Apple announced last Monday some of the features that will come with the next version of Apple's operating system for laptops and desktops, dubbed Monterey (with an r). What Apple did not mention during the presentation, is that some of these functions, require an M1 processor.
That is, they will not be available on all those Macs managed by an Intel processor, regardless of how long it has been on the market and including those that Apple still officially sells through its website and the Apple Store.
Features exclusive to computers managed by macOS Monterey that will only be available on the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac Mini and new iMac are:
- Blurred portrait mode backgrounds in FaceTime videos
- Live Text to copy and paste, search or translate text within photos
- An interactive 3D globe in the Maps app
- More detailed maps of cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and London in the Maps app
- Text-to-speech in more languages including Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish
- On-device keyboard dictation that performs all processing completely offline
- Unlimited keyboard dictation (previously limited to 60 seconds per instance)
Apple has not explained why these features will not be available on Macs powered by Intel processors. If we take into account that Google Earth offers interactive access to the globe in 3D both via the web and through an application, we we can get an idea of Apple's reasons for limiting these functions.
If Apple's path to transition from Intel to Apple Silicon begins limiting new features to teams with their own processors, we are going wrong.
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