Apple Officially Delays macOS Monterey Universal Control Until Spring 2022

[I WAS the one]

The only thing That made me think about updating and it’s not coming. In my daily workflow none of the other features will boost my productivity like the feature absent. Take my advice Apple, and go buy Luna from Astropad guys.

 

[agostonbarna]

Good. Let's concentrate on bug fixes first for once. There is plenty left from the rushed updates of the last 10 years.
I still remember how incredible OS X's stability was compared to Windows. One of the main reasons why I switched to OS X. Unfortunately, the last super stable release was probably Snow Leopard in 2009, and the number of bugs have been exponentially increasing ever since. For a long time, it seemed like Apple just cannot learn from its repeated mistakes of releasing more and more stuff without properly finishing them. But it's refreshing to see that this trend might change.

 

[Soba]

This is yet more evidence that Apple's software engineering processes are broken. The release cycle is nonsense and results in unfinished features and products shipping with serious delays or not shipping at all.

I never thought I would say this, but Microsoft's release cadence is now making a lot more sense than Apple's. In the old days, it was torturous waiting months or even years for Microsoft to ship service packs to fix problems, but with Microsoft's current practice of releasing fixes every month and then releasing significant updates twice every year on a regular schedule—without releasing an entirely new OS, thus preserving stability—they are putting Apple to shame. Windows 10 is a very stable and predictable product at this point.

macOS is not a stable product—especially at release time. Apple needs to stop throwing stuff out the door and rethink how they approach their release and development schedules. They are embarrassing themselves and making life a lot harder for their customers.

 

[reasonablewolf]

This is what happens when people are still working from home. Planning and executing becomes very hard, even for Apple.

 

[Realityck]

Apple has officially delayed Universal Control, a hallmark feature of macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15 announced in June, until Spring 2022.

Likely stalled until the the redesigned larger iMac ships.

 

[drumpat01]

Good. Let's concentrate on bug fixes first for once. There is plenty left from the rushed updates of the last 10 years.
I still remember how incredible OS X's stability was compared to Windows. One of the main reasons why I switched to OS X. Unfortunately, the last super stable release was probably Snow Leopard in 2009, and the number of bugs have been exponentially increasing ever since. For a long time, it seemed like Apple just cannot learn from its repeated mistakes of releasing more and more stuff without properly finishing them. But it's refreshing to see that this trend might change.

Oh man. I was working in the Apple store in Fort Worth, TX during that launch and those days were ****ing amazing. Everyone who came in loved us. Mac OS X was crazy solid and those features were breathtaking. Snow Leopard was when we got Bootcamp for the first time. That feature alone sold SO many Macs! And yes, by the time I left in 2013, things were getting rocky at the Genius bar. Software issues we couldn't fix, strange bugs. We felt Apple just ignored Mac OS X and instead focused on iOS. And I mean, I understand why (money), but these long delays of major features speak to the consequences of years of this behavior.

 

[Realityck]

This is yet more evidence that Apple's software engineering processes are broken. The release cycle is nonsense and results in unfinished features and products shipping with serious delays or not shipping at all.

Until the rest of Apple 2 year hardware transition is more complete that is the reason they would be doing that, not because of the OS not being stable. 😛

 

[anthogag]

That’s not Universal Control. That’s Sidecar

What is Universal Control...

Use 1 mouse and keyboard across all Macs and iPads. I can use my mouse and keyboard across my M1 Mac mini and iPad. This is "Universal Control"

 

[poematik13]

Does anyone else feel like this is a gimmick?

That's most of macOS these days. Just tons of dumb features and radical platform changes with very little focus on bug fixes, performance, and reliability. Which ironically, are the 3 things that differentiated this thing from windows and caused so many people to switch and make apple what it is today

I'm on 10.15.7 on every machine and don't see any reason at all to upgrade until I'm forced to, when security updates stop.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Disappointing... they announced it a year too soon.

 

[dugbug]

What is Universal Control...

Use 1 mouse and keyboard across all Macs and iPads. I can use my mouse and keyboard across my M1 Mac mini and iPad. This is "Universal Control"

yeah some confusion here:

sidecar = extend or mirror your macos display onto the ipad (you are not looking at ipad apps)
universal control = move mouse+keyboard between devices, but their display and apps are native to them.

So with uc you can mouse over to the ipad and work an ipad app, then copy something, then move mouse back over to mac and paste. Pretty wicked useful if you have an ipad and a workflow imho.

