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iOS and OS X updates arrive with a ton of new emoji
If you've ever wanted to text taco pics from your iPhone or give the middle finger from your Mac, today's your lucky day. Apple has released iOS 9.1 and OS X El Capitan 10.11.1, both of which add a slew of new Unicode emoji ranging from Mexican food through to rude gestures. There are some important under-the-hood fixes, too. Your iPhone 6s or 6s Plus is now smart enough to stop recording Live Photos when you lower the device, and OS X shouldn't run into trouble with Office 2016. Whichever platform you're using, you'll likely want to update pronto -- if just to see the cutesy characters you'd otherwise miss. [Image credit: Emojipedia]
Apple updates iWork productivity apps for OS X, iOS and the web
Now that OS X El Capitan and iOS 9 are available to everyone, Apple's updating its iWork productivity suite to take advantage of certain new features. The refreshed Keynote, Numbers and Pages apps come with support for 3D Touch and Force Touch, as well as Slide Over, Split View and Picture-in-Picture modes. But keep in mind some of these will only work if you have compatible hardware, including the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus and the ultra-thin MacBook -- either way, you'll need to have the latest versions of iOS and OS X installed. In addition to this, you can also preview shared Keynote, Numbers and Pages documents on iOS and Android browsers, while iWork '08 and '06 users get the ability to start opening and editing files. Lastly, Apple says iWork for iCloud is officially out of beta and there are "many new features" on the service, such as support for 10 extra languages and a way to comment on docs.
OS X El Capitan review: A modest update, with some welcome changes
When I first previewed OS X El Capitan, Apple's latest Mac operating system, the software wasn't quite finished, and it also wasn't available to anybody without a developer account (that's most people). Since then, though, Apple has released El Capitan in a public beta program, so that anyone with the guts to install non-final software could try it out. Tomorrow, the OS will be available to the general public, and the version that ships will be virtually identical to the Gold Master build that early adopters are already using. That means for some of you, then, exactly nothing I've written in the following review will come as a surprise. But for folks who are perhaps more skittish about downloading a work in progress to use as their daily driver, I've endeavored to revisit El Capitan, taking care to clarify what's been added since my initial preview. Suffice to say, my thoughts remains the same: While this is clearly not as big a release as last year's update, all of the changes here are welcome, and a few were even overdue.
Apple's OS X El Capitan launches on September 30th
Apple's latest desktop OS upgrade, dubbed "El Capitan," is scheduled to launch on September 30th, Apple announced today. El Capitan is like an update within an update: It's named after a landmark inside of Yosemite (the name of the previous OS version) and it features a series of minor, yet useful, tweaks. El Capitan offers a new split-screen view, changes to email and app management, drag-and-drop options for Notes, and updates to Safari and Maps, among other improvements. We got our hands on the developer build back in June and concluded it was a nice upgrade, if not revolutionary: "There simply is no killer feature this time around. But as minor as some of them may seem, they're all at the very least nice to have, and in many cases genuinely useful."
The next versions of iOS and OS X will track your flights
Apple has made much ado of Spotlight's smart, info-fetching abilities in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, but one relatively undersold feature might just prove a lifesaver if you or your friends are frequent travelers. Both of the upcoming operating systems include a "flight data detector" that can spot mentions of flight numbers in apps and let you peek at that trip's details (a feature Google Now and Cortana users are already familiar with). This doesn't just mean the departure or arrival times, either -- in many situations, you'll also get a map showing you where the aircraft should be at that moment. While this won't replace a dedicated travel app, it'll be handy if you want to check for flight delays or satisfy your curiosity about an airplane's location.
Apple's public beta of OS X El Capitan arrives today
Just as it did with Mavericks and Yosemite, Apple is going to let the public try a beta version of OS X El Capitan. And that begins today, the Cupertino company has announced. Naturally, Apple wants people to know this is an early build of its latest operating system, so there might be some applications that don't work as expected. You should probably back up your Mac too, in case anything goes wrong with the installation process or during the actual testing phase. If you're feeling up for it, though, the El Capitan public beta is scheduled to roll out in about an hour or so -- at which point, you can download it from Apple's Software Program site.
OS X El Capitan preview: a series of minor, but welcome improvements
When Apple revealed that the next version of OS X would be called "El Capitan," I couldn't help but laugh. I think we all did. I mean, here we were expecting the company to name its new operating system after another national park, and instead it chose a rock formation inside Yosemite that you may or may not have heard of (but that you most definitely enjoy saying out loud). In a way, though, this was fitting: OS X 10.11 ushers in a series of minor improvements to last year's "Yosemite" release. The design remains virtually unchanged, and the new features aren't particularly groundbreaking. This is a relatively small update -- small enough that it doesn't deserve to be named after another national park. Still, it's an improvement nonetheless. I've been using an unfinished developer build of the OS for the past week, and though Apple continues to refine the software, I think it's safe to say that all of the changes are nice to have, however inconsequential some of them may seem. Join me here for a first look.
Websites can use Apple's pressure-aware trackpad in OS X El Capitan
Apple's pressure-sensitive Force Touch trackpad isn't tremendously useful in typical Mac software, but it might just get a new lease on life in OS X El Capitan. The new operating system's development tools let websites define what happens when you make that extra-strong click. You could favorite that adorable cat photo instead of zooming into it, for instance. There are some big gotchas associated with this, however. You'll need a circa-2015 Mac laptop to start with, but you'll also have to surf the web in Safari -- this won't help much if you're using an iMac, or prefer browsers like Chrome and Firefox. As clever as pressure-aware pages might be, you might not run into them that often without wider app and device support.
