Here are all the big new features & changes in iOS 13.3 & iPadOS 13.3

AppleInsider

The latest updates to iOS and iPadOS are here, and both have a slew of new features and changes users will appreciate. Here is everything we've spotted so far in iOS 13.3 and iPadOS 13.3 for iPhone and iPad.

Apple's most recent iOS 13.3 update

Apple's apps and features get upgrades

Communication Limits is a new addition to Screen Time in iOS 13.3 and iPadOS 13.3

A significant new feature of iOS 13.3 and iPadOS 13.3 is a new addition to Screen Time. Previously, Screen Time allowed parents to limit access to apps based on time of day or a set duration. Now there is an option for Communication Limits. Similar to App Limits, Communication Limits allow parents to decide who their kids can talk to both during Screen Time as well as during Downtime.

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Parents also can manage contact lists for children.

Within Apple News, Apple News+ stories from The Wall Street Journal and other prominent sources had their layouts updated within the app. Below each story, Apple has brought back the like and dislike icons, and back and next buttons were added to move quickly between stories.

New controls on the bottom of Apple News

Those back and next buttons show up not only in the News app but anywhere Apple News stories are displayed -- such as within the Stocks app.

Speaking of the Stocks app, it is now available in English or French when accessed in Canada. Stocks often have relevant articles listed below them, and now when finished reading, related articles from the same source are displayed for continued reading.

iOS and iPadOS improvements

iOS already supported FIDO2 keys, but they didn't work inside of Safari. With iOS 13.3 and iPadOS 13.3 that is no longer the case. Safari now supports FIDO2 security keys over Lightning, USB, or NFC.

Some of the Hot Corner actions in iOS 13.3

Mouse support was a widely requested feature that Apple delivered with the initial builds of iOS 13 and iPadOS, but the iPhone-maker hasn't slowed down on making it better. This update brings new gestures, new options for dwell, but most exciting -- support for Hot Corners.

Hot Corners is a feature found on the Mac that allowed to run specific actions when the user moves the mouse into one of the four corners. Now that will work with iOS and iPadOS.

Running a connected mouse into any of the assigned corners can perform several system functions -- such as opening the app switcher, going to the home screen, locking the device, muting, and much more. There are a few scroll gestures as well as dwell controls too. Perhaps most useful though is support for all Siri Shortcuts. So activating a hot corner could run a smart home automation task, pull up your favorite list of YouTube videos, create a gif, and much more.

Minor changes

Those who aren't fans of Memoji or Animoji have a toggle within keyboard settings to disable them from showing on the emoji keyboard.

View Album becomes Show Album and has a new Apple Music glyph

There are other minor changes in the updates as well. Amongst others, in Photos, when a trimmed video can replace the original clip or be saved as a new clip, the Watch icon on the home screen has a grey digital crown rather than black, and AirPods Pro have a new icon within the Find My app.

In Music, the View Album option now reads "Show Album" and had the icon swapped from a right-facing arrow to an Apple Music glyph.

Spot anything else?

iOS 13.3 and iPadOS 13.3 are both available to download now.

As usual, our list is non-exhaustive, and there are certainly piles of bug eradications, security fixes, and performance improvements throughout as well. If you spot any other changes in the most recent updates, let me know on Twitter at @Andrew_OSU.

Appleish

Still can't nest Apple Created playlists in Music to folders. Yes, I will never shut up about that.

sjworld

Appleish said:

Still can't nest Apple Created playlists in Music to folders. Yes, I will never shut up about that.

I am the type of guy that performs clean installs of every major upgrade, and I can tell you that doing so has not stopped my email app from being horrible in iOS 13.

djames4242

sjworld said:

I am the type of guy that performs clean installs of every major upgrade, and I can tell you that doing so has not stopped my email app from being horrible in iOS 13.

Clean install or not, Mail is awful. Searches rarely work, and if I try reading an email for more than 2.7 seconds, suddenly every email I’ve got opens alongside my already open email.

This behavior makes Mail completely and utterly unusable. I switched to Edison last year and haven’t looked back: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/email-edison-mail/id922793622

heavypound

For those of us that don’t subscribe to Apple News+, is there a way to keep the News app from offering these articles to you in the Today feed? The other ads are easy to spot as ads and skip over, but these look exactly the same (other than the small/faint News+ tag) and it gets tiresome accidentally clicking on them all the time.

waverboy

So have the bugs been fixed this time?  Or should I stay on iOS 12.3.1?

agilealtitude

djames4242 said:

sjworld said:

I am the type of guy that performs clean installs of every major upgrade, and I can tell you that doing so has not stopped my email app from being horrible in iOS 13.

