Apple has reached an important milestone by making its first Rapid Security Response (RSR) update available to the general public. This is a significant improvement over earlier update types, which were only available to beta testers or developers running pre-release copies of Apple’s mobile OS.
Rapid Security Responses are a new type of software release for Mac, iPad, and iPhone devices that provide important security fixes in between regular security updates. They want to distribute important privacy fixes to phones as soon as possible, Apple has not stated how quickly they would be issued.
These updates may include, among other things, critical system libraries, the WebKit framework stack, or the Safari web browser. Furthermore, they can be used to address certain security issues immediately, such as those which were previously taken advantage of or reported to exist “in the wild.”
RSR updates are set to install automatically by default. While not all of these updates will need a system restart, some will, and you will be notified once they are complete.
You can disable automatic RSR update installation through your device’s settings, however, this is not recommended because RSRs transport critical security updates.
The RSR update for today, which requires a system restart, can be downloaded and installed in a matter of minutes. RSRs will be available exclusively to those running the most recent versions of iOS and iPadOS in the future.
The RSR update is presently being rolled out for both iOS 16.4.1 and iPadOS 16.4.1, with completion expected within 48 hours. After installing the RSR, the About section of your iPhone or iPad will show a “(a),” indicating that you are running iOS 16.4.1 (a) or iPadOS 16.4.1 (a).