Apple releases iOS 13.6 with digital car keys, health features and more

Apple has released iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 with new features and improvements. Among the new ones, there’s a digital car key feature that Apple announced during this year’s WWDC, as well as more control over software updates on your device among other things.

iOS 13.6 brings support for digital Car Key that allows an ‌iPhone‌ or Apple Watch to be used instead of a physical key to unlock an NFC-enabled vehicle. The Car Key feature will initially work with a wide range of BMW models, including the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, X5, X6, X7, X5M, X6M and Z4 if manufactured after July 1, 2020. It will require either an iPhone XR, iPhone XS, Apple Watch Series 5, or newer to work.

There’s a new set of toggles for installing software updates on iOS 13.6. You can now decide if you want to just download the firmware over WiFi and update later, or automatically install software updates overnight. It comes really handy if you want to stay on previous software versions for some reasons, especially for jailbreaking.

There’s a new Symptoms section in the Health app that lets users add symptoms of various illnesses by choosing from options such as fever, chills, sore throat or coughing. These symptoms can also be shared with third-party apps.

When you start reading something and then exit out of the article or app, ‌Apple News‌ will now save your position in an ‌Apple News‌ article. The News app will also offer some news stories in an audio format. Full release notes for iOS 13.6 are mentioned below.

iOS 13.6 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

Given iOS 14 is already in developer and public beta testing, iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 could be one of the final updates to iOS 13 and iPadOS 13. The software update is available on iPhone 6s and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and iPod touch 7th generation.