[NewsPoster]

On Wednesday, Apple released significant updates to both its OS X and iOS platforms with the first major update for each, now at iOS 9.1 and OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan. The two releases focus mostly on squashing bugs large and small found in the first release of El Capitan and iOS 9, ranging from VoiceOver reliability issues to a fix to improve El Capitan's reliability with Microsoft Office 2016, along with notable bugs in Mail. In addition, iTunes has been bumped to v12.3.1, support for Live Photos has been updated, and over 150 new emoji characters have been added.

The updates are available through over-the-air software updates, either through iOS 9's Settings application or OS X's use of the Mac App Store. The company has previously issued two minor updates to iOS 9 to fix problems, but this is the first ".1" patch release. Users are required to already be running the respective major OS versions in order to have the updates available to them; the Mac App Store listing for El Capitan has already been updated to show 10.11.1 as the new default.

Both betas were publicly tested with pre-registered volunteers for a little over a month before release, alongside developer testing. The latest releases are unusual in that most of the public releases came simultaneously to the developer ones, marking a change from recent practices of delaying or skipping some public releases while developer testing continued.

The iOS 9.1 update is almost entirely about tweaks and fixes apart from support for Unicode 7 and 8, which adds some new emoji (including the long-awaited "middle finger" icon). It also brings a refinement to Live Photos in that the iPhone will now automatically sense when the camera is being raised or lowered, and thus won't pre-record that action. The update also includes support for forthcoming devices like the iPad Pro and new Apple TV.

OS X 10.11.1 offers more notable fixes, including issues that prevented some Audio Unit plug-ins from working, and fixing serious bugs seen by some users in Mail, where outgoing information or even full mailboxes and their messages could be missing. Office 2016 users will be looking to see if Apple's contribution will fix the well-publicized problems with Outlook at last, and Apple has also improved the reliability of the El Capitan upgrade installer as well. The iTunes software has received a "stability and performance" bump to 12.3.1, and the update also gains the emoji characters that come with the Unicode support updating.

[Inkling]

Oh great, we already have enough problems in our society with a lack of civility. Now Apple is adding to them by giving users that middle-finger emoji. What next, a lynching rope or a knife dripping blood? How about ring tones with the N-word and the F-word? Not constructive. Not constructive at all.

[DiabloConQueso]

That's one hell of a slippery slope you're sliding down, there.

[Flying Meat]

I don't use emojis. Ever.

[aroxnicadi]

How many updates were there. I saw the iTunes update. Not a Problem but then it installs EC Update 10.11.1 and immediately after that it says it has an another update EC 10.11.1. Was it patching the first EC that we downloaded a few weeks ago so it could then download a full fledged to patch the patched version that was just installed.

Talking about the middle finger emoji to the techs that just did the two installs.

[rodvera]

I got a Firmware update along with EC Update 10.11.1

[Flying Meat]

Editors: The Top Stories section has the Apple software release described as 10.10.11

[TheGreatButcher]

Recommend backing up before update. My iPhone 6S was effectively bricked as it would get stuck in the setup screen and a restore was my only recourse. Why we need to go through setup again for 9.1 is beyond me.

[Charles Martin]

Flying: thanks.

[Charles Martin]

aroxnicadi: we are looking into that -- I also had two installs (the first one didn't appear to complete properly, but did upgrade me). We're sort of pursuing a theory that Apple quickly replaced the first installer with a better one, and those who got the "bad" installer must then download the full "combo" installer rather than the "delta" one. This theory could be wrong, we're collecting notes on it from users.

[Steve Wilkinson]

Why does it need to run us through setup each time we install a full or point release? I just don't get that. And, I've noticed it typically also resets some of the settings (like which apps have backups to iCloud turned off, etc.). (Still running the 9.1 upgrade though, so we'll see about this time.)

And, I also needed to change my Apple ID e-mail.... what a friggin' mess! It's like the old e-mail is hard-coded all over the place into apps, various settings, and the OS. So, after updating to 10.11.1, of course it asked me for the password to the old address and I had to skip. So, now I'm not connected to various services... nice. I suppose I'll have similar issues with the iPad.

re: mail - Wow, those sound like even bigger issues than the standard fact of it not being reliable about collecting messages or marking stuff read, etc. It will be interesting to see if ONE OF THESE YEARS, Apple eventually gets it working again.

[Charles Martin]

Steve: don't hold me to this, but I think the setup routine happens whenever fundamental system components get updated, whereas if none of that needs fixing then the upgrade is quicker. To put this another way, the iOS 9.1 update, which really only introduced support for forthcoming products and emoji, took less than a minute to download and maybe three minutes to install.

[Steve Wilkinson]

Oddly, my iOS update asked me to login with my Apple ID (which it displayed with the old email address), but took the password and continued (unlike OS X, which wouldn't let me login). It's still a mixed bag of which address it displays in different places, but it's working, it seems. It did take a LOT longer than 3 minutes to install on mine.

Apparently I'm still on the 10.11 beta 6 and there is no update for 10.11.1 available.