Clean install or not, Mail is awful. Searches rarely work, and if I try reading an email for more than 2.7 seconds, suddenly every email I’ve got opens alongside my already open email.

This behavior makes Mail completely and utterly unusable. I switched to Edison last year and haven’t looked back: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/email-edison-mail/id922793622

Agreed. Love Apple, but Mail feels like a 1998 implementation. Not being able to use labels instead of folders is ridiculous in this day. 

kiehtan

Updated HomePod to 13.3 as well. It still can’t find my playlists. 

melgross

I haven’t trusted the Apple stock app from the beginning. Every time there’s been an update to that, it wipes out all of my stocks, and replaces them with the default ones. I just use the Yahoo version instead which has never had this problem.

iBooks has had this problem with PDFs. I no longer take a chance, and back them all up in Box.

agilealtitude

Another iOS bug fix update and my Siri voice transcriptions are still being duplicated. Has been occurring since the general release of iOS 13  

longpath

Reminders still no longer sync between Apple Watch & my iPhone... Had really really hoped this update would fix this. From what I can tell, all of us that delayed the migration of Reminders on first launch have wonky results and those of you that migrated immediately on first launch are fine. Deleting all my lists and manually recreating them and all their content doesn’t resolve the issue. If you haven’t upgraded to 13.x, recommend you stay on 12.

MacPro

melgross said:

I haven’t trusted the Apple stock app from the beginning. Every time there’s been an update to that, it wipes out all of my stocks, and replaces them with the default ones. I just use the Yahoo version instead which has never had this problem.

iBooks has had this problem with PDFs. I no longer take a chance, and back them all up in Box.

Weird I have never seen that and use it many times a day and update plenty.  I am sure you are but ... are you sure you are assigning your stock pics to 'the Watch List' after you find them?  If you don't they are temporary.

MacPro

I must try playlists ... I was so happy when the update fixed Siri on HomePods and was again working with iTunes Match and finding all my artists.  It was previously trying to connect to Apple Music to play many of them.  Not useful when I don't subscribe to Apple Music.   I forgot to check playlists too.

melgross

MacPro said:

melgross said:

I haven’t trusted the Apple stock app from the beginning. Every time there’s been an update to that, it wipes out all of my stocks, and replaces them with the default ones. I just use the Yahoo version instead which has never had this problem.

iBooks has had this problem with PDFs. I no longer take a chance, and back them all up in Box.

Weird I have never seen that and use it many times a day and update plenty.  I am sure you are but ... are you sure you are assigning your stock pics to 'the Watch List' after you find them?  If you don't they are temporary.

Yes

ivanh

I still unable to pair a Magic Mouse 2 to an iPad nor iPhone 11. I can’t see it on Settings / BlueTooth, nor Settings / Accessibility / Touch / AssistiveTouch “On” / Devices / BlueTooth Devices...

Any help?

aplnub

U2F devices supported in this update?

dewme

The hand gestures in the pictures are a hoot! The first one pointing an “air pistol” at the iPhone looks rather menacing - like “tell me all about your new features iPhone, or you’ll be sleeping with the fishes ... at least once you’ve been sleeping longer than your IP68 rating guarantees.” 

Pity that poor phone. 

Better yet, the picture with the pointing finger that should be captioned “This guy is a Dick ... Cheney.” 

DRB

Appleish said:

Still can't nest Apple Created playlists in Music to folders. Yes, I will never shut up about that.

What's the benefit of being able to do that? Just curious.

sjworld

waverboy said:

So have the bugs been fixed this time?  Or should I stay on iOS 12.3.1?

Don’t do it. iOS 13 still has far too many bugs.

tjveil

Have they yet given us a way to hide that dreaded “quick contact” row at the top of the share sheet? Not only is it clutter, but for a company that says it prides itself on your privacy, it displays your contacts to anyone standing nearby. 

kevin kee

I tried many Mail alternative apps, but for some reason I keep coming back to the default Mail app. It has all that I need and it works fine for me, haven't had any issues, so why bother changing?