Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of macOS Monterey 12.1 to Developers [Public Beta Available]

Wednesday December 1, 2021 10:18 am PST by Juli Clover

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming macOS Monterey 12.1 update to developers for testing purposes, with the new software coming two weeks after the third beta and a month after the official release of macOS Monterey.

macOS Monterey on MBP Feature
Registered developers can download macOS Monterey 12.1 beta profile through the Apple Developer Center and after the appropriate profile is installed, the beta will be available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences.

macOS Monterey 12.1 brings SharePlay to Macs for the first time. SharePlay is a new feature that's designed to let you watch TV, listen to music, and play games with friends and family members over FaceTime.

SharePlay allows all kinds of apps to work with ‌FaceTime‌, with content synced for all people who are part of the ‌FaceTime‌ call. You can listen to music with Apple Music and access shared playlists, watch synced TV shows and movies together, work out together, and even share your screen for things like group trip planning or device troubleshooting.

Apple designed SharePlay to work with first-party app options like Apple TV, Apple Fitness+, and ‌Apple Music‌, but there's also an API for developers so third-party apps can also use SharePlay ‌FaceTime‌ features for games and other experiences.

SharePlay is already available in the release versions of iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, and tvOS 15.1, so the Monterey 12.1 update brings Macs in line with other Apple devices.

Related Forum: macOS Monterey

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Top Rated Comments

jarman92

62 months ago

Any idea if the memory leaks are fixed?

Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)

jz0309

62 months ago

I guess this makes the article from an hour or so ago obsolete…
I hope tap to click is fixed, I will download the public beta ASAP, but if that is not fixed, I’m gonna roll back to Big Sur.
Been on the public beta since July but this bug introduced recently has been driving me nuts

Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Yebubbleman

62 months ago

I don't give ten craps about SharePlay. Fix the bugs that should've been fixed prior to launch. Up the quality control. Stop releasing major new macOS releases on an annual schedule. Make an OS that doesn't have serious bugs in it at launch. Release it when it is ready for things like SharePlay AND is stable enough to reduce the number of articles that (get written about it that) apologists deem to be clickbait.

No one using a Mac is so impatient for a new version of macOS that they can't wait for months longer for it to be more polished and stable, especially when they release on an annual schedule.

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)