Have an iPhone or iPad? If so, you’ve got an update coming your way.
Apple today released iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 updates. You can get the new update on your iPhone or iPad right now by going into Settings > General > Software Update on your device.
As for what’s included, Apple’s changelog says that iPhone owners are getting digital car key support. If you’ve got a vehicle that also supports this feature, you can use your iPhone to unlock, lock, and start your car, plus you can send digital car keys over iMessage if someone else needs to drive your vehicle.
Apple News is also being beefed up in iOS 13.6. Apple News+ subscribers are getting audio stories, which are professionally narrated versions of some of the best stories in Apple News+, while Apple News Today is a free audio briefing on the day’s top stories.
There’s an assortment of bug fixes and other improvements in the update as well. A new setting will let you choose if updates are downloaded automatically over Wi-Fi, and Apple has squashed a bug that caused some apps to become unresponsive when syncing iCloud Drive data. Also fixed is an issue that caused some iPhone 6S and iPhone SE devices from registering for Wi-Fi Calling.
I’ve got the full changelog available at the bottom of this post that you can read over while waiting for iOS 13.6 to install on your device.
Apple Watch owners have another update to install today. watchOS 6.2.8 is now available with digital car key support for the Apple Watch Series 5.
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 issue 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 AssistiveTouch was enabled
- Provides a mechanism for administrators to specify domains to exclude from traffic carried by always-on VPN connections