Today Apple has released what is most likely the last version of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 before iOS 14 is released later this year, with iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 Apple has added a new Apple News+ Audio service, improvements to the way automatic updates are handled as well as a digital car key for the iPhone. The digital car key feature was announced last month at WWDC with iOS 14 but Apple is adding support already with iOS 13.6.

Car Key is only going to work with BMW cars at the moment, so long as they are manufactured after the 1st July 2020. Most models are supported, including the 1 Series, 2 Series, 3 Series, 4 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series, 8 Series, X5, X6, X7, X5M, X6M and Z4. Notable models such as the 7 Series and X1, X2 and X3 as well as the i3 are missing. In terms of what phone you need, Car Key will work with iPhone XR, iPhone XS and later (iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro) and the Apple Watch Series 5.

Apple News+ Audio Stories are here, this was present in the iOS 13.5.5 beta back in early June and it is essentially narrated news stories and is part of the Apple News+ subscription, it’ll only be available in the US at this time.

Release Notes

iOS 13.6 adds support for digital car keys, introduces audio stories in ‌Apple News‌+, and contains a new symptoms category in the Health app. This release also includes bug fixes and improvements.

Digital car keys
– Unlock, lock, and start your compatible car with your ‌iPhone‌
– Securely remove digital keys from a lost device via iCloud
– Share digital keys easily with iMessage
– Driver-specific profiles so you can configure shared keys for full-access or restricted driving
– Power reserve lets you 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 reads from ‌Apple News‌+, selected and produced by the ‌Apple News‌ editors as part of your ‌Apple News‌+ subscription
– ‌Apple News‌ Today is a new, free audio briefing on the day’s top stories from the ‌Apple News‌ editors, also available in the Podcasts app
– A new Audio tab makes it easy to find ‌Apple News‌ Today and Apple

News+ audio stories
– CarPlay allows you to listen to ‌Apple News‌ Today and ‌Apple News‌+ audio stories while on the road
– 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 a subscription to ‌Apple News‌+
– Your daily newsletter from ‌Apple News‌ can now be personalized with stories that reflect your interests

Health
– New category for symptoms in the Health app, including symptoms logged from Cycle Tracking and ECG
– Ability to log new symptoms, like fever, chills, sore throat or coughing, and share them with third-party apps

This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements.
– Adds a new setting to choose if updates automatically download to your device when on Wi-Fi
– Addresses an issue that could cause apps to become unresponsive when syncing data from iCloud Drive
– Fixes an issue that could cause data roaming to appear to be disabled on eSIM even though it remained active
– Fixes an issue thats causes some phone calls from Saskatchewan to appear as originating from the United States
– Addresses an issue that could interrupt audio when making phone calls over Wi-Fi Calling
– Fixes an issues that prevented some ‌iPhone‌ 6S and iPhone SE devices from registering for Wi-Fi Calling
– Resolves an issue that could cause the software keyboard to appear unexpectedly when connected to certain third-party hardware keyboards
– Fixes an issue that could cause Japanese hardware keyboards to be incorrectly mapped as a U.S. keyboard
– Addresses stability issues when accessing Control Center when Assistive Touch was enabled
– Provides a mechanism for administrators to specify domains to exclude from traffic carried by always-on VPN connections

How do I update?

Updating can be done by going to Settings > General > Software Update or by using iTunes / the Finder to update via your Mac or Windows PC.

Tags: