Tech —

Mega-Apple update day brings upgrades to OS X, iOS, WatchOS, and tvOS

Time to update your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, and Apple TV.

Mega-Apple update day brings upgrades to OS X, iOS, WatchOS, and tvOS

Apple today released updates for the operating systems that power iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, and Apple TVs. iOS 9.2, OS X El Capitan 10.11.2, WatchOS 2.1, and tvOS 9.1 are all available on their respective devices.

iOS 9.2: Apple Music is now slightly better

Available for devices going back to the iPhone 4S, iPod Touch 5th generation, and iPad 2, this iOS update includes a few minor improvements for Apple Music:

  • You can now create a new playlist when adding a song to a playlist
  • Your most recently changed playlist is now listed at the top when adding songs to playlists
  • Download albums or playlists from your iCloud Music Library by tapping the iCloud download button
  • See which songs have been downloaded with the new download indicator next to each song in My Music and Playlists
  • See works, composers, and performers while browsing Classical music in the Apple Music catalog

iBooks has a couple of improvements, including support for 3D Touch on the iPhone 6S "to peek and pop pages from the table of contents, your notes and bookmarks, or from search results inside a book." iBooks also now supports listening to an audiobook while you read other books or search for books in your library or the store.

iOS Mail now has "Mail Drop" for sending large attachments via iCloud, a feature that was already available for Macs. Apple News got a Top Stories section in today's update.

The latest iOS update lets iPhones use Apple's USB Camera Adapter to import photos and videos from a camera. The iPad already supported the adapter.

Apple also promised improved stability for Safari and Podcasts, Siri support for Arabic, accessibility improvements, and various bug fixes. Here's the full list of improvements.

Security updates for iOS, OS X, WatchOS, and tvOS can all be found here.

OS X El Capitan 10.11.2

The Mac software update is about stability rather than new features. Improvements are as follows:

  • Improves Wi-Fi reliability
  • Improves the reliability of Handoff and AirDrop
  • Fixes an issue that may cause Bluetooth devices to disconnect
  • Fixes an issue that prevented Mail from deleting messages in an offline Exchange account
  • Fixes an issue that prevented importing photos from an iPhone to a Mac using a USB cable
  • Improves iCloud Photo Sharing for Live Photos
  • Fixes an issue that may prevent Mail from completing the upgrade
  • Fixes an issue that may prevent signing in to FaceTime and Messages

Minimum system requirements for OS X have not changed since 2012; you can find them at the beginning of our El Capitan review.

WatchOS 2.1: More languages

The Apple Watch update brings system support for Arabic, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Malay, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. There is also support for a right-to-left user interface, and a new complication for Islamic and Hebrew calendars.

Bugs fixed includes ones that could prevent events from updating in the calendar complication; prevent the time from displaying in power reserve mode; prevent third-party apps from launching; prevent third-party app icons from displaying correctly; and cause instability when changing the system language.

tvOS 9.1: Now works with Apple's iOS Remote app

Available only for the fourth-generation Apple TV, tvOS 9.1 lets users control Apple Music with Siri, and use Apple's iOS Remote app to control the device, 9to5Mac reports. "WatchOS 2.1 lets Apple Watch’s built-in Remote app work with new Apple TVs as a D-pad too," 9to5Mac wrote. Previous hardware generations of the Apple TV could already be controlled by the iOS and Watch Remote apps.

Apple doesn't provide a full list of release notes for tvOS.

Channel Ars Technica