macOS Ventura has exclusive features for your M1 and M2 Mac - time to upgrade?

Overview of features in macOS Ventura
(Image credit: Apple)

Apple is still moving ahead with keeping features away from its Intel Macs as it keeps on the trajectory to move its Macs to Apple Silicon, as macOS Ventura carries this on from macOS 12 Monterey in 2021.

With the M2 chip official and launching with the redesigned MacBook Air, users were worried that there'd be a bunch of features exclusive to these chips, similar to what macOS Monterey did.

However, it looks to be less of a sting this year, with Intel Mac users able to use Stage Manager, Continuity Camera, and of course, the Weather app.

What's not available on your Intel Mac?

There's only three features that are exclusive to M1 and M2 Mac users, and arguably, they're not going to make an impact on how you use your Mac for now.

  • Live Captions in a FaceTime Call
  • Emojis when using Dictation
  • Reference Mode with SideCar

Reference Mode is more of a pro feature, where you can judge the colors in a photo or a video against an iPad Pro 12.9-inch model, while the omission of live captions can be solved with a third-party app.

However, it's important to keep in mind that Apple said in 2020 that it was aiming to have all of its Macs on Apple Silicon as soon as possible. While it confirmed that it would be supporting Intel Macs for now, there's always a chance that the bigger features for macOS 14 and 15 could be exclusive to these M1 and beyond Macs.

With this in mind, the Mac is in a period of renaissance, so it could be time to look into an upgrade if you've got a MacBook Pro or an iMac that is still running on Intel.

Daryl Baxter
Software & Downloads Writer

Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time, he's written a book, 'The Making of Tomb Raider'. His second book, '50 Years of Boss Fights', came out in 2024, with a third book coming in 2025. He also has a newsletter called 'Springboard'. He's usually found playing games old and new on his Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that's about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.

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