With macOS 14.2 beta 2 now available to developers, Apple follows the testing cycle of this upcoming operating system. These changes come after the Scary Fast event, where Cupertino unveiled the next generation of Macs with the M3 chips.
Although macOS Sonoma still lacks a few features, version 14.2 is finally adding a few of them, such as:
Sticker reactions: React to a message with any Live Sticker, Memoji, or Animoji through the Sticker drawer or directly through the Tapback menu.
Collaborate on playlists: Invite friends to join your playlist, and everyone can add, reorder, and remove songs. In Now Playing, you can use emojis to react to the song choices on Apple Music. That said, it doesn’t seem you can invite a friend to join a playlist on macOS 14.2 beta just yet.
Edit playlists: There’s a new edit button for playlists where you can add custom covers (an iOS 17.1 feature) and a description with macOS 14.2 beta.
iMessage Contact Key Verification: Contact key verification allows you to manually verify who you are messaging with by comparing contact verification codes in person or over the phone. Conversations with people who have contact key verification turned on also receive automatic advanced protections to help prevent even very sophisticated attackers from impersonating anyone in a conversation.
That said, macOS 14.2 still lacks some delayed Sonoma features, such as:
- PDF intelligent form detection: Fillable documents and forms can now be automatically identified across the system, like in Files, Mail, or scanned documents.
- PDF Enhanced Autofill: Populate information such as names and addresses on forms even faster, as powerful on-device language models identify fillable fields and enable AutoFill.
- Multiple timers: Run several timers on Mac simultaneously, perfect for when you’re cooking and need to keep track of different steps and dishes.
With the macOS 14.2 beta cycle just starting, we’ll let you know what we discover in upcoming builds. Alongside macOS 14.2 beta 2, Apple is also seeding the second test version of iOS 17.2, iPadOS 17.2, watchOS 10.2, and tvOS 17.2.