 

[csalm87]

Universal Control is the one where the mouse goes across screens...I have this feature. From my M1 Mac mini I can connect to my 12.9" iPad Pro and move the cursor between the 2 screens. I have Apple beta software on all of my devices. Perhaps beta testers still have this feature; I have it.

This is not Universal Control feature. It's called Sidecar and it works with the iPad.

Universal Control will essentially bring the Sidecar feature to all iPads and Macs, with added bonuses.

 

[bmustaf]

I wonder what the issues are.

If I had to guess I would say it would be the overly optimistic assumption that they can detect relative position by BT signal processing alone across a variety of environments.

I suspect it works quite well in non-cluttered/non-multi-path environments, but as they started to work on things in real-world environments (outside well-controlled labs) with all kinds of interference and noise, the quality of the feature likely just was not there (yet, and may never be until all relevant devices have UWB radios, it wouldn't be the first time Apple bit off a bit more than they could chew, it's rare, but it happens).

Determining position through RF signal processing seems simple at first, but even the simplest cases like this, where devices are very close, known, and owned by the same user is tough. Even if it's the seemingly straight forward case of "signal was strong through diversity antenna A and we know diversity antenna A is on the right side of the machine", when you add in things like multi-path distortion and clutter that totally invalidate the assumption that "the stronger signal is the direction of the device", you get some really nasty edge cases that aren't that infrequent, actually.

And good for Apple for not choosing to release something that doesn't work (they've done that, too, as have many other vendors, and no one likes that).

 

[ian87w]

More proof to stop with the yearly new OS cycle. I mean by then, there’s WWDC coming and the engineers would’ve needed to prepare for more tent pole features to be advertised on the keynote.

The worse part is that due to the yearly releases, sometimes Apple left the last OS with some unfixed bugs that are “fixed” in the new OS, but due to their hardware obsolescence policy, many macs can be stuck with that last OS with the bugs.

Apple need to learn the concept of LTSC. Microsoft is doing it right with Windows, with various channels from insiders preview, regular consumer stable channel, and LTSC. This is also why majority of enterprises are on Windows. Nobody can rely on Apple’s buggy and yearly new release cadence.

 

[diggy33]

I appreciate that they’re taking their time with it rather than releasing it buggy, but it still doesn’t feel quite right they announced the feature in June for a software version that came out in September, yet it won’t even be coming out until Spring (March? April? May? June?) 2022.

I get it’s a feature they want to demonstrate with a video (what better way?), but it still feels misleading.

I mean...they release buggy OS's all the time. Whats wrong with including a fudged piece of software with it?

 

[Wxchaser]

Whatever happened to Apple Software Engineering & design? To promise and advertise this software component - then delay it again - proves a lack of respect for Apple's customers.

Highly disappointed.

 

[gwhizkids]

Universal Control is the one where the mouse goes across screens...I have this feature. From my M1 Mac mini I can connect to my 12.9" iPad Pro and move the cursor between the 2 screens. I have Apple beta software on all of my devices. Perhaps beta testers still have this feature; I have it.

No you don't.

 

[827538]

I think they should move to a tick-tock release cycle.

Release a new feature laden OS one year with two years of support, then release a optimization and bug fix OS the following year with two years of support. Enterprise/business users can then upgrade once every two years knowing they are running a polished OS.

I do like some new features but it feels like OS's are so mature now they are trying to find anything to add to a release just to say 'hey, we added 1,2,3,4...'. In the early days of iPhone it felt like it was lacking many things, so much so I used to jailbreak years ago. Now iOS is so mature there's nothing I want to add to it, I just want speed, stability, and battery life.

 

[MikhailT]

This is yet more evidence that Apple's software engineering processes are broken. The release cycle is nonsense and results in unfinished features and products shipping with serious delays or not shipping at all.

I never thought I would say this, but Microsoft's release cadence is now making a lot more sense than Apple's. In the old days, it was torturous waiting months or even years for Microsoft to ship service packs to fix problems, but with Microsoft's current practice of releasing fixes every month and then releasing significant updates twice every year on a regular schedule—without releasing an entirely new OS, thus preserving stability—they are putting Apple to shame. Windows 10 is a very stable and predictable product at this point.

macOS is not a stable product—especially at release time. Apple needs to stop throwing stuff out the door and rethink how they approach their release and development schedules. They are embarrassing themselves and making life a lot harder for their customers.

While I agree with you that annual releases are not currently sustainable at Apple, it is not the reason for all of this issues they're having. After all, we saw with iOS 12 that if they simply focus on optimization and bug fix, they can release a solid update within a year; same with the macOS release that time, I think it was Catalina or Big Sur.

