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Apple seeds second developer beta of macOS Monterey 12.1

Apple has provided developers with a second beta build of macOS Monterey 12.1 for testing, as part of the latest pre-release rollouts.

The newest beta versions can be acquired from the Apple Developer Center by participants in the Developer Beta program, or as an over-the-air update for devices already using the betas. Public beta versions arrive within a few days of the developer versions, accessible via the Apple Beta Software Program site.

Apple's second beta follows the first, which it handed over to developers on October 28. Apple released macOS Monterey to the public on October 25.

The first beta included SharePlay, a feature of FaceTime that allowed users to view or listen to music within the same call. The beta also included support for the AMD Radeon 6600XT, along with App Store and SwiftUI fixes.

AppleInsider, and Apple itself, cautiously reminds users to avoid installing betas on to "mission-critical" or primary devices, due to the potential for data loss or other issues. It is instead recommended to install betas onto secondary or non-essential devices, and to ensure there are sufficient backups of important data beforehand.

Find any changes in the new betas? Reach out to us on Twitter at @AppleInsider or @Andrew_OSU, or send Andrew an email at andrew@AppleInsider.com.



2 Comments

rcfa 17 Years · 1123 comments

For all those hoping for M1-series eGPU support any time soon: I seriously doubt it will ever come. 

Introducing eGPU support would likely require turning off all the kernel optimizations that only work in a unified memory model, since any GPU separate from
the SoC would require breaking with the unified memory model.
I doubt Apple would want to give up that hard fought for architectural advantage, just to eek out a few FPS in borderline gaming performance while giving up system wide performance optimizations in exchange.

Mike Wuerthele 8 Years · 6906 comments

rcfa said:
For all those hoping for M1-series eGPU support any time soon: I seriously doubt it will ever come. 
Introducing eGPU support would likely require turning off all the kernel optimizations that only work in a unified memory model, since any GPU separate from
the SoC would require breaking with the unified memory model.
I doubt Apple would want to give up that hard fought for architectural advantage, just to eek out a few FPS in borderline gaming performance while giving up system wide performance optimizations in exchange.

I tend to agree with most of what you're saying.

We'll see what happens when a Mac Pro-like machine develops, but I am not expecting a return.