Apple announces September 30 release date for OS X 10.11

While Apple’s senior executives were busy announcing new iPads, iPhones, and Apple TVs today at its event in the historic Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, another announcement slipped by without any fanfare: the next version of OS X, "El Capitan," will be released to the public on September 30.

El Capitan's Mission Control.

The date is visible on Apple’s El Capitan preview page. The page’s splash image previously had a small bit of text beneath it that read "Coming This Fall," but at some point during today’s presentation, the text changed to "Coming September 30."

El Capitan—or, more formally, OS X 10.11—is set to bring a large number of improvements to the Apple desktop that range from the cosmetic to the fundamental. On the front end, the UI has been brightened with a new default typeface, and many of the system’s default applications have received new features. The under-the-hood improvements are substantial, ranging from a new system security feature called "System Integrity Protection" (which prevents the operating system’s root from doing a lot of things that require the kernel’s blessing) to the introduction of the Metal APIs (which should provide a few new ways for 3D application developers to make their graphical applications run faster and smoother).