Amber Neely
Apple has updated its macOS productivity suite to version 10.1, bringing new features like support for video embeds in Numbers and iBooks Author books in Pages.
Pages now gains support for video embeds from major video hosting sites YouTube and Vimeo, right within a Pages document. The Pages update reads:
- Play YouTube and Vimeo videos right in your documents.
- Easily add captions and titles to images, videos, shapes, and other objects.
- Create more flexible formulas using new functions.
- Import an iBooks Author book to work on it in Pages.
Apple recently discontinued iBooks Author platform on July 1, removing it from the App Store.
Numbers, Apple's spreadsheet creation tool, also features the ability to play videos in spreadsheets and gains a few new functions, too. The update reads:
- Play YouTube and Vimeo videos right in your spreadsheets.
- Easily add captions and titles to images, videos, shapes, and other objects.
- New functions, including XLOOKUP, XMATCH, and REGEX, let you match patterns, manipulate text, and create flexible formulas.
Apple was careful to warn that some regions may not be able to support Vimeo and YouTube embeds in Pages and Numbers.
Keynotes, which allows users to make slideshow presentations, got a new update, too. One update seems to be geared toward making presentations easier to present over a video conference, likely as a response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The update is as follows:
- Use the new "Play Slideshow in Window" option to have access to other applications while presenting locally or via video conferencing.
- Movies can now play through slide transitions. Add the same movie to multiple slides to play from one slide to the next.
- Use the Align to Path option to have objects stay pointed in the correct direction while following a motion path.
- Easily add captions and titles to images, videos, shapes, and other objects.
The iWork suite is free to anyone on macOS and can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. iPhone and iPad owners can get versions of Pages, Keynotes, and Numbers for their mobile devices through the iOS App Store as well.
Update: Apple on Tuesday issued identical updates for iOS versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote.
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Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
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15 Comments
The “Play Slideshow in Window“ and movies playing across slides are major improvements in Keynote (not “Keynotes”) that will make life much easier for videoconferencing presenters like me, with the latter feature being especially useful for things like memorial presentations and adding captions to videos rather than having to talk over them.
So Pages and Numbers can have YouTube videos embedded, but Keynote can’t? This seems very backwards to me and is one of the few distinguishing features that PowerPoint has over Keynote.
Does this new version write files that are incompatible with older versions? I’m still on High Sierra on my Macs. I tested files saved from the most recent prior version, opening them successfully on my one or two years older version on High Sierra without problem.
I guess I could ask my girlfriend to install the updates on her new Mac and test it myself but if anyone knows anything about how often the file format breaks with regard to backward app compatibility, I’d love to know whatever you do.