After rolling out a few iOS 13.6 beta releases to testers, Apple has decided that the update is now ready for primetime.
iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 are now available for download. To grab the update on your device, launch the Settings app and select General > Software Update.
This update brings a few new features and some other improvements. Digital car key support is included, letting you use your iPhone to unlock, lock, and start compatible vehicles using your iPhone as well as share keys digitally over iMessages.
Also included in the update are some Apple News improvements. Audio stories with Apple News+ will get you narrated versions of some of the biggest pieces of news, and CarPlay will let you listen to Apple News Today and Apple News+ on the road. There's also new local news in the Today feed to offer coverage in cities like San Francisco, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City.
Other miscellaneous improvements include a new setting to choose if updates are automatically downloaded over Wi-Fi; a fix for an issue that prevented some iPhone 6S and iPhone SE devices from registering for Wi-Fi Calling; a bug that could cause the software keyboard to appear unexpectedly when connected to third-party hardware keyboards; and an issue that could interrupt audio when making Wi-Fi phone calls.
You can find the full changelog for iOS 13.6 at the bottom of this post.
Apple today also launched an update to watchOS 6.2.8. This update adds support for digital car keys for Apple Watch Series 5 and also enables the ECG app plus irregular heart rhythm notifications in Bahrain, Brazil, and South Africa.
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
