Apple Inc. today released operating system updates across its range of products, iOS leading the way with a number of important security fixes and new features.

iOS 13.3 along with iPadOS 13.3, introduced communication limits in its Screen Time monitoring service for the first time. The new controls enable parents to place limits on whom their children can call and also allows parents to manage the contacts that appear on their children’s devices.

Apple News gets an update as well, with a new layout for Apple News+ stories from leading newspapers. Stories can also now be easily liked or disliked with a single tap. The Stocks app has added support for Canada in both English and French, and there’s now the ability to continue reading with links to related stories or more stories from the same publication.

But security is where the biggest changes have been made, as Apple provided fixes to existing problems and added support for newer standards.

For the first time, iOS and iPadOS supports NFC, USB and Lightning FIDO2-compliant security keys in Safari. For users, that means they can use a physical security key to enter a site rather than a password, an important step forward in the age of regular credential theft.

Alongside a number of minor fixes, Apple also addressed a serious bug in iOS 13.2.3 that allows attackers to overwhelm nearby devices via Airdrop.

“Software security is all about protecting confidentiality, integrity and availability,” Jonathan Knudsen, senior security strategist at electronic design automation firm Synopsys Inc., told SiliconANGLE. “In this case, the convenience of the AirDrop feature is hijacked to deny the availability of the entire iPhone.”

Knudsen explained that, given the complexity of iOS and the app ecosystem, it’s inevitable that vulnerabilities such as this one will continue to be found and fixed.

“For manufacturers such as Apple, finding and fixing as many vulnerabilities as possible before release is ideal,” he said. “Some vulnerabilities will always remain undetected, however, so it is important to respond promptly. And for users, the best way to protect yourself is to be diligent about installing updates.”

Outside of iOS and iPadOS, Apple also released a number of other updates: macOS Catalina 10.15.2, tvOS 13.3 and watchOS 6.1.1.

As Ars Technica noted, macOS gets the same updates to News and Stocks that iOS received, along with the restoration of the column browser view in Apple Music and added support for the Apple Remote app for Music and TV apps. The tvOS update includes a slight home screen redesign, while watchOS was primarily focused on bug fixes and optimizations.

Photo: Pixabay