Apple publicly release iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 to give your phone and tablet new features and bug fixes ahead of iOS 14 & iPadOS 14 due later this year.

Car Key

Announced publicly on stage at WWDC, Car Key becomes available with iOS 13.6.

Car Key allows certain devices to unlock and start certain vehicles. Simply tap your iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock your car, then place your phone down in the phone holder to start the car. This will also allow you to easily and securely share your keys with a friend or family member, granting full or restricted access.

This feature is only available on some cars, starting with BMW 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, X5, X6, X7, X5M, X6M and Z4 manufactured after 1st July 2020. Car Key will be a very slow roll-out. More car makes will be supported over the next few years. Supported devices include the iPhone XR, XS, Apple Watch Series 5 or newer running iOS 13.6.

  • Car Key
  • Car Key
  • Car Key
News+

13.6 publicly launches Apple News+ audio stories in the US. Apple hinted at this feature last month in beta versions of 13.6, but no content was available.

News+ audio stories are audio versions of top stories produced by Apple. They are planning on releasing around 20 per week, as well as one Apple News Today podcast per weekday of all the day’s highlights. Apple News Today is available now to all non-New+ subscribers on the Podcasts app. Audio content is also available in the car using CarPlay.

Apple News Today

Curated local news collections is rolling out to San Francisco, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City.

All news stories will remember where you were when reading in case you leave the article or app.

More

The Health app features a new Symptoms section. Log symptoms such as fever, chills, sore throat, coughing and more

Customisable updates lets you choose when to automatically download and install updates. This allows users to stay up-to-date without having to manually activate anything, or stay on older software for older phones.

Many other minor features and bug fixes have rolled out with 13.6. See the full notes from Apple here.

Apple also release iOS 12.4.8 bringing minor updates to older devices unable to run iOS 13, such as iPhone 6. It’s great to see Apple supporting six year old devices today with essential security patches.

Update to iOS 13.6 today. Head to Setting – General – Software Update.

See what’s coming later this year with iOS 14.

iOS 14