How To: Apple Releases iOS 13.6 GM for Developers, Includes CarKey Support, Apple News Audio & Symptom Tracker

Apple just released the GM (golden master) for iOS 13.6 today, Thursday, July 9. The update comes nine days after Apple released the third developer and public betas for 13.6, and the same day as the release of iOS 14 public beta 2.

Apple released this update at 10 a.m. PDT, the company's usual release time for developer betas. You won't find this update in your Settings app if you're a public tester, however — this 13.6 GM is just for registered developers. You'll need to wait for Apple to release the public beta GM for 13.6, which we expect to see at 1 p.m. PDT today, or 10 a.m. PDT tomorrow.

• Update: Apple's iOS 13.6 Public Stable Released on July 15

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

Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices. For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit this website: support.apple.com/kb/HT201222

To update your iPhone to the iOS 13.6 GM, you'll need to be a registered developer. You can use the restore image for your iPhone available in the Developer portal (install with iTunes or Finder) or install the configuration profile, then update over the air. If you already have the profile installed on your iPhone, head over to Settings –> General –> Software Update to start installing the latest beta build, or you can wait until it installs automatically if "Automatic Updates" is enabled.