In its attempt to bring about certain stability and compatibility improvements in its August 28-launched Snow Leopard, and release patches for security issues, Apple Thursday announced the operating system's first upgrade - Mac OS X v10.6.1.

Releasing the update, Apple said it includes "general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac," and suggested that all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard should go in for the upgrade, currently available via Software Update.

The fixes pertain to an improvement in the operating system's compatibility with a few Sierra Wireless 3G modems; the rectification of an anomaly that caused improper display of some printer drivers in the Add Printer browser; the issue that caused led to an abrupt stop of DVD playback, making it difficult to remove something from the Dock; and the problem that caused the unresponsiveness of Motion 4.

Furthermore, to address the much-criticized vulnerability-ridden older version of Flash plug-in for Safari, the 75.1MB update installs the most recent version of the Flash plug-in, 10.0.32.18.

The update also fixed some bugs in Mail, including a problem that prevented the sending of mail with some SMTP servers due to the malfunctioning of the program's auto account setup; as well as an issue whereby special characters menu sprang up unexpectedly in both Mail and TextEdit as a result of the Command-Option-T shortcut!