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Apple launched a new beta phase yesterday evening and in the course of this iOS 13.4.5 for developers. Now further evidence of a previously unreleased iPhone has been discovered and a change to the CarKey API has been identified.
The new iPhone update, iOS 13.4.5, focuses mainly on bug fixes and performance improvements. There are hardly any new features – only an extension in Apple Music has been discovered so far. But more seems to have happened in the depths of the code. Our colleagues at 9to5mac report a change to the CarKey API. The feature was already revealed in iOS 13.4. With CarKey iPhone and Apple Watch can take on the role of a car key. The functionality is basically similar to Apple Pay. When the user goes to the car, they can use Face ID to open/close the vehicle and start the engine. Until now, only Face ID devices were stored in the CarKey API. But in iOS 13.4.5, Apple has also added a Touch ID device. The interesting thing is that it must be the iPhone 9. As has already been revealed, CarKey can also be used without biometric authentication - this is where the express transit card technology known from Apple Pay comes into play.
The iPhone 8 is being replaced
This allows use even when the battery is empty or in power saving mode. Although Express Transit mode has been available since the iPhone 6S, the option in conjunction with power saving mode only works on iPhone devices from 2018 or newer - i.e. from the iPhone XR and iPhone XS upwards. But now a Touch ID device is also displayed in the code. Since the iPhone 8 is also out of the question, it must be the upcoming iPhone 9. In addition, a new warning message relating to CarKey has been filtered out. This reads:
“Your device does not support the CarKey.”
This discovery suggests that the feature isn't supported by all iPhone models. An earlier iOS 14 leak also revealed that the upcoming iPhone 9 will be able to scan NFC tags in the background—a feature the iPhone 8 also lacks. This leads to increasing speculation that the new entry-level iPhone won't replace the iPhone SE, but rather the eighth generation of the iPhone series. Thus, the name "iPhone 9" would be entirely justified. According to a recent rumor, Apple is planning the new model to be presented on April 15th – whether the whole thing is actually true in the end remains to be seen, of course. (Photo by tashka2000 / Bigstockphoto)
