macOS Monterey releases October 25th: These Macs are compatible
macOS Monterey has received a release date. The new desktop operating system from Apple will be available for everyone on October 25, 2021. In addition to the newly announced Macbook Pros, the following devices will receive the free update.
The macOS Monterey announced for WWDC 2021 has been completed after ten beta versions and will soon be made available for download to all owners of a compatible Mac. However, not all devices that have received macOS Big Sur will experience the new version, and some functions will not be available on Intel Macs.
After Apple removed some older devices from the compatibility list with the major update to macOS Big Sur, Monterey continues. So both the 2015 Macbook, the 2013 Macbook Air and the Macbook Pro (Late 2013) as well as the iMacs from 2014 officially stay on macOS 11 Big Sur. This brings the update journey to an end for the devices in question.
The following Macs are still compatible with macOS 12:
- iMac (Late 2015) and newer
- Mac Pro (Late 2013) and newer
- iMac Pro (2017) and newer
- Mac Mini (Late 2014) and newer
- Macbook Air (Early 2015) and newer
- Macbook (Early 2016) and newer
- Macbook Pro (Early 2015) and newer
Like iOS 15, macOS Monterey gets the Shareplay function. (Screenshot: t3n; Apple)
With macOS Monterey, Apple is bringing its platforms even closer together. A large part of the new macOS functions correspond to the features that Apple brought or will bring to iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 in September.
With Facetime, iOS 15 and Monterey users can also Facetime with Android and Windows users. (Image: t3n; Apple)
These include, for example, Shareplay in Facetime, 3D audio for more spatial sound and the quick notes feature. The focus function, 3D map material for a few regions and real-time text recognition in photos and live text are also part of the update.
Live text is also part of macOS Monterey. (Image: t3n; Apple)
Apple is also bringing the shortcuts introduced with iOS 13 to the desktop, and Safari has also received a major update. The Universal Control function (“seamless control”) announced in June also comes with Monterey. This allows users to: work with a mouse and keyboard and thus switch smoothly between Mac and iPad without having to set up the function. According to Apple, it is also possible to drag and drop content between macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15 devices.
Universal Control connects iPad with Macbook and iMac. (Image: Apple)
According to Apple, some of the functions can only be used with new computers with in-house processors. Intel Macs are left out.
macOS 12: Among other things, the new portrait mode will not be available for Intel Macs. (Screenshot: t3n; Apple)
The exclusive functions include, for example, live text recognition for photos, with which text content recognized in them can be copied, translated and searched. The new portrait mode for Facetime cannot be used on Intel Macs either, according to a footnote on the Monterey preview page.
In addition, neither the interactive 3D globe in Apple Maps is compatible with Intel Macs, nor is the new, more detailed map material, which is initially only available for London, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The extended text-to-speech function in other languages such as Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish can only be used on Macs with Apple’s own chips.
Even if the last betas of macOS Monterey seemed mostly stable, users should wait for one or the other update before installing the new OS version on their productive devices. As a rule, one or the other bug is still hidden in the final version, which is only discovered when the OS is used by a large number of people.
