Which does seem to suggest that at least some of the on-Mac functionality will be Monterey only.Īt WWDC 2021, Apple announced improvements to several of its own apps on the Mac, introducing new features and designs. New features include a Private Relay feature that acts as a kind of VPN when browsing, and Hide My Email, which gives you the ability to create disposable email addresses you can use when signing up to services online, but which are forwarded to your real address.Īpple indicates in the footnotes that the Hide My Email feature will arrive in Mail as part of a software update to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, but that it will also come to. ICloud+ is a new enhanced version of iCloud – the features are tied to an iCloud subscription, so it may be that even users of older operating systems can benefit from some of the updates. Plus making new shortcuts should be easy, thanks to the editor that allows you to drag and drop commands rather having to learn any kind of coding. You’ll be able to choose from a library of pre-made Shortcuts to do actions like have your Mac sort your downloads folders into different file types, launch the apps you need for work, change the volume settings, and enable Do Not Disturb when going into a meeting. This should make it much easier to create routines that can automatically complete repetitive tasks you do every day. While macOS has always had the Automator utility available to building automations, macOS Monterey is stepping things up by bringing the Shortcuts feature from iOS to the Mac. So don’t get too excited if you don’t have one. Sadly, and perhaps predictably, this handy recognition of text in images will only work on M1 Macs. Apple says that it’s great for landmarks, works of art, dog breeds, and more, so we’re very keen to explore the possibilities this presents when macOS Monterey arrives. In macOS Monterey Visual Look Up will do the same things for images.Ĭlick on a part of a photo or online image and your Mac will find out more about it. On earlier versions of macOS you can three-finger tap or right-click/control-click on words to show the Look Up window, which contains definitions and Wikipedia entries about the text.

If, for example, you took a picture of a restaurant you liked the look of, and it has the address or phone number in the shot, Monterey will recognise the phone number as such and allow you to click on it to place a call or enter it in your Contacts. These allow the software to analyse text, numbers and objects in images so you can interact with them. One of the more eye-catching and useful new features for macOS Monterey is Live Text and Visual Look Up.

Monterey 12.5