Apple Releases iOS 6.1 Update

By Gilbert Falso :: 4:31 PM

Earlier today, Apple released its first major update to iOS 6, the mobile operating system for iPhones and iPads since the initial availability of the new OS last fall. iOS 6.1 offers patches for 27 security vulnerabilities, adds support for additional LTE carriers, and introduces some new functionality for Siri and iTunes Match. Two minor releases occurred in November and December that addressed a smaller number of issues.

The security patches include 22 in WebKit, the engine that powers the Safari web browser in iOS. Half of those security issues were uncovered by a software engineer at Google, creator of rival smartphone operating system Android.

With this update, Apple now supports more carriers for LTE high speed broadband data connections, including new support in these countries:  Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Switzerland.

U.S. iPhone users can now use the Siri personal assistant to order movie tickets using the Fandango ticketing service.

Frequent users of iTunes Match, the cloud-based music matching service that helps store and organize music in your collection ripped from CDs or obtained through other means, will find that they can now download just a single song with the service, rather than needing to download the entire album a song resides on.

The update is available for the following Apple hardware models: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5; iPad 2, iPad (3rd and 4th generation), iPad Mini; iPod Touch (fourth-generation and after).