Apple hypes Wednesday's launch of free OS X 10.11 El Capitan Mac update

OS X 10.11 El Capitan is on track to debut Wednesday, Apple confirmed with a press release, reminding customers that they will be able to install the free update from the Mac App Store.

"People love using their Macs, and one of the biggest reasons is the power and ease-of-use of OS X," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "El Capitan refines the Mac experience and improves performance in a lot of little ways that make a very big difference. Feedback from our OS X beta program has been incredibly positive and we think customers are going to love their Macs even more with El Capitan."

Tuesday's press release indicates that OS X El Capitan is on schedule to meet its previously announced Sept. 30 launch date. The company did hit a last-minute snag earlier this month that delayed watchOS 2 for a few days, though iOS 9 also arrived on schedule.

El Capitan supports all Macs introduced in 2009 or later, and some models introduced in 2007 and 2008.

To hype the launch, Apple is focusing on refinements to the Mac experience, and improvements to system performance.

Specifically, refinements have been made with regards to window management, built-in apps and Spotlight search. Performance improvements include also make activities like launching and switching apps, opening PDFs and accessing email faster and more responsive.

New features in El Capitan include Split View, an enhanced Mission Control, a cursor spotting feature, better fullscreen view in Mail, an improved Notes app, the ability to quickly spot and mute tabs in Safari, and other general refinements and tweaks.