macOS Monterey Added A Slew Of New Capabilities To The Mac
This year's theme in Apple's software is uniformity in emphasis and context across iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and the Mac operating systems. FaceTime and all of the new sharing options under the SharePlay banner, as well as a fresh approach on web surfing and a long number of additional features – Maps, Focus Modes, Messages, and Live Text, to name a few — are remarkable. Finally, consider whether or not macOS Monterey is a worthwhile download. Here are our opinions on the most significant new features included in this version.
FaceTime & SharePlay
A significant overhaul is being given to FaceTime across the board in all of Apple's upcoming software releases — macOS Monterey included — and SharePlay is a crucial component. When you use this new feature, you may share chosen material over a FaceTime call and experience it in real-time with friends and family. It's ideal for distant movie nights or grooving out to music in time with someone.
In our testing, SharePlay performed well; after we began a SharePlay session with a buddy, we were able to listen to some melancholy indie rock music like Lucy Dacus and Pom Pom Squad while on a FaceTime conversation. Using our individual Apple Music apps, we were both able to manage the music, and we both had the choice to add a song to a queue or play it instantly (think of it like a shared virtual jukebox). SharePlay is compatible with all of Apple's applications and is already supported by many third-party developers. Disney+ has already signed on, and HBO Max, TikTok, and Twitch will be joining them shortly.
Furthermore, FaceTime now has screen sharing, which allows you to show someone your desktop while on a video conversation instantaneously. While Messages previously supported this, it's convenient to have it all in one place and accessible from any device. Screen sharing via FaceTime was also quite reliable, and the experience was comparable to that of popular video calling programs like Zoom, WebEx, and Discord. The option to share your complete screen or a selected window is available. We had no difficulties transmitting or receiving a shared screen. Similarly, if you're on a FaceTime conversation with someone connecting through an iPhone or iPad, they may even share their screen with you. It's also worth noting that Apple does not allow the control of an iOS or iPadOS screen by a second user.
Like iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, the Monterey operating system allows you to utilize portrait mode during FaceTime chats, which produces a pleasing bokeh effect while also blurring away any clutter that may be in the background of your home office. If you have an M1 Mac, it will be equivalent to the portrait selfies you can shoot with an iPhone and will appear better than the background blur you can get with applications like Zoom and Google Meet, albeit you will need an M1 Mac to take advantage of this feature. Of course, any iPhone share a camera that now supports Portrait Mode will be able to enable this feature as well (an iPad requires the A12 chip or newer).
FaceTime's worth as a genuine Zoom alternative is further enhanced by the fact that you can now FaceTime with people using Android and Windows devices, respectively. A new Create Link button has been added to the FaceTime app, which you can use to produce a link to your call that you can then share by text message, email, or an AirDrop, to name a few possibilities. The ability to send FaceTime invitations as calendar invites will be available in the future, making it simple to schedule a meeting or family get-together.
Since its introduction, FaceTime has performed well across all platforms. For example, the software enabled us to participate in a conference call from both a Windows laptop and an Android phone after clicking on a supplied link. Just keep in mind that users using non-Apple devices will be utilizing a browser-based version of FaceTime, which will be missing a few features such as the option to use Portrait Mode and SharePlay, among others.
AirPlay & Quick Note: Popular Features
macOS Monterey adds AirPlay capability to the Mac, letting you stream any AirPlay-compatible material (including films and music from most significant applications) straight to your Mac desktop or laptop computer. In our testing, this worked very efficiently – after entering a one-time code to create the AirPlay connection, we were able to play Spotify tunes and YouTube videos on our 24-inch (M1-based) and 27-inch iMacs by simply pressing the AirPlay button on our phones and tablets.
The result was that our iMac was transformed into a bit of television to which we could broadcast material without having to use our mouse or keyboard at all. While this functionality is compatible with any Mac running Monterey, it is particularly well suited to the 24-inch and 27-inch iMacs, which have excellent screens and speakers that enable them to serve as all-in-one entertainment centers.
Quick Note, which does exactly what it says on the tin, is another newcomer to Monterey. This functionality may be used in various ways, including highlighting a piece of text from a website and saving that quotation — replete with a link to the original page — right into Notes. We were able to do this with a simple right-click and "New Quick Note," which resulted in a quick note that was available on all of our Apple devices. You may also open a Quick Note window by hovering your mouse pointer over the bottom right corner of the display. However, this feature seems to be more helpful on iPadOS 15, where we found ourselves using it often to take notes with an Apple Pencil after a fast swipe, but it's still good to have on Mac for those rare occasions when inspiration strikes.
Safari Gets A Significant Facelift
Safari has received a significant upgrade for macOS Monterey, just as it did for iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. Although the new minimalist design of Apple's web browser may take some getting used to, you'll reap the benefits of several valuable features if you're ready to put up with it. And the good thing is that if you don't like change, you can go back and adjust some of these settings.
