Apple Seeds Fifth Beta of macOS 12 Monterey to Developers [Updated]

Apple today seeded the fifth beta of macOS Monterey, the newest version of the macOS operating system. The fifth beta comes two weeks after Apple released the fourth macOS Monterey beta, and it is available to both developers and public beta testers.

macOS Monterey on MBP Feature
Registered developers can download the beta through the Apple Developer Center and once the appropriate profile is installed, betas will be available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences. Public beta testers can install the proper profile from Apple's public beta testing website.

As with all new betas, Apple recommends not installing the new macOS update on a primary machine because it is early release software and could have bugs.

macOS Monterey introduces Universal Control, a feature that lets a single mouse, trackpad, and keyboard be used across multiple Mac or iPad devices, plus there's a new AirPlay to Mac feature.

Safari has been redesigned with a new tab bar (with a toggle for two different designs as of the third beta) and support for Tab Groups, and FaceTime has gained spatial audio, a Portrait Mode on M1 Macs, and Voice Isolation for cutting out background noise. There's also a new SharePlay ‌FaceTime‌ feature that lets Apple users watch TV, listen to music, and share their screens with one another.

Shared With You, a separate 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 collaboration is easier with mentions and an Activity View.

The Shortcuts app from iOS is now available on the Mac, and Focus helps people stay on task by cutting out background distractions. There's an updated Maps app with a whole slew of new features, and 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 full rundown available in our macOS Monterey roundup.

Update: While Apple initially also pushed the update to public beta testers, it appears it was pulled soon after.

Related Forum: macOS Monterey

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Top Rated Comments

pacificblue Avatar
51 months ago

You know what Apple should do? Go back to strict private betas for some of its releases. Just have established app store developers be the beta testers and internal company testers. This will reduce the high concentration of saturated junk articles just telling us there is a beta 123456789 etc. This is not targeted at Macrumors, it goes for even Windows 11 too. The tech sites, Youtubers have oversaturated the content they deliver with every little thing Apple does these days. Coverage needs to be a little more value added and meaningful. Also, the element of surprise is missing.

A strategy I would recommend the company could use is, every other year, have a public beta, and just let it be the last two betas before GM that users get access to. Also, make only be for the stability and clean up releases (aka Snow Leopard, High Sierra).
So Apple should purposefully worsen their beta testing practices by having less people test their new releases, just because tech "journalists" are lazy and you are unable to ignore bad articles? Hard pass on you bad idea.
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
triptolemus Avatar
51 months ago

What is a corner in rounded building? ?
See, corners have disappeared...



Attachment Image
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
falkon-engine Avatar
51 months ago
Running strong on Intel. Long live intel and long live hackintosh.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mikeyteh Avatar
51 months ago

You know what Apple should do? Go back to strict private betas for some of its releases. Just have established app store developers be the beta testers and internal company testers. This will reduce the high concentration of saturated junk articles just telling us there is a beta 123456789 etc. This is not targeted at Macrumors, it goes for even Windows 11 too. The tech sites, Youtubers have oversaturated the content they deliver with every little thing Apple does these days. Coverage needs to be a little more value added and meaningful. Also, the element of surprise is missing.

A strategy I would recommend the company could use is, every other year, have a public beta, and just let it be the last two betas before GM that users get access to. Also, make only be for the stability and clean up releases (aka Snow Leopard, High Sierra).
It seems like having public betas allows for a wider audience for potential major errors. They already do closed betas for several weeks before the public beta, which is usually pretty smooth, begins. And Macrumors posts about the closed betas also. The oversaturated content wouldn't exist if there weren't eyeballs and clicks on it, so clearly there is interest.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mainyehc Avatar
51 months ago

Sounds like you are new to all this, because they did only private betas for many years before they started public betas with Sierra. With a few exceptions such as 10.0 and 10.5, releases such as Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Tiger for Intel, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks were all private. Yet, Big Sur which was public has more glaring bugs that I am sure public testers didn't pick up. Its really no benefit to be honest.
While I agree that overall software quality and QA on Apple's part has gone downhill, with some egregious regression bugs lost in a seemingly eternal limbo of not being addressed for years on end on account of not being “critical” enough for Apple engineers to care, you seem to be failing to appreciate just how much bigger and more complex Apple's market is these days.

Also, FYI, don't let my badge and post count fool you; in my case, look at join date instead. My first Mac was an iMac G4 USB 2.0 which came preinstalled with Jaguar and bundled with Panther upgrade discs. Those were, indeed, “the days”, but we paid through the nose for upgrades (I bought a boxed copy of Tiger for €120, IIRC, and paid for all ESD upgrades on the MAS right until the last one, having only skipped SL because my 2009 iMac came bundled with it). And the same should go for everyone else here, even if it's the other way around or anything in between; maybe our fellow forum-goer simply joined us later on or even bought a Mac much, much later, but that doesn't mean they didn't reach the same conclusion just by staying informed – maybe even as far back as way before buying their first Mac, yes – and looking objectively at the current state of affairs.

The switch to Intel brought about an explosion of choice and different possibilities (remember Steve Jobs' old, cutesy 2x2 product matrix for the then recently revamped Mac line? Yeah, neither do I), as well as third-party software and peripherals galore. How many really critical bugs were related to the latter, with external hard drives getting mysteriously erased, audio interfaces suddenly not working at all, etc., remember those? Yeah, that's why public betas are essential, as developers alone can't cover the entire gamut of configuration combinations.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jdclifford Avatar
51 months ago
My first Mac was the first (original) Mac in April 1984! Still have it in storage with all the original peripherals and software.

My first Mac was a IIcx in 1989. At least by the time OS X came around, you know Apple was going to survive. In the early 90s that was far from certain.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)