Apple releasing iOS 13.6 today with Apple News+ Audio, Car Key feature, more
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, the all-new Apple News+ Audio content, as well as the exciting Car Key feature.
We’ve seen a number of new features/changes over the last few months with iOS 13. Apple launched support for Exposure Notifications (contact tracing) in iOS 13.5 while 13.5.1 brought a patch for the vulnerability that the unc0ver jailbreak took advantage of.
After that, we got the iOS 13.5.5 beta (renamed to iOS 13.6) that brought along a peek at the Apple News+ Audio content. It brings professionally narrated audio stories curated from the Apple News team to your device. We went hands-on with the Apple News+ Audio feature after uncovering it early.
Apple detailed the new iOS 13.6 feature in a Newsroom post today. In addition to the Audio News+ audio stories (available in the US at launch), Apple is also debuting a new curated local news feature, CarPlay support for the News app, and more.
“Apple News showcases 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 Apple News. “We also greatly value our many local news partners — our new local news feature highlights their work for readers who live, and are interested, in those communities.”
Another highly anticipated feature coming with iOS 13.6 is the launch of Car Key. 9to5Mac first discovered this back in February with the iOS 13.4 beta. Apple announced at WWDC that the feature will first arrive with the new BMW 5 Series. This is a digital key that will work for locking, unlocking, and starting supported 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 Software Update > Automatic Updates section in iOS 13.6. Instead of a single toggle to turn automatic updates on or off that installs the most recent iOS release overnight, iOS and iPadOS 13.6 has two toggles, one to choose if you want to automatically download iOS updates and one to install the updates overnight.
Another change with this release is the ability to track new symptoms in the Health app like headaches, chills, sore throat, and more. Finally, there are some minor tweaks to the News app privacy notices and links that can be found by heading to Settings > News.
iOS 13.6 will be rolling out shortly to all users, check the Software Update section of Settings on your device to see if it’s available.
Apple has also released macOS 10.15.6, 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 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 dayâs 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
