Apple Releases First Public Beta of macOS 12 Monterey

Thursday July 1, 2021 10:12 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded the first public beta of the macOS 12 Monterey beta to public beta testers, allowing non-developers to test the new macOS Monterey software ahead of its public release.

macos monterey tidbits feature copy
Public beta testers can download the macOS 12 Monterey update from the Software Update section of the System Preferences app after installing the proper profile from Apple's beta software website.

macOS Monterey introduces quite a few major updates for the macOS operating system. Universal Control, for example, lets a single mouse, trackpad, and keyboard be used across multiple Mac or iPad devices, and it's now possible to AirPlay directly to a Mac from an iPhone, ‌iPad‌, or even another Mac.

Safari has an updated tab bar and support for Tab Groups to keep tons of tabs organized, and FaceTime now features support for spatial audio, Portrait Mode (M1 Macs only) and Voice Isolation for cutting out background noise. A SharePlay ‌FaceTime‌ feature lets Apple TV users watch TV, listen to music, and share their screens with one another.

Shared With You, another new feature, keeps track of the music, links, podcasts, news, and photos that people are sent in Messages, highlighting it in the relevant apps. Notes has a new Quick Note feature for jotting down thoughts, and the Shortcuts app is now available on the Mac.

A dedicated Focus mode helps people stay on task by cutting out background distractions based on what's going on, and there's an updated Maps app with a whole slew of new features. With Live Text, Macs can now detect text in photos or provide details on animals, art, landmarks, plants, and more in images.

Mail Privacy Protection hides IP and prevents tracking through invisible pixels, and iCloud Private Relay keeps Safari browsing protected. There are many other new features in ‌macOS Monterey‌, with a complete overview available in our macOS Monterey roundup.

Related Forum: macOS Monterey

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Top Rated Comments

falkon-engine

70 months ago

Thanks to the power of opencore and patching, as well as the unlimited power of disabling the kernel compatibility check, Monterey runs on my mid 2012.

Apple tried to kill it last year when they abandoned support… no official Big Sur updates. But nonetheless, it lives on! Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both work even though Apple tried to remove support!

The fact that it can boot just fine and the kernel can properly schedule threads on the processor (without any patches at all, just a mere disabling of the kernel compatibility check) makes me wonder why Apple abandoned support in the first place. Other than to incentivize me to upgrade.

Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)

macdos

70 months ago

Wonder if any longstanding bugs have been fixed. I think I'll just wait til 12.7 or so.

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Localcelebrity

70 months ago

Well, now I know what I'm doing during lunch.

Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)

ikir

70 months ago

Thanks to the power of opencore and patching, as well as the unlimited power of disabling the kernel compatibility check, Monterey runs on my mid 2012.

Apple tried to kill it last year when they abandoned support… no official Big Sur updates. But nonetheless, it lives on! Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both work even though Apple tried to remove support!

The fact that it can boot just fine and the kernel can properly schedule threads on the processor (without any patches at all, just a mere disabling of the kernel compatibility check) makes me wonder why Apple abandoned support in the first place. Other than to incentivize me to upgrade.

Performance for some features, support means it must runs god and you can call Apple for issue. If Apple want to block you from running macOS 12 they could, this way it is just for nerds like us which usually don't expect miracles or call Apple support 10 times a day.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)