One of the promises Apple made at WWDC was that iPadOS 16 would allow the company to upgrade its productivity apps to offer features typically only seen in desktop applications. Today, Apple released updates to all three iWork apps. Pages, Numbers and Keynote have all received substantial updates. But as well as the iPadOS and iOS versions receiving some love, the macOS versions benefit from updates enabled by macOS Ventura.
All three apps are now at version 12.2 with updates and available via the App Store. While some features don’t require the latest version of iOS, iPadOS or macOS there are some that do. Instant Alpha, the feature that removes backgrounds from images so the subject is isolated is available in all three apps with a similar feature added to Keynote for videos as well as still images.
Apple is upping its game when it comes to collaboration. With the new Freeform app coming soon, likely in iPadOS 16.2, iOS1 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1, new collaboration features in iWork are seeing Apple slowly building a platform that could compete with Microsoft 365 and Google’s app ecosystem.
Here’s the list of changes to each application.
Updates to Keynote
- An all-new activity view shows recent changes in collaborative presentations, including when people join, comment, and make edits
- Get notifications when others join or make changes in your shared presentations
- Share a presentation in Messages to instantly start collaborating with your team and see updates right in the Messages conversation (Requires iOS 16 or iPadOS 16)
- Send a message or start a FaceTime call right from a collaborative presentation (Requires iOS 16 or iPadOS 16)
- Quickly insert objects and get to your favorite tools with the customizable toolbar
- Find common actions like print, rename, and more in the new document menu
- Work across multiple presentations more easily with Stage Manager on supported iPad models
- A new option lets you automatically remove an image’s background to isolate its subject (Requires iOS 16 or iPadOS 16)
- Remove or replace the background of live video for a dramatic effect
- Style charts with additional controls for colors, lines, and number formats
- Additional options for printing and exporting PDFs
Updates to Pages
- An all-new activity view shows recent changes in collaborative documents, including when people join, comment, and make edits
- Get notifications when others join or make changes in your shared documents
- Share a document in Messages to instantly start collaborating with your team and see updates right in the Messages conversation (Requires macOS 13)
- Send a message or start a FaceTime call right from a collaborative document (Requires macOS 13)
- Now use the File menu to manage your shared document or send a copy
- The new Blank Layout template makes it easy to start documents that let you freely arrange text and graphics
- A new option lets you automatically remove an image’s background to isolate its subject (Requires macOS Ventura)
Updates to Numbers
- An all-new activity view shows recent changes in collaborative spreadsheets, including when people join, comment, and make edits
- Get notifications when others join or make changes in your shared spreadsheets
- Share a spreadsheet in Messages to instantly start collaborating with your team and see updates right in the Messages conversation (Requires iOS 16 or iPadOS 16)
- Send a message or start a FaceTime call right from a collaborative spreadsheet (Requires iOS 16 or iPadOS 16)
- Compare values and combine text with new functions, including BITAND, BITOR, BITXOR, BITLSHIFT, BITRSHIFT, ISOWEEKNUM, CONCAT, TEXTJOIN, and SWITCH
- See autocomplete suggestions based on the contents of other cells in the same column
- Style charts with additional controls for colors, lines, and number formats
- Quickly insert objects and get to your favorite tools with the customizable toolbar
- Find common actions like print, rename, and more in the new document menu
- Work across multiple spreadsheets more easily with Stage Manager on supported iPad models
- A new option lets you automatically remove an image’s background to isolate its subject (Requires iOS 16 or iPadOS 16)
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.