Apple Enhances iWork Suite
Apple has announced a slew of new updates for its iWork Suite of productivity applications, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. These new features enable users to interact with the content in new ways and to make working with documents on the go even easier. Here is a look at the newly-announced features for each application.
Keynote
Keynote gets an update that brings presentations in a more engaging, personal and collaborative way. Whether accessed through the Mac, iPhone, or iPad, Keynote users can now engage the front-facing camera to add live video directly into their presentations. This becomes a great resource for lectures, workshops, professional development sessions, and the live video feed can be resized or styled with frames, masks and drop shadows for a more personal look. For a Mac user, it becomes even more enhanced by the inclusion of being able to use multiple external cameras to enhance the live video experience by being able to show the screen from a connected iPhone or iPad to make those interactive demos even better! There is also a new multi-presenter option in Keynote, allowing for multiple users to take turns in advancing the slides in a Keynote presentation from wherever they are located. Control can be passed and shared seamlessly to other co-presenters with the click of a button!
Pages
Pages gets a new Screen View feature that allows users to read and edit easier while on the go. Screen View will automatically shift the content from a Pages document (text, images, and other elements) into a single-column flow that has been optimized for the iPhone screen. Text, photos, and drawings become sized to fit the screen, making it easier to edit on the smaller device, and when switched off, the content reverts back to the whole-page layout for viewing.
Numbers
Numbers finally receives the ability to utilize Pivot Tables, which goes along with Numbers’ already beautiful graphics and charts perfectly! Users can summarize, group, and rearrange the necessary data points using Pivot Tables, making it better to look for trends. Users can even import or export Pivot Tables to and from Microsoft Excel from Numbers, too! Numbers also receives Radar Charts, a new chart type that makes it easier to visually compare variables by showing similarities as overlapping areas, and differences or outliers standing out more from the rest.