Apple releases iOS 13.3.1 and macOS Catalina 10.15.3
Today, Apple released updates for its operating systems for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod, and Apple TV devices. iOS 13.3.1 is the most substantial of the updates, but they are all incremental updates that fix bugs or address user complaints or privacy concerns.
iOS 13.3.1 adds a new feature to toggle on or off the U1 ultra-wide band chip contained in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro. This is in response to recent consumer concerns about the fact that international regulations affecting ultra-wide band devices that required the phones to check their location periodically even if users had disabled location services for all of their apps individually. Security experts observed that Apple did not seem to be collecting any user data, but the company promised under this scrutiny to offer a toggle in a future software update (this one, now) that would allow users to bypass the problem by disabling the U1 chip altogether. The U1 is currently used for the AirDrop file-sharing feature, but it may find other applications in future versions of iOS.
Additional changes in iOS 13.3.1 and iPadOS 13.3.1 include a fix for a problem whereby the recently added Communication Limits feature could be circumvented, as well as a number of bug fixes and improvements for Mail.
