Apple has released some big updates to its iWork suit of applications – Keynote, Numbers and Pages – which can make your presentations even more powerful and make working with documents on the move even easier.
The biggest new feature is on Keynote which now allows users to show a live camera view of themselves as they deliver their presentation.
This feature is very much in line with how most people have presented and viewed presentations in the last 18 months – virtually.
Now users can take the front facing camera of their iPhone, iPad or Mac and add live video to their presentations.
This means the presenter can appear alongside their content and be positioned anywhere on the screen.
This is ideal for lecturers, for creating how-to videos as well as remote presentations which have become the norm during the pandemic.
Mac users can also add some higher production values by hooking up multiple external cameras to enhance the live video experience.
They can also show the screen of an iPhone or an iPad on the Keynote slides for those time you need to do a live demonstration.
There is also a new multi-presenter mode which allows co-presenters the ability to control a shared slideshow via their iPhone, iPad or Mac.
This will also work whether there are together in the same room or presenting remotely while still sharing control of the presentation.
“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.”
Did you know more people read Pages documents on iPhones than any other device?
With that in mind, Apple has now made it easier to view and edit documents on the move by adding Screen View to the settings.
This makes the document a single column with larger text so it’s easier to read on the smaller iPhone screen and easier to make changes.
Screen View is available for all word processing documents and it won’t change the original formatting of the document.
Numbers has also come up with a new way to showcase data with Pivot Tables which can quickly summarise, group and rearrange data and identify patterns and trends.
To create a Pivot Table, users can easily select the data to include and choose how to group and summarise it.
And the table can be visualised in several ways and even be exported to and from Microsoft’s Excel.
Radar Charts can also provide a way to chart and visualise multiple variables with similarities shown as overlapping sections.
All these features are included in the latest version of Keynote, Pages and Numbers which come free with every Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Users can download them from the App Store and Mac App Store.