(By Balaseshan) Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has updated its operating system to 6.1 version, adding LTE support for 36 additional iPhone carriers worldwide, and said there are nearly 300 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices on iOS 6 in just five months.
The iOS 6.1, which is available as a free software update Monday, is compatible with iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad (third and fourth generation), iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPod touch (fourth and fifth generation).
"iOS 6 is the world's most advanced mobile operating system, and with nearly 300 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices on iOS 6 in just five months, it may be the most popular new version of an OS in history," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
The iOS 6.1 brings LTE capabilities to 36 additional iPhone carriers and 23 additional iPad carriers around the world, so even more iPhone 5, iPad mini and iPad with Retina display users can experience ultrafast wireless performance.
The features of iOS 6 include Siri, which supports more languages, easy access to sports scores, restaurant recommendations and movie listings; Maps with Apple-designed cartography, turn-by-turn navigation and Flyover view; Facebook integration for Contacts and Calendar, with the ability to post directly from Notification Center, Siri and Facebook-enabled apps; Shared Photo Streams via iCloud; and Passbook, the simplest way to get all your passes in one place.
Additional updates in iOS 6.1 include the ability to use Siri to purchase movie tickets in the US through Fandango, and iTunes Match subscribers can download individual songs to their iOS devices from iCloud.
To date, iOS users have uploaded over nine billion photos to Photo Stream, sent over 450 billion iMessages and received over four trillion notifications.
App Store customers have downloaded over 40 billion apps, and Apple has paid over seven billion dollars to its incredible developer community. The store offers more than 800,000 apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users, with more than 300,000 native iPad apps.
AAPL is trading up 2.20% at $449.58 on Monday. The stock has been trading between $435.00 and $705.07 for the past 52 weeks.