Apple Seeds New Public Beta of macOS Monterey

Thursday August 12, 2021 10:23 am PDT by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded a new 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. The fourth beta comes two weeks after Apple released the third macOS Monterey public beta.

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. The new beta adds Live Text support for Intel Macs.

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

Popular Stories

November 20 to Mark the End of an Era at Apple

Wednesday November 11, 2026 7:51 am PST by Joe Rossignol

Apple has announced that the long-running Apple Support Community discussion forums for user-to-user tech support will be permanently closing on Friday, November 20. The forums have existed in some form for nearly 30 years, so it is the end of an era. Effectively immediately, the Apple Support Community forums are in a read-only state, with new posts no longer being accepted. The final...

Apple Launching Two More New Products This Friday

Monday November 9, 2026 4:22 am PST by Tim Hardwick

The Apple launches keep coming! The company is set to release two new products on Friday, November 13: the all-new Apple HomeView and the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K, both of which have been available to pre-order since mid-October. Apple HomeView: Apple's new smart home display, powered by Apple Intelligence with Siri AI, for entertainment and managing the home. Available in tabletop and...

• 18 comments

Apple Taking New Approach to Developing iOS 28 and macOS 28

Sunday November 8, 2026 7:42 am PST by Joe Rossignol

Apple has made a change to its development process for iOS 28, macOS 28, and corresponding software updates, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In his Power On newsletter today, he said Apple separates development of each year's new operating systems into three major stages. Typically, he said each stage consists of four weeks of coding followed by a four-week "convergence" period where...

• 156 comments

Top Rated Comments

vagos

69 months ago

"With Live Text, Macs can now detect text in photos or provide details on animals, art, landmarks, plants, and more in images."

It's still text detection since bird is the word.

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

velocityg4

69 months ago

It's still text detection since bird is the word.

Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word

Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Braderunner

69 months ago

Someone yesterday sent me a photo of a bird and wanted to know if there was an app that would identify it. I wonder if that Focus mode would have identified the bird correctly using Monterey. I ended up using iBird Pro and manually identified the bird.

What?! o_O

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)