Monday, July 20, 2020

iOS 13.6

Juli Clover:

iOS 13.6 also brings support for Car Key, a feature available in both iOS 13 and iOS 14. Car Key is designed to allow an iPhone or an Apple Watch to be used in lieu of a physical key to unlock an NFC-enabled vehicle.

[…]

In the Health app, there’s a new “Symptoms” section that lets users add symptoms of various illnesses, choosing from options such as body and muscle aches, appetite changes, coughing, dizziness, headache, nausea, and more.

Juli Clover:

In earlier versions of iOS, new software downloads automatically in the background and then can be installed through an Automatic Updates feature. In iOS 13.6, there are new toggles for customizing Automatic Updates.

[…]

This new toggle will be a welcome change for those who do not want iOS updates to download automatically without permission, as this can eat up valuable storage space. Note that this option is enabled by default, so if you want to turn off automatic downloads, you’ll need to toggle it off.

I welcome the first setting because I don’t like having my phone unexpectedly fill up because of an auto-download. Unfortunately, I ran into the same problem with the second setting as Jeff Johnson:

iOS 13.6 silently opted me into automatic iOS updates. I was opted out before I installed (manually).

Also, the app-specific controls to disable cellular data seem to be broken yet again.

Previously:

6 Comments RSS · Twitter

Ah yes, Car Key... carrying on the long tradition of stupid crap that Apple wastes time on that nobody anywhere actually wants. See: Thunderbolt 1 & 2, Home Pod, Car Play, Touch Bar, $700 Mac Pro wheels...

I'm confused... a setting to disable auto-update has been there for years, and so my iOS devices have never auto-updated. How is this new?

@Doodpants What’s new is that you can prevent it from downloading updates vs. downloading but not installing.

I'm not in the market for a BMW, but I'm pretty jazzed about the idea of Car Key trickling down to other car makers. Depending on the situation I'd love to ditch my keys and get back into my car with just my Apple Watch.

BTW, is it just me or does it seem like Apple news and analysis is really boring these days? WWDC seemed above-average exciting, but there's been hardly anyone saying anything about iOS 14 or Big Sur or ARM Macs or anything that isn't just a rehash of what can be found on Apple's own website. Is everybody just bored with it? Even with the NDA around the ARM dev Macs I would have expected something to leak out by now. Hardly anyone blogs anymore and all the Mac sites are just repeating and rewriting the same thing in 10 different ways and Daring Fireball has turned into a COVID / Trump news feed.

> stupid crap that Apple wastes time on

Using your phone as your car key is actually incredibly convenient, and a pretty nice new feature, unlike the touch bar.

>Is everybody just bored with it?

I think it's a combination of multiple things. iOS is pretty mature now; it's about at the age where classic Mac OS also started to stagnate. OS X is even older. Blogging in general isn't really a thing anymore, much of the action has moved to other outlets like YouTube.

I'm also getting the impression that a lot of the people who create excitement around a platform have left the Apple ecosystem. It isn't like there are amazing new Mac apps every day anymore, for example. It's not like the times when you would open VersionTracker every day and find something new and interesting on it.

Apple has now become the thing detractors have always claimed it was: a consumer brand that sells appliances to people who don't really care about technology. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a pretty boring thing.

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