Apple updates iWork apps with macOS Ventura & iPadOS 16 features

Pages, Numbers, and Keynote have been updated to work with Apple's new macOS, iOS, and iPadOS releases, along with new functions in all of them.

Alongside the new updates to video editing apps Final Cut Pro and iMovie, Apple has now released its whole iWork suite to take advantage of features in macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16.

New features for all apps

All three iWork apps, across both the Mac and iPhone/iPad, have certain new features in common:

A new activity window shows collaboration details
You can now be notified when a collaborator joins or makes changes
Share documents in Messages, and see updates in the conversation
Send a Message or start a FaceTime call from within a document
Work across multiple documents with Stage Manager
Remove the background from images

The Mac versions also all allow you to manage collaboration from within the File menu.

New for Pages

Pages 12.2 for iPad takes advantage of the new customizable toolbar in iPadOS 16. Users can get to favorite tools faster, and also insert images quicker.

For both iPad and Pages for Mac, there's also a new Blank Layout template, as opposed to the familiar Blank Document. it's intended to make it easier to "start documents that let you freely arrange text and graphics."

New for Numbers

In Numbers 12.2 for iPad — and also Numbers for Mac — the most significant addition is a series of new functions:

BITAND
BITOR
BITXOR
BITLSHIFT
BITRSHIFT
ISOWEEKNUM
CONCAT
TEXTJOIN
SWITCH

There's also an improved auto-complete feature, which now shows "suggestions based on the contents of other cells in the same column."

New for Keynote

Keynote 12.2 for iPad has added the ability to style charts "with additional controls for colors, lines, and number formats." It's also revised the printing and PDF export features to provide more options.

As well as the ability to remove backgrounds from images, Apple's release notes also say that Keynote 12.2 for Mac can "remove or replace the background of live video for a dramatic effect."

The new versions of the iWork apps require macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16.

24 Comments

bloggerblog 2514 comments · 16 Years

About 2 years ago

If Apple wants iWork to be taken seriously and be a viable alternative to Office and Docks; they need to first rebrand it, solve for the enterprise market, adopt an enterprise friendly mental model, and include a robust email client. Right now it just screams amateur with an unpredictable roadmap.

DAalseth 3033 comments · 6 Years

bloggerblog said:

If Apple wants iWork to be taken seriously and be a viable alternative to Office and Docks; they need to first rebrand it, solve for the enterprise market, adopt an enterprise friendly mental model, and include a robust email client. Right now it just screams amateur with an unpredictable roadmap.

{sigh} As much as I use and like Pages, I have to agree, It’s a good Word Processor, it does everything I need, but it still feels a bit unfinished, not really up to the level of a Word. I say that as someone that HATES Office and the Ribbon.

dewme 5737 comments · 10 Years

I'm a Microsoft 365 subscriber but I still use Pages and Number for certain things that I find easier to do and less cumbersome in Apple's apps. As far as Apple trying to knock Microsoft out of the corporate space is concerned, it's never going to happen. Microsoft is way too entrenched. Paying for Microsoft's tools has been factored into the cost of doing business for decades, just like a tax. No corporate IT person in a medium-large company is ever going to get a recognition award for saving their company money by switching everyone over to Apple's iWork tools.

That said, I personally really like Apple's iWork products. Apple has managed to pack a ton of functionality behind very user friendly facades. I do not find Numbers lacking for anything that I do with workbooks/spreadsheets. The differences between the tools are quite subtle, but the capabilities are still there in iWork for all but the most sophisticated and demanding users. However, people who are entrenched users of Microsoft's tools don't want to devote a single brain cell to relearning something that's different in Numbers than it is in Excel, or Pages vs Word, even if the Numbers/Pages functionality or ease of use is better. The race for office productivity tool dominance has been won by Microsoft. However, there are still some consolation races that the other vendors can try to win and pick up some lower tier prize money.

I am rather intrigued with some of the new functions that have been added to Numbers because they are so far away from what what anyone other than an engineer or analyst would need. But spreadsheets like Numbers and Excel have always been incredibly powerful analytical tools hiding behind the most general purpose, flexible, and conformable UI model ever conceived by any software designer. I can see where these new functions can be used for data reduction, logic analysis, and algorithm development and verification, much like Excel can be used for modeling many aspects of signal processing algorithm, e.g., FFTs.

macdutchuser 13 comments · 9 Years

I am fluent with MS Office and my employer pays for a corporate license. Therefore, my decision to use Apple’s software instead of MS’s has nothing to do with cost. Keynote is simply vastly superior to PowerPoint. I recognize that Excel is faster and offers more functionality than Numbers but for me, Apple’s spreadsheet software layout flexibility is way more important when looking at the data. I don’t use much word processors these days but I also prefer Pages mainly because how text selection works in Word.

Overall I am very happy with Keynote, Numbers and Pages and graceful to Apple for not having to use MS Office on my Mac.

tht 5594 comments · 23 Years

macdutchuser said:

I am fluent with MS Office and my employer pays for a corporate license. Therefore, my decision to use Apple’s software instead of MS’s has nothing to do with cost. Keynote is simply vastly superior to PowerPoint. I recognize that Excel is faster and offers more functionality than Numbers but for me, Apple’s spreadsheet software layout flexibility is way more important when looking at the data. I don’t use much word processors these days but I also prefer Pages mainly because how text selection works in Word.
Overall I am very happy with Keynote, Numbers and Pages and graceful to Apple for not having to use MS Office on my Mac.

Same boat as you. Keynote is my presentation app of choice. It feels lighter and more accurate than Powerpoint. I only use Office apps when other people send those files to me. Use Excel to quickly check data though.