Probably the most noticeable change in the new Safari is the redesigned tab bar at the top of the screen, which condenses the standard web browser layout by moving the URL/search box inside into the currently active tab. This is the first thing you'll notice about the new Safari. This means that there's just a tiny row of tab icons above whatever page you're now viewing, resulting in a minimalistic design that we like. As for the new search bar layout, we immediately became used to it; unlike the bottom-facing navigation bar on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, this smaller, top-facing field seemed natural and comfortable for both inputting URLs and looking for things on Google.
Our only slight quibble is with the design of the tabs themselves, which are so simple that they may easily be mistaken for the rest of the Safari window's elements. Consequently, there were a few occasions when we mistakenly moved the whole Safari application when we intended to move a single tab.
A particularly great addition is that the new design adjusts to the color scheme of whichever page you're now viewing. For example, when we went to CNN.com, the whole tab bar changed to a solid black to fit in with the top of the page; however, when we went to BestBuy.com, the tab bar changed to a lovely deep blue to match the site's hue. Combining this new design with the decreased amount of clutter at the top of Safari, this new look contributes to the experience of exploring websites being a little more immersive and distraction-free.
Although Safari's new appearance is appealing, it is the browser's new Tab Groups feature that has captured our imagination. You may now create numerous groups of tabs that you can switch between on the left side of the Safari screen, which helps organize different groups of accounts for business, personal usage, or your favorite recipes, to name a few examples. Simply right-clicking a tab and selecting "Add to Group" will add it to a specified group (or create a new one) without any further effort. Once we had a couple of them set up, we could switch between smaller groups of tabs on the left side of the screen, rather than allowing our browser to get overwhelmed with hundreds of websites on the same page (let's be honest, we've all been there).
Safari's approach to Tab Groups seems far more beneficial than that of Google Chrome. With Google's browser, you may divide tabs into groups using color-coded brackets. However, all of your accounts will still be located on the same vertical row at the top of your browser, which means things will still be cluttered if you have a lot of tabs open. Rather than working like separate profiles or folders, Apple's Tab Groups function more like unique profiles or folders, enabling users to rapidly access various sets of websites based on whether they're in the midst of a workday or deciding what to eat for supper. Moreover, like with so much else in macOS Monterey, your Tab Groups will be synced across all of your Apple devices, owing to the concept of continuity. The majority of your tabs will now be grouped in one place that will sync across your Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
Shortcuts & four separate modes on macOS X
Focus modes are one of our favorite features throughout iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey, and they're available on all three platforms. These are essentially adjustable Do Not Disturb settings that let you choose which notifications, alarms, and even phone call you want to receive. The classic Do Not Disturb feature is joined by others such as sleep, driving, work, and personal, the latter two of which are new for this year's software enhancements.
Professional or personal, macOS (or iOS or iPadOS) guides you through the configuration of two unique Do Not Disturb modes that may be used simultaneously. It makes recommendations based on artificial intelligence and machine learning for both applications (for alerts) and individuals (for messages and calls) compatible with either mode. For personal usage, Twitter, Apple News, family, and friends may be permitted. While at work, it will be primarily focused on Slack, Trello, Chrome, and workmates. In addition to being handy, you may manually decide which applications or alerts should be included in the system is not accurate. And on the Mac, this is a critical enhancement since it may assist you in being acutely aware of the job or projects you are now working on. When we're at work, we can concentrate on writing a piece, moving quickly through a project management tool, or making sure we're paying attention during a phone conversation. Furthermore, since they are synced across devices, you will not be troubled by little blips from other Apple devices that get alerts in the future.
In addition, if you're a part of a group message, you'll be given an "away" status in Messages (which is similar to AIM) when you use Focus mode. It's rather convenient, but you should be aware that others may opt to tell you in any case. Finally, we wish the Mac would embrace configurable desktops in the same way that iOS and iPadOS may have a specific home screen appearance when using Focus mode. This would allow you to retain all of your professional applications readily available while also allowing you to switch to gaming and media consumption when you enter private mode. It would also raise the bar for multitasking on Mac OS X, and it would be comparable to the new split-view options that will be introduced on Windows 11. For the time being, though, the specific triaging of notifications and alerts continues to be quite valuable.
While Focus Modes are likely to be a prosumer feature that will eventually become a potent weapon in all users' tool belts, Shortcuts are a bit more professional, but it is a significant development nevertheless. Therefore, it has been decided to retire Automator in favor of Shortcuts, a program that creates a means to automate chores and has risen in popularity across iOS and iPadOS platforms. Those mobile-focused Shortcuts are all accessible, and Apple offers some preset ones for the Mac as well — and yes, they sync across your devices, much as tabs in Safari or Focus Modes do as basic as sending a text message when you open a specific app or having it make a gif when you import a new video in less than 3 seconds might be achieved with automation. The possibilities are limitless. It will come as no surprise to those who now depend on Automator that you can turn such automation into Shortcuts with reasonable simplicity.
