macOS Monterey has now hit beta 8. As we move toward a fall release, the big feature we haven’t seen fully available to test is Universal Control. Time will tell, but we could see Apple initially ship Monterey to the public without the feature.
Update 9/29: The latest beta is now available for public testers too.
macOS Monterey beta 8 is appearing now via OTA for developers and public testers. You can also download it from Apple’s Developer website or Apple’s public beta website if you’re not running the beta yet (full guide here). The build number for today’s release is 21A5534d.
New features and changes that come with macOS 12 Monterey include a totally redesigned Safari, Shortcuts app arriving on the Mac, a new Focus mode, Quick Notes, AirPlay to Mac, Universal Control to seamlessly work across multiple Apple devices, and more.
In the third beta, Apple made some notable changes to the default Safari experience, and in the fourth beta, it enabled Live Text on Intel Macs along with a Universal Control fakeout.
- macOS Monterey beta 3 brings redesigned Safari tab interface to address complaints
- Apple brings Live Text to Intel Macs with macOS Monterey beta 4
macOS Monterey beta 8
With the 7 previous Monterey beta builds, the anticipated Universal Control feature hasn’t been fully available.
However, beta 5 did bring the ability to partially enable Universal Control, read more on how to do that here:
- You can partially enable Universal Control in macOS Monterey beta 5; here’s how
- Understanding how Universal Control works (and how it doesn’t)
It’s usually not ideal to install betas on your primary machine with bugs and performance issues being common, so use a secondary Mac if at all possible. However, with it now reaching beta 8, macOS Monterey is mostly stable.
