Apple has introduced some meaningful features for its iPhone and iPad ecosystem through the latest iOS 15 update, and its extension iPadOS 15. This doesn’t mean that Apple is ignoring its macOS operating system. The latest macOS is called Monterey which will arrive later this fall.
Just like the iOS 15/iPadOS 15, the macOS Monterey theme is refined instead of rewriting the code. This Monterey offers practical features like Universal Control, which makes it possible to use a single keyboard and mouse/trackpad across several Macs and iPads. During the keynote, Apple’s VP, Craig Federighi demonstrated the Universal Control feature through a seamless workflow by using an iPad Pro, a MacBook Pro, and an iMac.
In the demonstration, Federighi accessed an image that was created on his iPad Pro. Then he used a trackpad and dragged/dropped the image over to the MacBook Pro. His next step was to switch on the iMac and using the connected mouse he dragged a title text image from Procreate on the iPad Pro across the MacBook Pro’s and iMac‘s display and dropped it into Final Cut.
One can not foresee the common use of this feature between two Macs but is quite useful between a Mac and an iPad. The concerned devices should be connected to the same Apple ID and their Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Handoff should be turned on. Moreover, you have to initiate Universal Control from a Mac. One should also consider hardware compatibility (most Macs released since 2016 are supported, along with all iPad Pros and recent iPad/iPad Air/iPad mini models.
The keynote also revealed that Safari has gone through a visual upgrade to tidy things up. Apple has streamlined the Smart Search field and new floating tabs to increase the visual space for the websites you visit. You can also easily access your common website of interest through Tab groups and share it across your iPhone and iPad too.
For quite a time iOS-based devices support AirPlay which allows you to stream content to a compatible TV. Now you can use the same AirPlay to share your media content from an iPhone/iPad to a Mac. The macOS Monterey also comes with the Live Text feature. This allows you to easily extract content from an image. Besides, Shortcuts will replace the Automator tool which comes from iOS/iPadOS. Shortcuts allows you to streamline your workflow by stringing multiple tasks together. Monterey also offers the feature-rich Apple Maps along with a Low Power Mode which allows you to extend your Mac’s battery life.
As per Apple, this is the list of macOS Monterey supported Macs
•iMac: Late 2015 and later
•Mac Pro: Late 2013 and later
•iMac Pro: 2017 and later
•Mac mini: Late 2014 and later
•MacBook Air: Early 2015 and later
•MacBook: Early 2016 and later
•MacBook Pro: Early 2015 and later
For now, the macOS Monterey is only available to developers but will enter the public beta phase next month.