There was some hint in the first betas
On the same day of the presentation of this and the rest of Apple’s operating systems, the company published the first betas for developers. On that occasion, this Universal Control functionality did not appear, although in subsequent versions there was a reference that allowed it to be forced, although without much success. The fact is that the final version of macOS Monterey, which ended up being 12.0.1 and not 12.0, came without this functionality.
All eyes were then on the macOS 12.1 beta that was launched almost a month ago, having the third since this week. But it was like a jug of cold water, since in none of these three versions has this functionality been integrated and from Apple are silent regarding when it will be available. And, except for surprise, the day that macOS 12.1 is released to the public, Universal Control will not be there either.
Why is it taking so long?
It is not the first time that Apple announces a novelty of an operating system and that it does not arrive in its first versions. In fact, in iOS 15 we find a good example with SharePlay, which was not integrated until iOS 15.1. However, the fact that it was presented with great fanfare and that however no signs of its appearance have been given again worries many users.
Although we cannot confirm it, it would be exceedingly rare if this functionality does not finally arrive. Therefore, it is foreseeable that it will end up early 2022 with macOS 12.2 or a similar version, once it can be ruled out that it doesn’t really integrate into 12.1 at the last minute. The reasons why it has not been implemented are not yet known, but it is clear that there is some issue that arose during development.
Despite looking very good in the demonstration made by Carl Federighi at WWDC 2021, it seems that Universal Control did not work quite well and was pending of some tweaks. We do not know the deadlines set internally for this and what the exact problem is that they are encountering, but something important must be so that it takes so long a delay.
For the company it is being a headache and for enthusiastic users, a long time to wait with impatience. And in view of the situation that seems to drag on, this anguish will continue, so we will continue to watch for future betas and leaks that may shed some more light on when we will finally see Universal Control on Macs.
You can see the demo made by Apple about this function in the minute 1:22:24 from the following video:
