Apple has released macOS Monterey, bringing new features to help users connect in new ways, accomplish more, and work seamlessly across their Apple devices.
FaceTime includes new audio and video features that make calls feel more natural and lifelike, and new Continuity tools like AirPlay to Mac enable Apple devices to work even better together. Live Text and Visual Lookup bring new intelligence features to surface useful information, Safari includes tab organization with Tab Groups, and the ease of automation comes to the Mac with Shortcuts.
Coming later this fall, SharePlay will enable Mac users to have shared experiences together through FaceTime, and Universal Control will make it easy for users to work effortlessly across their Mac and iPad.
FaceTime
FaceTime calls sound more natural and lifelike, and SharePlay offers a new way for users to connect and enjoy time with friends and family. With spatial audio, voices in a FaceTime call sound like they are coming from where the person is positioned on the screen.
Two new microphone modes give users more control over how their voice sounds: Voice Isolation eliminates background noise to ensure the user’s voice is crystal clear, and Wide Spectrum allows all the noise to come in so participants can hear everything.
Portrait mode, a new feature in FaceTime and available in apps including Webex and Zoom, utilizes the Neural Engine in the M1 chip to keep the user in focus while blurring the background, and a new grid view shows participants of a Group FaceTime call in same-size tiles.
SharePlay is a powerful set of features that will enable users to have shared experiences on a FaceTime call. Users can experience their favourite music, TV shows, movies, and more with friends and family in real time, and shared playback controls let anyone in a SharePlay session play, pause, or jump ahead. They can also share their whole screen or just a specific app, making it easy to collaborate with friends or co-workers on a call.
SharePlay will work with apps like Apple Music and Apple TV+, as well as popular third-party services.
Universal Control and AirPlay
With Universal Control, users will be able to work with a single mouse and keyboard and move seamlessly between Mac and iPad. Users can place devices next to each other and instantly move the cursor from one device to the other — no setup required. They can use their Mac keyboard to type text on any device, or drag and drop content back and forth easily between devices.
Users can even draw with Apple Pencil on iPad, and place their illustrations right into apps on their Mac, enjoying the powerful capabilities of all their devices at once.
With AirPlay to Mac, it’s easy to play, present, and share just about anything from iPhone or iPad right to a Mac. Use AirPlay to share the latest movies and games, photos, and presentations directly to the Mac’s stunning Retina display or to play music from across the room to the high-fidelity sound system in your Mac.
Live Text and Visual Lookup
Live Text detects text in photos, including phone numbers, websites, addresses, and more, so users can copy and paste, make a phone call, open a website, and easily look up more information.
Visual Look Up helps users discover and learn about animals, art, landmarks, plants, and more in photos.
Both Live Text and Visual Look Up work across macOS and leverage powerful on-device machine learning, so user data is kept private.
Focus
Focus filters notifications from apps and people based on what the user wants to focus on in that moment. When a user has Focus set on their Mac, it automatically sets across their other Apple devices.
While using Focus, a status is automatically displayed in Messages and supported communication apps, like Slack, so others know not to interrupt when users are wrapping up a project or on vacation.
More Ways to Organize and Collaborate with Notes
With Notes in Monterey, users have new ways to collaborate, stay organized, and create notes from anywhere. Quick Note gives users the ability to jot down notes while in any app, so it’s easy to capture thoughts and ideas at any moment.
Users can also add links from apps to a Quick Note, great for when they need to remember a website in Safari or quickly finding a location in Maps. New collaboration tools let users add mentions, as well as view updates to a shared note with the new Activity view.
In Monterey, it’s easy to organize with Tags — a faster way to categorize notes and make them easy to find with the new Tag Browser.Â
Tabs in Safari
Safari offers users more control over how they browse the web, including a new Tab Groups feature that allows users to easily save and organize tabs — great for planning trips, researching projects, and storing the tabs users visit regularly. Tab Groups sync across Mac, iPhone, and iPad, so users can continue their project from anywhere, and easily share tabs with friends and family.
Safari comes with new ways to experience the web, including a new optional compact tab bar design that gives users more space to browse, integration with Shared with You so users can easily access links sent from Messages, and support for Quick Note makes it easy to keep track of information discovered on websites.
Safari also offers users more privacy protections, with Intelligent Tracking Prevention now preventing trackers from profiling users with their IP address.
Shortcuts
Shortcuts on the Mac helps users achieve peak productivity with the apps they use the most. With a rich gallery of pre-built shortcuts, it’s easy for users to automate everyday tasks, like instantly opening their frequently used apps to jumpstart their workday, or adding a reminder to their groceries list for when they get to the market, right from their Mac.
And Shortcuts editor enables users to customize shortcuts to match their workflows. With Shortcuts integrated throughout macOS, including the menu bar, Finder, Spotlight, and Siri, it’s easy to run shortcuts at any time.
Users can also import existing Automator workflows into Shortcuts and instantly be up and running.
Shared with You
Shared with You makes it easy to enjoy content shared through Messages right in Photos, Safari, Apple Podcasts, Apple News, and the Apple TV app. Users can easily find shared content, see who recommended it, and reply inline on the original thread it was shared.
Maps
Maps offers an all-new immersive experience with extraordinary detail for roads, neighbourhoods, trees, buildings, and more, all brought to life right on the Mac’s stunning display.
iCloud+
iCloud+Â combines everything users love about iCloud with new premium features, including Hide My Email, expanded HomeKit Secure Video support, and an innovative new internet privacy service, iCloud Private Relay, at no additional cost.
All iCloud+ plans can be shared with people in the same Family Sharing group, so everyone can enjoy the new features, storage, and elevated experience that comes with the service.
Current iCloud storage subscribers will be upgraded to iCloud+ automatically at no additional cost.
Spatial audio
Spatial audio comes to Macs with the M1 chip, delivering a theatre-like experience with AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro, and AirPods Max. And with dynamic head tracking, sound stays fixed to the Mac even as the user moves their head.
Mail Privacy Protection
Mail Privacy Protection prevents senders from learning whether an email has been opened, and hides IP addresses so senders can’t learn a user’s location or use it to build a profile on them.
Accessibility
New accessibility features let anyone add alternative image descriptions right from Markup, and improved Full Keyboard Access and new cursor customization options provide more flexibility when navigating Mac.
macOS Monterey is available today as a free software update on Macs with Apple silicon and Intel-based Macs.
