Last year, Apple scaled Big Sur. This year, it's taking us to Monterey.

Apple announced the next iteration of the Mac's operating system, dubbed Monterey, at WWDC 2021. As we expected, the latest version of macOS isn't a huge departure from what came before, with last year's Big Sur update being fairly substantial on its own. That said, there are a few neat changes here, starting with what Apple is calling "Universal Control."

If you own multiple Apple devices, such as a MacBook and an iPad, you can now connect them wirelessly and bring the mouse cursor from the MacBook over to the iPad screen (and vice versa). With Universal Control, you can drag and drop files from one device to the other, and even connect more than two Apple devices together at once. Sure, owning an iMac, MacBook, and iPad all at once sounds expensive, but now it's effectively a triple-monitor setup if you want it to be.

Oh, and along similar lines, Mac displays are now AirPlay-compatible so you have yet another way to show off vacation photos.

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Tab groups!Credit: apple

Beyond that, Apple showed off "Shortcuts" — a way to set up one-click macros that you can activate through the menu bar or Siri. If you're a writer, you can set up a shortcut to open your word processor of choice andyour favorite eight-hour-long ambient noise video on YouTube, for example.

Speaking of browser windows, Apple showed off an updated version of Safari. It's got a new, streamlined look, with tabs that change color depending on the color of the page you're looking at. It's also getting some convenient features that have become standard in other browsers lately (see: Chrome), like tab groups and increased support for extensions.

We didn't expect macOS Monterey to be a huge change from Big Sur, but things like Universal Control and Shortcuts will surely make it a more usable operating systems, especially for creators.

Now all that's left to do is spend the thousands of dollars necessary to buy all of those Apple devices.

TopicsWWDC