Apple updates iWork suite with new features for Keynote, Pages, Numbers

An Apple update has been rolled out for its iWork suite of productivity apps that has new features aimed at helping users with their remote and collaborative work, specifically for working on documents on the go. These upgrades come in at a good time since now most of the people working in hybrid work environments have already got used to working online and remotely, the new features help make the work easier. Apple has added new features to Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. And these include new ways of making presentations better, pages easier to read and edit, and pivot tables with powerful data analytics that can be accessed across Apple devices like iPhones, iPads, and the Macs.

“Today, we’re adding even more power and capability to these apps with new productivity and collaboration features that enable anyone to create more personal and compelling presentations, make working with documents on iPhone a breeze, and bring full-featured pivot tables to mobile for the first time,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing.

New features in Keynote

Keynote now has an option to use the front-facing camera on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and users can now add live video directly to their presentations. This will allow the presenter to appear alongside the content in their slides. This is ideal for how-to videos, lectures, remote presentations through video conferencing apps, and more. These new Live video objects can also be easily resized or styled with masks, frames, drop shadows, and reflections. Mac users can connect multiple external cameras to further enhance the live video experience, and they can even show the screen of a connected iPhone or iPad right on a slide for live, interactive demos.

New features for Pages

According to Apple, people read Pages documents on the iPhone more than any other Apple device, and they have added new experiences to it to make reading and editing documents on the go easier. The latest update allows Pages to display text, images, and other elements in a single-column, continuous flow that has been optimised for the iPhone screen. Text has also been enlarged to improve readability, photos and drawings are now sized to fit the display, and tables can be scrolled horizontally. Screen View is available for all word processing documents and does not require any additional setup. Once enabled, users will continue to have access to the complete set of editing tools in Pages, and Screen View can be switched off at any time so users can see the page layout for their document before printing or publishing.

New features for Numbers

The new update for Numbers brings in pivot tables that allows users to quickly summarise, group, and rearrange data to identify and analyse patterns and trends. Creating these pivot tables in Numbers is also quick, users can easily select the data to include, choose how to group and summarise it, and access other display options from the sidebar. The resulting pivot table appears in a clear layout that makes it easy for the user to read and gain insights, Apple explained. Users can visualise their pivot tables with insightful charts, share pivot data with others while keeping the source data private, and even import or export pivot tables to and from Microsoft Excel. Numbers now has pivot tables on mobile, with the same set of features across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. There are also new Radar charts that make it easy to visually compare multiple variables with similarities shown as overlapping areas, allowing differences and outliers to really stand out. New filter options let users find duplicate entries and unique values in their data, or easily show or hide rows that match a specific value.

Keynote, Pages, and Numbers also support the new translation features introduced in iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey. Users can select text and quickly see a translation, hear it read aloud, and instantly replace the selection with the translated text. The updates are currently available for download on the App Store and Mac App Store.