World enews: MacOS Monterey release date: Apple to release new computer operating system next week

The new version of MacOS will arrive next week, Apple has announced.

After an event that saw it reveal two new high-powered chips as well as two new MacBook Pros to house them in, it said that the updated operating system would be available on 25 October.

Apple revealed MacOS Monterey during its Worldwide Developers Conference event in June. Since then, it has gone through a number of betas and a number of changes – including the gradual relaxing of some of the more dramatic changes that first came to Safari.

Monterey also looks set to announce without two of the main features that were announced during that WWDC keynote. In the press release for those new laptops, Apple said that SharePlay and Universal Control will arrive “later this fall”.

SharePlay allows users to share content such as videos in a FaceTime call, allowing people to watch films together on their devices, for instance. It was also delayed on the iPhone, but has shown up in recent beta releases, suggesting a launch might be imminent.

Universal Control lets Macs and iPads talk to each other so that files can be moved between them and they can be controlled with one trackpad, but it never showed up in the beta versions of the operating system.

Monterey will however bring new updates to FaceTime and Messages, as well as features that have arrived on the iPhone already with the launch of iOS 15, such as its “Focus” tool.

As with all of Apple’s operating system updates, it will be available as a free download through the App Store.