Apple has released iOS 11.1 for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The latest software update adds hundreds of new emoji characters including new expressions, vampires and zombies, breastfeeding, dinosaurs and many more. Other changes include the return of the 3D Touch gesture for multitasking, a smoother scroll-to-top animation, and other bug fixes and improvements.
Apple first previewed these new emoji over the summer then teased them again in recent betas. Now iOS 11.1 is available to all customers following a brief beta period. You’ll need iOS 11.1 to both send and receive the new emoji characters, otherwise you won’t find them in the keyboard picker and you’ll only receive generic blocks and broken up emoji in place of the new characters.
iOS 11.1 also restores the popular 3D Touch multitasking gesture on iPhone 6s and later. This lets you touch the left edge of the display with pressure to enter multitasking or pull with pressure from left to right to switch between two apps. Apple previously removed this gesture (which works differently on iPhone X) but modified it and restored it with iOS 11.1.
Reachability has also improved so you can reliably double tap the Home button to lower the screen in more places, and there’s a smoother animation when tapping the top of the display to return to the top of a window.
Stay tuned for full release notes and grab the latest software update from the Settings app on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Check out our hands-on video coverage of the changes through each beta version below:
