Apple's updates to iWork suite for iOS adds macOS functionality and increased Apple Pencil...

Posted:
in iOS edited August 2020
Apple has issued updates to its iWork suite of apps, with Pages, Numbers, and Keynote for iOS being brought closer to the macOS counterparts, as well as receiving extended support for using the Apple Pencil in each app.

New updates to iWork include the ability in Numbers to specify an animation route by drawing a line with Apple Pencil
New updates to iWork include the ability in Numbers to specify an animation route by drawing a line with Apple Pencil


Previously confirmed as on the way by Apple on March 19, the updates on Thursday bring Pages, Numbers, and Keynote to version 5.0 across the board. The vast majority of the updates relate to features previously only available on the macOS versions, as well as some iPad-specific extras.

Templates were previously only able to be created on macOS, but could be used once produced on iOS. Now, it is possible for templates to be created within the iOS apps and synchronized over iCloud to macOS.

Collaboration is also a key area for changes, with the maximum document size when working with others raised from 1 gigabyte to 2 gigabytes. A restriction that required users to ungroup objects before allowing anyone else to edit them in a document has also been lifted.

For Keynote, a greater focus on animations called Action Builds, which lets users create and control movement within individual slides, with paths drawn both via a finger and the Apple Pencil. It is possible to export single or multiple slides in a single animated GIF for sharing, allowing it to be used for simple animations.

The new Pages update will support Traditional Chinese vertical writing
The new Pages update will support Traditional Chinese vertical writing


Speaker notes have been improved to allow users to edit notes during the presentation, making it possible for speakers to enter in feedback from the audience or note when issues occur during the presentation.

For Pages, a new button will let users switch between page layout and page design modes, support for vertical text, the option to insert a table of contents onto a page, and add image placeholders.

Numbers gains the option to zoom into a spreadsheet until it is 400 percent normal size, up from 200 percent. Precise changes to table row and column sizes and counts can be made in the format pane, with it also adding support for vertical text, image placeholders, and enhanced support for Excel and CSV imports.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    tehabetehabe Posts: 70member
    The only thing iWork would really need is the feature to store documents as ooXML files directly not just export them. Nobody can handle those Pages files.
    davgregwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 11
    macapfelmacapfel Posts: 575member
    Very, very happy to see Apple making progress here. But it could be faster, in particular bringing iOS and macOS on par. It doesn't make sense to use these, when formats etc. are lost when moving from one OS to the other.
    edited March 2019 davgregMisterKitwatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 11
    macapfelmacapfel Posts: 575member
    tehabe said:
    The only thing iWork would really need is the feature to store documents as ooXML files directly not just export them. Nobody can handle those Pages files.
    Agreed, but the exports generally work quite well.
    cornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 11
    CheeseFreezeCheeseFreeze Posts: 1,247member
    Great new updates. They should focus their on team, division and company user management now, so their apps can be used in organizations.
    razorpitDead_Poolwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 11
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    The biggest news though it they've repaired the Spell Checker bug in Pages. for months now it would mark a misspelled word but not offer suggestions. It does again. This made my whole day.
    razorpitcornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 11
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    macapfel said:
    Very, very happy to see Apple making progress here. But it could be faster, in particular bringing iOS and macOS on par. It doesn't make sense to use these, when formats etc. are lost when moving from one OS to the other.
    When Apple introduced iWork on the web and simultaneously iWork for iOS, the Mac versions of all three apps in the suite were seriously dumbed down and lost a lot of features, most of those features never came back. Despite this, the iOS and web versions of iWork apps still don't have feature parity with their dumbed down Mac counterparts.

    There're so many things Pages doesn't support when you try and push it beyond the basics. There's no way to caption images, it doesn't support citations in images or tables, there's no way to attach a caption to an image and then reference it in the text, sometimes images simply will not stick where you put them: they jump to a different page, you can't have landscape pages within a document... Plus many, many more that make it amateurish compared to the likes of Word. Despite that, I hate word so much I still use Pages and manually caption images and use workarounds.
    razorpitDead_Poolcornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 11
    bshankbshank Posts: 255member
    The draw a path with finger or Apple Pencil to customize animations feature in Keynote is awesome!
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 11
    mbenz1962mbenz1962 Posts: 171member
    bshank said:
    The draw a path with finger or Apple Pencil to customize animations feature in Keynote is awesome!
    True, but as a regular Pages user, I would like to see the Pencil even better supported through some form of handwriting recognition.  There are various apps out there that offer this and you can of course copy/paste from the clipboard or export text, but the majority of the apps that recognize handwriting have little to no ability to format text let alone whole documents (outline mode, etc).  Copying stuff back and forth and then reformatting the text to suit whatever pages doc you are working on is pretty tedious.  In general, the keyboard is a better input device for extended writing sessions. However, when you can't sit in front of a desk (on the bus, in car or airplane, sitting in the park, etc.) then the pencil is convenient because you hold the iPad with one hand and write with the other.  I would really like for Apple to add this feature, and they no doubt have lots of IP from as far back as the Newton era with which to build on.
    edited March 2019 cornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 11
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    mbenz1962 said:
    bshank said:
    The draw a path with finger or Apple Pencil to customize animations feature in Keynote is awesome!
    True, but as a regular Pages user, I would like to see the Pencil even better supported through some form of handwriting recognition.  There are various apps out there that offer this and you can of course copy/paste from the clipboard or export text, but the majority of the apps that recognize handwriting have little to no ability to format text let alone whole documents (outline mode, etc).  Copying stuff back and forth and then reformatting the text to suit whatever pages doc you are working on is pretty tedious.  In general, the keyboard is a better input device for extended writing sessions. However, when you can't sit in front of a desk (on the bus, in car or airplane, sitting in the park, etc.) then the pencil is convenient because you hold the iPad with one hand and write with the other.  I would really like for Apple to add this feature, and they no doubt have lots of IP from as far back as the Newton era with which to build on.
    Mac OS macOS and the Notes app have already got handwriting recognition, so that bit isn't a problem. I think more so is the ability to cram things like this into the UI without menus. A lack of menus means all options like this go into a popover/side pane which is hard to organise things in without it becoming completely overloaded. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 11
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    mbenz1962 said:
    bshank said:
    The draw a path with finger or Apple Pencil to customize animations feature in Keynote is awesome!
    True, but as a regular Pages user, I would like to see the Pencil even better supported through some form of handwriting recognition.  There are various apps out there that offer this and you can of course copy/paste from the clipboard or export text, but the majority of the apps that recognize handwriting have little to no ability to format text let alone whole documents (outline mode, etc).  Copying stuff back and forth and then reformatting the text to suit whatever pages doc you are working on is pretty tedious.  In general, the keyboard is a better input device for extended writing sessions. However, when you can't sit in front of a desk (on the bus, in car or airplane, sitting in the park, etc.) then the pencil is convenient because you hold the iPad with one hand and write with the other.  I would really like for Apple to add this feature, and they no doubt have lots of IP from as far back as the Newton era with which to build on.
    Would be nice if one could use the Pencil in Pages to hand draw corrections using standard copy editing notations and have Pages make the corrections automatically.
    mbenz1962watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 11
    bitmodbitmod Posts: 267member
    Just unstick the page from the top of the screen already - and bring back hotkey zoom. 
    Also, go back to restraining text size to box. 

    Man, ClarisWorks and Pages 09 were light years ahead of the current version. 

    elijahg
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