Maps & other valuable items
In addition to the new Safari, several other applications are: using the new shared with you functionality, which makes it simple to see material shared with you over Messages in their apps. For example, Safari's Shared with you page enabled us to view the plethora of website links quickly. That friend had texted us over a few weeks, and the same part of Photos allowed Us to promptly locate the many images of children and pets that family members had sent over.
Live Text allows the Photos app to identify Text inside images and let you interact with it due to its implementation. For example, it was possible to check up the names of businesses and restaurants by highlighting the relevant section of the picture, and it was also possible to send an email by clicking on a snapshot of an email address. Seriously remarkable, and that's all rendered before you even get to the picture part of it! Unfortunately, because of the neural engine built into the M1 Mac, this capability is only available on the M1 Mac. In side-by-side testing, Live Text seems to be quite comparable to Google Lens, except that it is somewhat more accurate at detecting things.
Speaking of interaction, Google Maps has received some significant enhancements. While in Monterey, Apple's navigation app is more comprehensive than ever, and it includes an optional 3D view that allows you to better perceive the relative size of particular buildings, landmarks, and flora while you're scrolling through the city. In our testing, this was particularly useful for viewing the various lakes and structures of Central Park rather than staring at a large green rectangle or for zooming into a highly detailed model of San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts rather than a large green rectangle. This function may be more entertaining than helpful for some people, but it might help navigate your way across a crowded park or school, for example.
What Do You Think Of Universal Control?
Continuity and Handoff have long been recognized as noteworthy features on all Apple devices since they allow them to function seamlessly together. Universal Control, which will be included in macOS Monterey, will go this even farther by allowing you to utilize your mouse and keyboard across numerous Macs and even the iPad. Starting on the Mac, you may move your mouse to the left, and it will display on the iPad to your left, as demonstrated at WWDC in San Francisco this year. The iPadOS may then be controlled using the mouse, and the keyboard can even be used to do word processing tasks. It creates the experience via Bluetooth, and it does not have a great deal of spatial awareness. The Mac may or may not be aware that the iPad is immediate to the left of the screen; it relies on the user's input and direction.
It is still unavailable and is currently scheduled to be released in 2022, most likely as part of a future macOS Monterey update. We're looking forward to getting our hands on it and reporting back, but it immediately sticks out as a feature that can improve your workflow across macOS and iPadOS devices.
Let's Speak About Compatibility
macOS Monterey will run on the vast majority of Macs released in the previous several years (we've collected a comprehensive list just below), but some of its capabilities are only available on Macs with the M1 processor. For example, the M1 Mac series, which presently comprises the most recent MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and 24-inch iMac is the only one that will support Portrait mode for FaceTime, Live Text for Photos, and spatial audio for AirPods Pro and AirPods Max.
Here is a complete list of Macs that are compatible with macOS Monterey:
- iMac (Intel Macintosh) (late 2015 and later)
- Mac Pro (Macintosh Professional) (late 2013 and later)
- iMac Pro is a high-end computer (2017 and later)
- Mini Macintosh (late 2014 and later)
- MacBook Air (also known as the MacBook Pro) (early 2016 and
- later)
- MacBook Air is a laptop computer that is designed to be portable
- (early 2015 and later)
- MacBook Pro with Retina Display (early 2015 and later)
Should You Invest In A New Computer?
macOS Monterey does not reimagine the Mac experience; nevertheless, it does include several beneficial new features and refinements to the overall user experience that enhance the overall value of Apple's existing portfolio of laptops and desktop computers. When it comes to video calling apps, FaceTime is the clear winner. With the ability to share your screen, host virtual movie nights with SharePlay, and even video chat with Android and Windows users, Apple's video-calling app could be a viable alternative to apps such as Zoom and Google Meet in some situations. While we are not confident that we will abandon Google Chrome, Safari's appealing new style and beneficial Tab Groups make it a far more pleasant application to use than it was before.
The addition of AirPlay makes the newest iMacs an even more compelling alternative to traditional televisions, while minor enhancements such as Shared With You and Quick Note make it simpler to discover and record material. And, as is typically the case with Apple's products, practically all of these capabilities are shared across all of the company's devices, making this a handy upgrade for anyone who constantly switches between their iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Finally, while we wait for the much-anticipated Universal Control feature, macOS Monterey improves the entire experience of using a Mac for video conferencing, online browsing, and general entertainment.
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