
- CarPlay lets you listen to audio stories from Apple News Today and Apple News + on the go
- Local news in your Today feed provides extensive coverage of San Francisco, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City.
- More stories available from local news providers with an Apple News + subscription
- Your daily Apple Newsletter can now be personalized with stories that reflect your interests.
Health
- New category of symptoms in the Health app, including symptoms recorded from Cycle Tracking and ECG
- Ability to record new symptoms, such as fever, chills, sore throat, or cough, and share them with third-party apps
This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements.
- Add a new setting to choose whether updates are automatically downloaded to your device when on Wi-Fi
- Addresses an issue that may cause apps to stop responding when syncing data from iCloud Drive
- Addresses an issue that could cause data roaming to appear disabled in eSIM even though it remains active
- Addresses an issue that causes some Saskatchewan phone calls to appear as originating in the United States
- Resolves an issue that could interrupt audio when making phone calls over Wi-Fi calls
- Fixes an issue that was preventing some iPhone 6S and iPhone SE devices from registering for Wi-Fi calls
- Addresses an issue that could cause the software keyboard to appear unexpectedly when connected to certain third-party hardware keyboards
- Addresses an issue that could cause Japanese hardware keyboards to be incorrectly mapped to a US keyboard.
- Fixes stability issues when accessing the Control Center when Touch Assist was enabled
- Provides a mechanism for administrators to specify domains to exclude from traffic carried by always-on VPN connections
Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, visit this website: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222
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