By Graham K. Rogers

In the middle of the night - looks like starting around 0400 Thai time - some sites have been reporting that Apple has released the expected 10.9.1 update to OS X. The new version of Mavericks has a number of useful improvements and does cover the problems that many users found when using G-mail.

The information in the Mac App Store, Updates panel show that there are other improvements to Apple's Mail application including attention paid to Smart mailboxes and Search. VoiceOver also has a fix for a problem which affected some users - the feature would not complete a sentence that contained the word "emoji". Safari shared links in the sidebar are also fixed.

The download for some users (and this affects me) may have some specific changes for Retina display Macs that were released recently. The 13" and 15" MacBook Pro computers with Retina display has its own update which includes the fixes above, but also adds "specific enhancements to improve the stability and compatibility of your Mac".

The download for the Retina display Macs requires a restart.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.