Apple updates iWork suite of productivity apps

Apple has updated its iWork suite of productivity apps with new features that enable users to present in powerful new ways and make it even easier to work with documents on the go.

New tools in Keynote make presentations more engaging, with the ability to show a live camera view of the presenter directly in slides, and more collaborative with multi-presenter control. Pages makes it easier than ever to view and edit documents on the go by automatically displaying text and images in a single-column flow that is optimized for iPhone. And Numbers introduces pivot tables that bring powerful data analytics capabilities to iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

“Whether they are in the office, at school, or working remotely, users around the world love Keynote, Pages, and Numbers for their powerful features, ease of use, and seamless experience across iPhone, iPad, and Mac,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “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.”

New Ways to Present in Keynote

Powerful new tools make Keynote presentations more personal, engaging, and collaborative. With the option to use the front-facing camera on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, users can now add live video directly to their presentations. This allows the presenter to appear alongside the content in their slide — ideal for lectures, how-to videos, and remote presentations through video conferencing apps.

Live video objects can be easily resized or styled with masks, frames, drop shadows, and reflections for a more elegant look. 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.

Pause playback of video: Keynote Live Video

Make presentations in Keynote even more personal and engaging by including live video directly on slides.

With a new multi-presenter option, everyone can now easily control a shared slideshow right from their iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Whether they are in the same room or presenting remotely, multiple users can take turns advancing slides. Once a user is done with their slides, they can return control to the host or let another co-presenter take over to seamlessly continue the group presentation.
iPad and MacBook Air demonstrating multi-presenter options in Keynote.

A New Pages Experience Optimized for iPhone

People read Pages documents on iPhone more than any other device, and Pages now offers a new experience that makes reading and editing documents on the go better than ever. With the latest update, Screen View automatically displays text, images, and other elements in a single-column, continuous flow optimized for the iPhone screen. Text is enlarged to improve readability, photos and drawings are sized to fit the display, and tables can be scrolled horizontally. Screen View is available for all word processing documents and doesn’t require any additional setup. When enabled, users still 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.

Powerful, Easy-to-Use Pivot Tables with Numbers

With its intuitive interface and ability to showcase data with beautiful graphics and charts, Numbers has always been the best way for users to get the most out of their data. And now with pivot tables, users can quickly summarize, group, and rearrange data to identify and analyze patterns and trends. Creating a pivot table in Numbers is quick and intuitive: Users can easily select the data to include, choose how to group and summarize 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. Users can visualize 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 is the first app to bring full-featured pivot tables to mobile, with the same set of features across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, giving users access to this powerful data analytics tool wherever they work.
The pivot table menu in Numbers displayed on iPad.
With pivot tables on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, users can quickly summarize, group, and rearrange data to identify and analyze patterns and trends.

Additionally, Radar charts are a new chart type that makes it easy to visually compare multiple variables with similarities shown as overlapping areas, allowing differences and outliers to really stand out. And 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.