10 Great macOS Monterey Features Worth Upgrading For

[insomniac86]

Honestly most boring update ever nothing worth installing it for, why do you need to airplay music to it when you can just play music on the Mac music app

Have you ever thought that maybe you want to share content isn’t on the music app? Have you thought about wanting to control the Soundsystem hooked up to a Mac and you don’t want to have to constantly walk over and grab the keyboard just to change the song?

 

[Neil Harrison]

Doubt many will use it apart from trying it as a demo

I will I have trackpad mouse and keyboard I want to use it’s ipad

Not much for me in this update.

 

[Oguzhan Tufenk]

Safari RAM usage and speed are very well optimized. It can be upgraded just for that. Actually, Monterey is the best OS for the M1.

 

[casperghst42]

Is it possible to remove Wifi from control panel, if not, then I'll just stay with Catalina.

 

[- rob -]

Having said that, I am personally enjoying these features/changes:

1. Passwords in System Preferences. I am in the processing of migrating from 1Password to Apple and this little change makes it much easier to copy/paste passwords into other apps.

Can you say more about this process? For example, do you use non-password fields in 1PW like Identities, Notes, etc?

 

[George Dawes]

think I'll buy a new mac just for this- impressed

 

[dumastudetto]

Universal Control is the only one I'm interested in, and it didn't make the cut for release :/

The future of Mac is iPad Pro. If you want exciting new features, iPadOS is where you need to be. macOS is the legacy platform.

 

[skir]

Animated Memoji Avatar is a feature "worth upgrading for"? Are you serious? Memoji are disgusting.

I understand memojies are a kind of privacy feature, when you have a very ugly doll image instead of your real photo or video, and it makes it harder for creepy algorithms to extract you real image and use it in some creepy ways (face recognition).

But come on! They are so ugly.

 

[mackiemesser97]

All of those shiny new things, but no change to *Autocorrect*. Apple is driving me crazy.

When I write a name which Autocorrect changes automatically, and I go back to correct the autocorrect, why is it not learning this name and instead AGAIN insisting to autocorrect!?! Same thing for years, on all Apple OS.

 

[matrix07]

So I don't get how AirPlay to Mac works on the 2017 12 inch MacBook but not the 2017 15 inch MacBook pro. I have both and tested with apple fitness+ from my phone to the 12 inch MacBook, works great. You would think the more powerful machine could better handle it

THAT's literally the only thing I'm gonna use AirPlay to Mac for ?

 

[StoneJack]

I installed it on Macbook Pro and truly did not find any differences from Big Sur. My desktop stays with Catalina.

 

[joiwomcow]

Eh, Mojave still works fine.

 

[allan.nyholm]

edit.. if this has been reported via MacRumors' official channels or other users of this page I am sorry for bringing it up again.

One of the more interesting things for me when I was using the beta versions of Monterey was that there is now a theming possibility for your cursors so that you can have that Amiga-like colored cursor you've always wanted

This change takes effect in all aspects of macOS Monterey - resizing windows, link hover cursor and text input cursor for the Terminal or text editors (one thing that Mousecape hasn't been able to inject into since macOS Mojave or perhaps macOS Catalina) Now you can have the color you like. The only thing this doesn't change is the beachball wait animation.

Mousecape still has a place on macOS Monterey, however this addition to macOS is one of the fun ones that I didn't see Apple making an effort to code into macOS. I realize that this setting is located in the Accessibility portion of System Preferences, but that doesn't mean that it isn't fun to play with. The only thing that is a bit of a down side is that screenshots taking of this setting doesn't come out well and in my case the cursor was blue when I took a screenshot. I had to instead record my screen with a 5 second timer using the Screenshot utility in macOS and then screenshot this after the fact the regular way after opening the recording in QuickTime Player.

Also, in an extra fun turn of events, Apple has with macOS Monterey added a thin/narrow border around Finder toolbar buttons & toolbar buttons through out Apple's applications in general.

Slight border is not to taken lightly - it's a really thin/narrow border that I intend to mess with after the dust settles - meaning theming it to be different.

This here attachment is a GIF animation. And will magically move when clicked on - opening the MacRumors' built-in viewer that you are used to when viewing images here.

 

[Crazy Badger]

Have Apple spelt it wrong, or is it just a silent 't'?

 

[triptolemus]

Have Apple spelt it wrong, or is it just a silent 't'?

 

[legis_arvum]

Monterrey colours are treacly luscious and Awful

 

[BuddyRich]

I don’t know if you’ve used airplay before, but you can do other stuff on your phone while airplaying, even if it’s video being streamed. That’s the beauty of airplay.

Airplay for Mac works just as well as airplay for tv.

Airplay is very inconsistant at this. If im playing music and then open a podcast it gets sent to the airplay target, even if i just want to listsn only on my phone. podcast takes over the stream. Youtube will duck it , but if i open netflix, it also takes over the stream, so you can do some things, but other things tie up your phone.

Not so for the devices that advertise as their own player like the ATV4K or Homepod, they get their own now playing cards and the phone acts more like a remote for things only.

 

[svish]

Erasing Mac is now easy thanks to the new feature. Also the new FaceTime links feature is useful.

 

[anthorumor]

Factory restore is actually great. Can't wait to use it to sell my Intel mac for a shiny new future Apple silicone computer!

 

[theluggage]

Eh, Mojave still works fine.

Absolutely.
Methinks I'll stick with Mojave until I switch to an Apple Silicon Mac (which I'll decide on when Apple have a full range of laptops and desktops to choose from) - at which point I know I'm going to have to accept some changes in which software I use (starting with ditching Windows virtualisation - which isn't a deal-breaker but is still a minor hassle).

It's not that I want to hate on any of these Monterey (or Big Sur) features, but they're pretty weak beer alongside the hassle of dealing with a major compatibility-breaking OS upgrade, possibly having to upgrade various bits of third-party software and (certainly when upgrading past Mojave) probably having to retire a few unsupported apps.

OK, so I'm stuck a version behind on (e.g.) Logic - but then I'd almost certainly lose a bunch of plug-ins & pay $$$ to upgrade a few more.

For people already on Big Sur (which is likely to be the mass extinction event for abandonware) I guess the question is how much third-party software needs upgrading for Monterey...?

 

[nutmac]

Can you say more about this process? For example, do you use non-password fields in 1PW like Identities, Notes, etc?

I use 1Password heavily. Most items on the Logins category are just the username, password, and 2FA, but a handful of them have additional details, such as security Q&A, PIN, recovery code, and account ID.

I have migrated some to Apple's Notes app, but the experience is predictably not ideal.

In all likelihood, I will keep 1Password 7 around as an archive, without the browser extension.

 

[redheeler]

AirPlay to Mac is something I've wanted for literally 7 years (better late than never I guess) but otherwise there's nothing really compelling here, Monterey is to Big Sur like Catalina is to Mojave and also an excuse to obsolete more older Macs.

 

[HenryAH]

Airplay to Mac is an ok feature, but what I really would like is the other way around, Mac to Airplay back to an iPhone or iPad. Apple used to have this feature with Airplay 1 and iTunes years ago, it worked very sporadically, but allowed me to Airplay from my Mac to my iPad.

 

[warriors2017]

The new UI looks slick. Even Safari looks more polished. Still waiting for a new iMac 27" with M1 Pro, but maybe I can fool myself thinking I already have one with this update.

 

[KaplanMike]

Does anyone know if Messages finally lets you delete multiple text messages at a time (like it does on the iPhone)? For whatever reason, I'm flooded with spam texts, and it's a pain to manually select, delete and then CONFIRM the delete, over and over and over...