Revealing macOS 13 Ventura: Latest macOS Features, Release Date

At the opening keynote of WWDC 2022, Apple announced the most up-to-date macOS - macOS 13, as the successor to macOS 12 Monterey. This new macOS will be packed with two fresh features: Stage Manager on Mac and Continuity Camera, an enhanced Spotlight search, a redesigned System Preferences app, updated apps, new security tools, and Apple Passkeys. Let's take a look at the new features of this operating system and get the answer to the question "Should I upgrade to macOS Ventura?".

New macOS name: Ventura

Instead of the rumored macOS Mammoth, Apple revealed the new macOS name as macOS Ventura, taken from a city on the central coast of California. This tradition of naming an operating system after a place in Apple's headquarter has been carried on since OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

macOS 13 release date

Apple hasn't specified the official release date of the next version of macOS. Likely, it won't be rolled out until much later this year, typically in September or October, when Apple generally releases its annual macOS update. Its predecessor macOS Monterey arrived on October 25, 2021, and was unveiled around the same time (June 7, 2021) as macOS 13, so you can expect a similar time.

macOS 13 Beta release date

Apple seeded the first macOS 13 Beta to developers on June 6, 2022, which registered developers can access through the Apple Developer Center. Once the needed profile is installed, the developer beta can be updated from the System Update pane in System Preferences.

Though the public beta of macOS 13 won't arrive until July 2022, you can now sign up for the free beta program if you want to try the software before its official release.

macOS Ventura compatibility & supported devices

The arrival of the first M1 Mac in 2020 marked the beginning of Apple's transition from Intel chips to Apple Silicon. As part of the progress, they now have the M2 chip. To accelerate the transition to Apple Silicon, Apple is taking a faster pace to obsolete Intel Macs and has limited macOS 13 Ventura to newer Mac models. Here is the list of supported devices on macOS 13.0:

macOS Ventura: Latest macOS features

This new macOS 13 Ventura mainly focus on productivity improvements in multitasking and better integration with iPad and iPhone. Here are all the new features of macOS Ventura unveiled at WWDC 2022:

Stage Manager - An automatic way to group windows and apps

Working across multiple windows and apps is much easier with Stage Manger in Apple macOS 13. It automatically keeps the window currently in use in the center and the rest on the left side of your screen. This way, you can concentrate on one app with fewer distractions from other windows or apps. 

Stage Manager also allows you to sort open windows and apps for specific projects, rearrange Windows's size or position, and switch between windows with the customization preserved.

Continuity Camera - Use your iPhone as the camera on Mac

If you are not satisfied with your Mac's camera quality and wish to use your iPhone's camera for video calls instead, macOS 13.0 will make your dream come true. A Mac running macOS 13 Ventura can automatically recognize a nearby iPhone as a webcam without connecting or selecting it as long as both Apple devices are signed in to the same Apple ID and have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. 

Besides, your iPhone can also connect to a Mac wirelessly and Handoff a FaceTime call to your Mac and vice versa. Even better, Continuity Camera can utilize your iPhone's Ultra-Wide camera to enable Desk View, which shows your face on the screen and an overview of your desk. Desk View lets others know what you are working on, which helps create DIY videos and display sketches or others over FaceTime. 

Moreover, the Continuity Camera supports Center Stage, Portrait Mode, and a new Studio Light feature that illuminates a user's face while dimming the background.

Passkeys - A secure, password-free sign-in system

Apple is working with the FIDO Alliance to reduce people's reliance on passwords and replace them with Passkeys. These passkeys are virtually impossible to leak as they will be only stored on your Mac and never on a web server. In the next version of macOS, when you land on a login page in Safari, instead of entering the password, your Mac will prompt you to use either Touch ID or Face ID on your iPhone or iPad to verify your identity.

Apart from saving to your Mac, your Passkeys will sync all your Apple devices with iCloud enabled, including iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.

Spotlight - Updated design, preview files, richer results

Spotlight now has more features, including Quick Look for previewing files, finding images in your Photo Library, across the system, and on the web, searching photos by location, people, scenes, or subjects, and taking actions like starting a timer, creating a new document, or running a shortcut.

Messages - Edit or undo a sent message, mark messages as unread

The Messages app on Mac also has some updates with macOS Ventura worth mentioning. With macOS Ventura, you can undo or edit texts up to 15 minutes after sending them. You can also recover deleted texts within 30 days and mark a message as unread to ease the pressure of immediate response. On top of that, there are some new collaboration tools like editing a shared document in Messages.

Mail - Unsend and schedule emails

On macOS 13 Ventura, the native Mail app can recall emails shortly after sending them and schedule emails to be sent later. Mail search has also received some big improvements, such as instant suggestions, typo corrections, and fuller previews. Other features include setting Reminders to go back to emails in the future, getting notified with follow-up suggestions, and detecting and alerting you if an attachment or a cc'd recipient is missing from your emails.

Safari - Shared tab groups

Safari in macOS 13 Ventura has Shared Tab Groups enabling others to view, edit or remove tabs shared by you. This feature is meant to help people with group planning, researching, etc.

System Preferences - Redesigned and renamed as System Settings

Apple continues to universalize users' experience across devices with the new version of macOS. As an effort, they renamed System Preferences to System Settings and redesigned it with settings placed in a sidebar, which looks similar to the Settings app on the iPhone and iPad. This refreshed look makes it easier to navigate through different settings panes and configure your Mac.

Gaming support - Better experience with Metal 3

Every new Mac equipped with Apple Silicon running macOS 13 will support games like EA's GRID Legends and Capcom's Resident Evil Village. The potential of Apple Silicon will be fully unleashed with Apple Metal 3, the latest version of the software that powers the gaming experience on Apple platforms. 

Alongside Metal 3 is the game-specific technology called MetalFX Upscaling, which Apple says "MetalFX Upscaling enables developers to quickly render complex scenes by using less compute-intensive frames and then apply resolution scaling and temporal anti-aliasing." Thanks to a new Fast Resource Loading API, there's also a minimized wait time by providing a more direct path from storage to the GPU.

Weather and Clock - New apps arriving

Coming from iOS to macOS Ventura are the Weather app and Mac Clock app. You can soon view the same weather animation and information on the Weather app for Mac as on your iPhone. You can also set alarms for the Clocks app using Siri.

Accessibility tools - Live Captions, improved Live Text, and Visual Look Up

Previously on macOS Monterey, Live Text Mac can recognize texts in images. With macOS 13.0 Ventura, there is added support for paused video frames and languages like Japanese and Korean. The expanded Visual Look Up feature can now recognize animals, birds, statues, insects, and more landmarks. 

macOS Ventura also introduces Live Captions for FaceTime calls and third-party online meeting apps. This will make communication over a call easier, especially for the deaf and people with hearing loss.

macOS security tools - Rapid Security Response

Apple introduces security updates in its software updates, but it's not ideal as users may not update their devices fast enough to avoid a critical security problem. In macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPad OS 16, Rapid Security Response gives users a choice to automatically apply security updates in between standard software updates. 

This way, Apple can automatically install necessary security updates on your devices when an issue comes to light.

If you find any unsatisfactory in running macOS Ventura beta on your Mac, read this article to back to a stable macOS Monterey: Full Guide on How to Downgrade macOS Ventura to Monterey.