Apple Seeds Second Public Beta of macOS Monterey With Universal Control - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Apple Seeds Second Public Beta of macOS Monterey With Universal Control

by

Apple today seeded the second beta of an upcoming macOS Monterey 12.3 update to its public beta testing group, with the new software coming a week after the first macOS Monterey 12.3 public beta.

macOS Monterey 2
Public beta testers can download the macOS 12.3 Monterey update from the Software Update section of the System Preferences app after installing the proper profile from Apple's beta software website.

Universal Control is the major new feature in macOS Monterey 12.3, and it is designed to allow multiple Macs and iPads to be controlled using a single mouse/trackpad and keyboard. If you have a MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro, for example, both devices can be controlled with the ‌MacBook Pro‌'s trackpad and keyboard or a keyboard attached to the iPad.


iPadOS 15.4 is required for ‌Universal Control‌ on the ‌iPad‌, and once the updates are installed on your devices, the feature just works as it is automatically enabled.

macOS Monterey also includes new Emoji 14 characters like melting face, biting lip, heart hands, and more, and plus it adds support for updating AirPods with a Mac. There's no official update interface, but your AirPods can receive firmware updates over-the-air when connected to a Mac, similar to how the update process works with an iPhone.

There are some under-the-hood changes as well. Apple is removing Python 2 from macOS with macOS 12.3 after support was suspended in January 2020, and Apple is eliminating some kernel extensions used by Dropbox and OneDrive, necessitating software updates for those apps.

Related Forum: macOS Monterey

Popular Stories

imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
Read Full Article
ios 26 4 pastel

iOS 26.4: Top 10 New Features Coming to Your iPhone

Friday March 20, 2026 2:44 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 isn't the major update with new Siri features that we hoped for, but there are some useful quality of life improvements, and a little bit of fun with an AI playlist generator and new emoji characters. Playlist Playground - Apple Music has a Playlist Playground option that lets you generate playlists from text-based descriptions. You can include moods, feelings, activities, or...
Read Full Article • 51 comments
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
Read Full Article • 80 comments

Top Rated Comments

gank41 Avatar
gank41
54 months ago
Look's like Apple's updated their servers for the latest install Assistant .pkg file.

https://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/23/30/002-66217-A_ACVWSX94YV/d9iefwh8ij6sxtm1n48ssolnlg0utl1rmx/InstallAssistant.pkg
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacsRgr8 Avatar
MacsRgr8
54 months ago
One thing that irritates me on my 24" iMac M1 (maxed out):
Connecting a 4K TV via TB 4->HDMI cable as 2nd display.

It does work, but if I want "extended display", 4K @ 60fps, I need to remove and re-insert the cable at the back of the iMac after a reboot.

If I don't do that, it always defaults to screen-mirror, 4K @ 30fps. I cannot adjust the settings in System Prefs. Only removing and re-inserting the TB 4 (USB C) cable gives the correct options.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macar00n Avatar
macar00n
54 months ago

Can you iterate what these massive bugs are succinctly for those of us who don't seem to experience them?
Kernel panicking when connected to my one external display when waking up from sleep. A dock does it too so I removed that from my setup to reduce complexity. To trick my machine into not KPing on wake, I have to open the lid - if I wake it by keyboard, it KPs maybe a third of the time, wiping out what I'm doing on both my personal and work user accounts. Ultra annoying coming from Macs that could have months of sequential uptime. This bug was covered in MacRumors review video and in my research I've found that it has been around since the first M1 Macs in early 2021 with no resolution since.

The Bluetooth battery drain while asleep is massive.

A minor one that I hate so much is that my FN button, improved in Monterey to be able to pull up emoji menu, stopped doing it in 12.2. Just absolute amateur hour with Monterey. It's like they don't test at all anymore. Just tout and deliver crappy new features
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macar00n Avatar
macar00n
54 months ago
Are the massive bugs fixed? Forget the features for five seconds Apple - first and foremost, is it stable?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Realityck Avatar
Realityck
54 months ago
Some issues were fixed in this second beta. The Javascript issue with Safari 15.4 and speedtest.net was fixed. That warning about Catalina users upgrading to this beta was fixed. Yesterday it took a second install for this to complete the installation. Not sure it was attributed to server issue or something else. Like to know if it installs in the first pass?

macOS 12.3 beta 2 (21E5206e)
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tmoerel Avatar
tmoerel
54 months ago

Every time you encounter a new problem in macOS, just remember this: most of Apple's top programmers are not on the macOS team but iOS.

Is this a fact? If yes, please provide evidence! If not then this is your opinion and thus could be considered trolling!
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments