iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan September release dates revealed
Apple's new iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs were the stars of yesterday's event in San Francisco, but the company also finally set release dates for iOS 9 and the latest version of OS X, El Capitan.
iOS 9 will roll out on September 16 and will be available for Phone 4s and later, iPod touch 5th generation and later, iPad 2 and later, and iPad minis.
Apple unveiled iOS 9 in June at its annual WWDC and has gradually been rolling out updates to developers through its public beta scheme, which got its final update or 'Golden Master' yesterday, alongside the release of the iOS 9.1 beta for developers.
Key feature updates in iOS 9 include an improved Siri and new multitasking capabilities, and tweaks specifically for multitasking in the iPad, such as split view, much like the productivity features available in Microsoft's Surface Pro and some Android devices.
The OS brings an updated Notes app, better transit coverage in Maps, the new News app with fifty publishers, and updates to Apple Pay.
While the iPhones which Apple announced yesterday come with a tad lower capacity battery, Apple has offset this with battery optimisations in iOS 9 as well as a new low-power mode. The update also introduces Apple's new six-digit passcode and an updated two-factor authentication setup.
Finally, the size of the update from iOS 8.4 to iOS 9 will be just 1.3GB, which might accelerate adoption of the latest OS thanks to its smaller footprint - especially compared to the 4.58GB update from iOS 7.1 to iOS 8. Apple's latest iOS distribution figures show that 86 percent of iOS users are now on iOS 8.
One thing Apple didn't announce yesterday was the release date for OS X 10.11 or El Capitan, which according to the OS's preview page has been set for September 30. The detail was 'leaked' on stage yesterday during a presentation by Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering,
Apple also unveiled El Capitan at WWDC in June, which brought the iOS software Metal to the desktop platform to improve battery life, performance, faster app launching, and faster email retrieval.
Like iOS 9, it will bring split view which automatically scales two apps to occupy two equal halves of a screen. The OS also adds natural language search to Spotlight and some handy changes to Mail in full screen mode, such as tabs in an email winder when working on multiple emails and tighter integration with calendar.
Read more on iOS 9
- Apple debuts iOS 9 public preview for iPhones, iPads
- Hands-on with Apple iOS 9 (in pictures)
- WWDC 2015: Updating to iOS 9 to be a lot less painful