Apple today seeded the final betas of its upcoming iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6 updates to developers and public beta testers. The new seeds come a week and a half after the third seeds.
Beta builds are available to developers over the air on the devices with the proper configuration installed. Developers can also download the new betas from the Apple Developer Center.
Public beta builds of the new operating systems can be downloaded via the Apple Beta Software Program website by users signed up to take part in the testing program. If you’re interested in trying out the betas of the upcoming operating systems you can sign up for the program by clicking the same link.
While the feature is not yet live, the betas show indicators of a new Apple News+ Audio feature, which will see Apple offering some news stories as audio. Also available in the beta is a feature designed to save a reader’s place in an article when they begin reading it and then exit out of the article or the app.
Also in the new beta, the Health app now includes a new “Symptoms” section that wasn’t available in previous versions of iOS. The section reportedly allows users to add symptoms of illnesses including body and muscle aches, changes in appetite, coughing, dizziness, fainting, headache, and more.
iOS 13.6, also adds new toggles for customizing Automatic Updates, allowing users to designate whether their iPhone or iPad can automatically download iOS updates when connected to WiFi, and when those updates are installed.
iOS 13.6 also brings support for Car Key. Car Key is designed to allow an iPhone or an Apple Watch to be used in place of a physical key to unlock an NFC-enabled vehicle. Car Key needs to be implemented by car manufacturers to function. BMW is one of Apple’s first partners.
The above new features may or may not make it into the final version of the operating systems, only time and testing will tell.
As usual, MacTrast and Apple both warn users to not install any betas on your daily driver iPhone or iPad, instead only install betas on a device set aside for testing purposes.
As for iPadOS 13.6, Apple’s GM version of iOS 13.6 has the full release notes for the update:
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 batteryApple 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 AppleNews+ 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 interestsHealth
– 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 appsThis 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
As usual, MacTrast and Apple both warn users to not install any betas on your daily driver iPhone or iPad, instead only install betas on a device set aside for testing purposes.
