Not only that but you also get a bunch of other fixes, along with the return of a nifty new feature where you can force-touch on the left-hand-side of the display to bring up the multitasking menu.

For those of you with older devices who have been holding back on iOS 11 (or have upgraded and then downgraded), then I have good news and bad news for you.

The good news is that iOS 11.1 certainly feels faster on older devices, and the lag and frame drops are less apparent.

The bad news is that iOS 11.1 still makes those old devices feel significantly older than iOS 10 did. You can do some things to speed up the device (wiping and reloading everything from scratch is a drastic move, a less drastic one being to turn off animations and other eye-candy), but these measures only take you so far. And since running older, unpatched versions of iOS is putting your data at risk, at some point you’re going to have to decide to upgrade, take the device out of service, or gamble with your data.

I’ve been testing iOS 11.1 beta for some time and overall it seems pretty good. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth stability seems much improved, and overall stability seems to better, especially on older devices. And after running the release version on a few devices for the past 12 hours, I’ve not come across any show-stopping problems. A quick scan of Apple’s support forums and other places on the internet where people vent their spleens over iOS problems seems to suggest that this is the general picture.

So, my advice is to upgrade. If you’re holding back because you have an older device, then iOS 11.1 is definitely better than iOS 11, and probably as good as it’s going to get.

iOS 11.1 is available as an over-the-air update (click Settings > General > Software Update) or as a download via iTunes.

See also: