What you need to know
- Apple's macOS Monterey Universal Control feature is now listed as beta.
- The beta designation was added in macOS Monterey beta 12, but it still can't be used.
When Apple showed off macOS Monterey during its WWDC event earlier this year, Universal Control was one of the standout features. Being able to use a mouse and keyboard to control a nearby iPad looked and sounded amazing. And then things went dark. Four months later, we still can't test it even in the tenth macOS Monterey beta. Now, the feature itself has a beta tag of its own.
Spied by 9to5Mac after a little jiggery-pokery, the new feature can be enabled to a point. They saw a new beta label, with the feature itself housed within an 'Advanced' section of the Displays portion of System Preferences.
9to5Mac was able to notice these changes by forcibly enabling Universal Control on a Mac running macOS Monterey beta 10. Now when you go to the Display settings in the System Preferences app, there is a label indicating that Universal Control can be enabled, but as an unfinished feature that may not work as expected.
It isn't immediately clear whether Universal Control will get its debut when macOS Monterey is released — likely, soon. It's possible the device-switching feature will be live, but with the beta tag there to remind everyone that they should expect problems.
Apple is likely to confirm when macOS Monterey will be made available during its Unleashed event on Monday, an event that is also expected to see the debut of new mini-LED MacBook Pros. They're sure to be the best Mac's for people who need power on the move. It remains to be seen whether they'll have Universal Control at launch — a feature I absolutely cannot wait for!
