macOS 12 Monterey review: Should you download?
Our Verdict
Our time with the macOS 12 Monterey betas shows an update with potential.
For
- Live Text is awesome
- Notes gets more than complete
- Safari Tab Groups is a useful upgrade
- Safari's bad changes got rejected
Against
- Waiting on Universal Control
- FaceTime SharePlay likewise M.I.A.
Tom's Guide Verdict
Our fourth dimension with the macOS 12 Monterey betas shows an update with potential.
Pros
- +
Alive Text is awesome
- +
Notes gets more than complete
- +
Safari Tab Groups is a useful upgrade
- +
Safari's bad changes got rejected
Cons
- -
Waiting on Universal Control
- -
FaceTime SharePlay likewise M.I.A.
Today, macOS 12 Monterey is hither and while information technology's missing some of the big features nosotros waited for, it's notwithstanding ane of the best Mac upgrades in years. Brighter, with new controls seen in iOS and iPadOS, the Mac's overall look inverse dramatically last year.
So this macOS 12 review will explain how Apple'south adding lots of smarts to go with that new coat of paint. Primarily, those upgrades come in the dandy Live Text, while the Notes app is more than capable than ever. But while FaceTime's updates are neat, they're not all here.
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That said, we're all the same waiting for Apple to add the cool-looking Universal Control feature to macOS. It's currently available in beta form, and we expect the total rollout to come shortly.
macOS 12 review: Release dates
macOS 12 Monterey shipped on October 25, 2021. A lot has happened since the public beta came out July 1, and through subsequent updates during the summer, Safari got slightly fixed back to where it should be. The final version arrived alongside the MacBook Pro 2021 (14-inch) and MacBook Pro 2021 (16-inch).
In terms of stability, during my time running the macOS 12 Public Beta on a spare MacBook Air 2020 with M1 chip over the final month, I kept forgetting that it's a beta.
That said, bugs are inevitable, then if y'all're worried about a new software update slowing downwardly your workflow, information technology doesn't hurt to wait until you've heard that the apps you love run on macOS 12 before you download. That gives you lot the opportunity to see if other folks are running into problem with this update.
macOS 12 review: Compatibility and supported devices
Apple'due south full list of approved and supported Macs for macOS 12 is below. Support dates back to 2013'southward Mac Pros.
- iMac: Late 2015 and later
- Mac Pro: Late 2013 and after
- iMac Pro: 2017 and later
- Mac mini: Late 2014 and later
- MacBook Air: Early 2015 and later
- MacBook: Early 2016 and subsequently
- MacBook Pro: Early 2015 and later on
macOS 12 review: New features found on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15
Apple's rolling out a lot of new features across multiple operating organisation updates due out this fall, and so macOS 12 Monterey gets to be just like iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 in a few ways.
My favorite, without a dubiety, is Live Text. In Photos and Preview, among other apps, you can now select text from images, just every bit if y'all were using a document or PDF. This is Apple's AI magic at piece of work, and it simply works. For example, I could highlight text on a shirt I own that I took a photograph of, or the nutrition label from a bottle. To see your cursor go a text select tool when you movement it over text in an image is a sight to see.
Also, images and links that you've been sent by others will now take their own sections in Photos, Safari, Apple News and other applications. Just wait for the Shared With Yous section, equally it's an piece of cake way to find that thing someone sent that you lot tin can't find, or to accept a trip downwardly memory lane in photos.
Notes is too getting super-charged with two new features seen in iOS and iPadOS. My favorite is Quick Notes, which allows you to write notes while using other applications on the iPad, and can easily add links and quoted text from Safari to. I've used it for trying to make sense well-nigh the new and differentiated recommendations about face masks and social distancing from the WHO and CDC. Notes also now lets yous organize your notes by using hashtag-tagged terms, so every note I have with #reviews in information technology is easily nerveless for future searching. There's also an Activity tracking section for shared notes, much like Google Docs.
At that place'southward besides a new ready of do not disturb modes that you yourself can customize, called Focuses. Each lets you lot option a list of people and apps that you will let disturb your peace. Worried virtually missing a message? Focuses bear witness others the status you have up, and in FaceTime they'll fifty-fifty let people have the option to intermission through your Focus filters if it'south important. For example, texting my friend Caitlin (who is also testing these betas), I saw her Focus in Letters and had to click "Notify Anyways" to try and get her attention.
macOS 12 review: FaceTime upgrades galore
In that location are 2 pieces of large news around FaceTime video calls in macOS 12 Monterey and Apple tree's other platforms, starting with the fact that it's coming to Android and Windows. Except it's non getting an app, just a web view.