First, Apple is not releasing a new OS every year or even every 5 years, no one can rewrite an OS every year, it takes decades to do what current desktop OS can do, they're one of the most complicated codebases on the planet.

macOS 12.1 is the same OS since Snow Leopard or some might say Lion but the reason Apple did SL was because they've reworked the core with the plans for that release to be ready for the _next decade_ of releases.

Apple needs to do another refactoring of their platforms but I think they're likely waiting for Swift, Mac Catalyst, SwiftUI to be more mature and other tech like the Apple Silicon transition to be done before they do that (end of 2022). So, give another year for things to settle down, I suspect we won't see any serious reworking to even show up until `2024-2025 (they'll remove Intel stuff as well).

As for Windows 10, remember that Apple has multiple OSes they're working on at the same time to ensure vertical integration support is solid; watchOS, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS and so on. Microsoft doesn't have features like universal clipboard sync, side car, etc nor do they build a mobile OS and so on.

Also, Windows 10 isn't that stable, I had bad upgrades 2-3 times from Windows 10 in the last two years alone. If Windows 10 is so stable, they wouldn't be releasing massive long of bug fixes every single month.

 

[Slo Pesci]

I'm fine with sidecar

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

If Steve Jobs were still Alive HEADS would ROLL and People would be fired for not producing good software.

Right, because Steve Jobs never delayed anything.
You know, except for push notifications, announced in June 2008, supposed to ship in September 2008, actually shipped in September… 2009.
Or Mac OS X Leopard, supposed to ship in late 2006/early 2007, actually shipped in… October 2007.
Or MMS, which was delayed by three months, or an assortment of other things

 

[JippaLippa]

might as well ship it with the next one, right?

Exactly.
Not a big fan of these announcements of features that will eventually come

 

[gwhizkids]

If I had to guess I would say it would be the overly optimistic assumption that they can detect relative position by BT signal processing alone across a variety of environments.

I suspect it works quite well in non-cluttered/non-multi-path environments, but as they started to work on things in real-world environments (outside well-controlled labs) with all kinds of interference and noise, the quality of the feature likely just was not there (yet, and may never be until all relevant devices have UWB radios, it wouldn't be the first time Apple bit off a bit more than they could chew, it's rare, but it happens).

Determining position through RF signal processing seems simple at first, but even the simplest cases like this, where devices are very close, known, and owned by the same user is tough. Even if it's the seemingly straight forward case of "signal was strong through diversity antenna A and we know diversity antenna A is on the right side of the machine", when you add in things like multi-path distortion and clutter that totally invalidate the assumption that "the stronger signal is the direction of the device", you get some really nasty edge cases that aren't that infrequent, actually.

And good for Apple for not choosing to release something that doesn't work (they've done that, too, as have many other vendors, and no one likes that).

This ⬆️ is the most sensible post in this thread.

Apple was, perhaps, foolish in not being reasonably certain that UC could be in working condition by the time iOS 15 shipped.

But, many of you will also recall that the OG iPhone was a similarly kludgy mess when Steve Jobs demoed it. He had to do the demo in a certain pattern and if he hadn't done so, the phone would have crashed. Live.

So, this is not totally new behavior by Apple. They probably thought it would be ready by now and felt safe in demoing it.

But also remember that Apple quasi-publicly stated a few years ago that not all tent pole features were going to be ready on day 1 of each major iOS release.

Bottom line: Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) are still competing for mindshare, if not marketshare, and each feels the need to introduce innovative features each year. That's getting more and more difficult as the OSes mature, but I'm sure their respective marketing teams believe they have to do this. Imagine the outcry from the tech press if either company simply issued a maintenance update one year.

 

[efktd]

The messages in the cloud team would like to buy y’all a drink.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Oh man. I was working in the Apple store in Fort Worth, TX during that launch and those days were ****ing amazing. Everyone who came in loved us. Mac OS X was crazy solid and those features were breathtaking. Snow Leopard was when we got Bootcamp for the first time. That feature alone sold SO many Macs! And yes, by the time I left in 2013, things were getting rocky at the Genius bar. Software issues we couldn't fix, strange bugs. We felt Apple just ignored Mac OS X and instead focused on iOS. And I mean, I understand why (money), but these long delays of major features speak to the consequences of years of this behavior.

Um… boot camp was introduced in Tiger.
Snow Leopard was the famous “0 new features” release