Apple has today started rolling out the next major update to its latest mobile operating system iOS 9 which was released last month. Version 9.1 of Apple’s mobile OS will be available to all current iOS 9 users via an over-the-air update.
There are many stability, performance and security issues that the Cupertino has addressed in this update but the main highlights are a new set of emoji characters and an update to the Harry Potter-like moving pictures called Live Photos. The company has also started rolling out updates to its watchOS for Apple Watches, and for OS X El Capitan for desktops and PCs.
While the regular bug fixes, security fixes and improvements along with performance enhancements are things to be expected from an update, iOS 9.1 brings a few new features to the table. Apple now supports the new standards set by Unicode Consortium which means new emoji characters!
And yeah, the new emoji feature the infamous middle finger too.
The update also comes in with a number of other in-demand characters and images, such as new foods like a taco, hot dog, cheese, pepper, popcorn, champagne bottle, and burrito, for example; animals like a turkey, crab, squirrel and unicorn; more religious symbols like prayer beads and churches; more faces like an upside-down smiley, one with “$” symbols for eyes, a robot face, and others; a few extra sports emojis, and a lot more. Here’s a glimpse of a few of them.
The new update also brings along a revamped version of Live Photos which is now smarter. Apple says that now the iPhone will sense when it’s being raised on lowered so it won’t record those movements. This was one of the problems with Live Photos gen 1– people kept accidentally getting short videos of them raising their phone to take a snapshot.
iOS 9.1 also introduces other compatibility updates for the soon-to-be released 4th generation Apple TV and new iPad Pro
A minor update to watchOS has also been made available today. watchOS 2.0.1 introduces a few major changes and bug fixes. Problems addressed in this update include battery life related issues, stalled software updates, iOS Calendar event syncing, instability issues and a few other bugs. And just in case you were wondering, the new update will come in with the new emoji set too.
Apple’s desktop OS also gets a major update today. OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan, the company says, comes in with a lot of bug fixes including one that caused crashes for those running Office 2016. Other issues addressed in this update include addition of missing information in the Mail app. And yeah, you also get the new emoji characters.