While I somewhen got things to work right with FaceTime calls between a MacBook Air M1 and both Windows and Android, there were some hiccups along the way. One colleague's video feed got very choppy, though he blamed information technology on his bad cyberspace. Since this is a beta, and I'm not ruling anything out, I decided to call up Jackie, a friend with a more than stable connexion. Everything looked and sounded great for me on our call, though they said my voice sounded "soft." So I turned on the Vocalisation Isolation setting in Command Center (found under Mic Way), and that made everything crystal clear.
The one weird part of these calls was that I wasn't seeing obvious signs that my friends were on the line. If you don't have the left-side menu open up, you may not see the person trying to bring together your call, and information technology's on me to notice a red dot on the menu button. Clicking that opens upwards the option to permit said caller into the FaceTime telephone call.
The other large change coming to FaceTime volition be SharePlay, which lets you sentry or listen to video and sound streams that are simultaneous for both callers. I tested information technology before this year, before Apple removed it from the betas.
Watching a Ted Lasso episode with my friend Caitlin, I noticed everything look crystal clear, but I wished the video from the FaceTime call and the Apple TV app windows were aware of each other. You either have to lay 1 over the other, or reduce the size of both so they tin can sit side by side. When I tested this feature on iPadOS xv, the apps were more than aware of each other, with FaceTime bubbles appearing off to the corner. That said, SharePlay is missing Netflix support at the moment, and that's no practiced.
iOS fifteen and iPadOS 15 debuted last month without the SharePlay characteristic in place. Apple tree was taking more than time to iron out some of the issues, and information technology's appeared in betas for the phone and tablet software. We tried to observe information technology in the latest beta releases in the heart of October 2021, but it was not there.
macOS 12 review: Safari's going through changes
Safari has changed a lot since its terminal major update, and afterwards users complained, Apple took that that debate into consideration. So, there are two new ways of using Safari. The Standard view keeps things as they were, while the Compact view brings your tabs up, to alongside the URL field.
In Meaty view, the Back and Forward buttons will disappear if there's no page to go "dorsum" or "forward" to. This is logical, as you don't have as much horizontal space there if your tabs are taking up that space. I'm sticking with Standard.
The other most immediately noticeable divergence is found in the overall interface of Safari, which adjusts to take on the color of the web page you're viewing. For CNN it goes all-black, which is corking. But for Tom's Guide and TweetDeck, information technology takes on a very bright bluish that's a bit much. Some may find this change to be an upgrade, like a curved ultra-wide monitor meant to immerse you in your content. I immediately looked for a way to turn it off (Settings > Avant-garde > uncheck Bear witness color in tab bar).
Safari's also added Tab Groups, a actually cool idea I didn't get at first. A tab grouping sounds like a bookmark folder, but it's instead a way to not worry about closing your windows. I could have used this back when I was planning my summer trip to Las Vegas. With a Tab Group, yous tin basically take a window full of open tabs, and tell Safari to relieve this group of tabs every bit they are; you lot can fifty-fifty adjust the pages in the Tab Grouping as you lot movement to dissimilar sites. That way, I could have had tabs for flights, hotels, and other ideas all saved and fix for me to go back to.
Think of Tag Groups as browser windows that stay concurrent in the cloud.
macOS 12 review: Universal Control not here yet
I really want to tell you about Universal Command, a new feature that lets you command up to iii iPads and Macs with the aforementioned keyboard and mouse. Sadly, that characteristic is not available nonetheless. And it doesn't appear to be coming in time for the Oct. 25 release.
I volition update this story in one case I tin can start testing information technology, but I'll admit I already have one (personal) frustration with it. I want this characteristic to be able to work even if the devices in question are non on the same Apple ID (the one big asterisk) as my work figurer tin't take my personal Apple tree ID on information technology.
macOS 12 review: Shortcuts is on the Mac
The automation crowd is plenty happy that macOS is getting the Shortcuts awarding that iOS and iPadOS accept had for years. I'chiliad not a part of that crowd, and I don't encounter myself joining them even with this app.
The built-in gallery of Shortcuts has some ideas that may seem novel to some, just it doesn't quite speak to me. Then again, I'm the type to not believe in Smart Home tech, so i wonder if it's not for me at all.
macOS 12 review: Bottom line
As this macOS 12 Monterey review has shown, this update has some cool stuff to talk about (Alive Text rules), but it'south also lacking 2 big features that were announced for it. That said, Monterey is here, even if Universal Control and SharePlay aren't.
I expect I'll get the same "should I upgrade?" questions from friends and family that I become every year. And this yr I have a large reason to tell them they should (the aforementioned Live Text). People have plenty of reasons to wait, but this fourth dimension there's something absurd that should brand people happy to update.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/macos-12-monterey
Posted by: cummingsmandeproper.blogspot.com
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