macOS Monterey is coming this fall with a host of new features aimed at making the Mac easier and more comfortable to use. This means that those who purchase a MacBook or iMac with Apple's new M1 chip will have exclusive access to some of Monterey's.

While none of these M1-exclusive features are deal-breakers, the fact that they highlight the gulf between M1-powered Macs and Intel-powered Macs is important, and as Apple improves the M1 chip and ships more Macs with Apple silicon, this gulf will widen more and more. [The addition of Apple silicon has greatly improved performance and battery life, making the M1-equipped MacBook one of the best laptops you can buy, as you will see in our review of the M1-equipped MacBook Air and our review of the M1-equipped MacBook Pro.

24 inches.

Even if you have an M1 Mac like the 24-inch iMac 2021 (pictured above), don't expect these exclusive features to be fully available by the time the macOS Monterey public beta is released in July. You will likely have to wait for the full version of macOS Monterey to be released this fall to actually try them out.

If you have an Intel-based Mac, you won't lose access to key features of macOS Monterey, but you will lose access to some of the cooler features in applications like Maps, FaceTime, Photos, Siri, and more. According to Apple's list of Monterey features, Mac-only features with the M1 chip include:

Dictation: Macs with the M1 chip will be able to dictate in Arabic, Cantonese, Japanese, Russian, and other languages offline (with the appropriate download). In addition, the macOS Monterey chip also supports the macOS Monterey Dictation System. Furthermore, M1-equipped Macs with macOS Monterey have no time limit for dictation, unlike macOS Big Sur, which has a 60-second limit.

FaceTime: When using FaceTime with macOS Monterey, there is a new portrait mode option that keeps the face sharp while blurring the background, but for some reason it is exclusive to M1.

Live Text: macOS Monterey allows users to select text in an image to copy and paste, search, translate, and more. This new feature is available in Photos, Quick Look, Safari, and Screenshots.

Maps: Apple Maps now includes an interactive 3D globe feature similar to Google Earth, allowing users to zoom in on major geographic landmarks and explore certain major cities (New York, San Francisco, London, etc.) at a new level of detail. The new features will allow users to zoom in on major geographic landmarks and explore certain major cities (such as New York, San Francisco, and London) at a new level of detail. However, these fancy new map features are only available on Macs with the M1 chip.

Object Capture: macOS Monterey also introduces a new AR-focused feature called Object Capture, a neat trick that is only available on Macs with the M1.

Siri Siri has been upgraded in macOS Monterey, with M1-only support for Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish speech synthesis.

Spatial Audio: If you have both an M1-powered Mac running macOS Monterey and AirPods Pro or AirPods Max earphones, new spatial audio features aimed at recreating a surround sound experience The AirPods Pro or AirPods Max earbuds will be able to The earbuds perform dynamic head tracking and change the way you hear as you move your head, making it sound like effects and dialogue are coming from the appropriate side.

While it is not certain how good or useful these features will be until macOS Monterey launches in the fall, the fact that Apple is building tools specifically for the M1 chip gives macOS users another good reason to invest in a new Mac packed with Apple silicon gives them another good reason to invest in a new Mac packed with Apple silicon.

The public beta, which will be released next month, should give us more insight into whether these features are worth the upgrade. if you have an Apple Developer Account, download the macOS Monterey developer beta now and be among the first to try out some of these features.

In the future, Apple will continue to develop macOS with new features that will only be available on Macs with the M1 chip or, if rumors are true, the next Apple M2 chip.