Apple has updated its iWork apps to version 14.3, adding support for Apple Intelligence. Pages, Keynote, and Numbers can now use Writing Tools (available under the Edit menu) to compose, proofread, rewrite, and summarize text in documents.
Using Apple Intelligence Writing Tools to get key bullet points from selected text
The three apps also gain support for using Image Playground to create original images that can be added to documents (available under the Insert menu), as well as ask Siri to use ChatGPT to answer questions about content in your document. These Apple Intelligence features require macOS 15.2 Sequoia or later on Mac models with an M-series processor. (Free; Keynote, 372.2 MB, release notes; macOS 14+; Numbers, 261.1 MB, release notes; Pages, 295.8 MB, release notes)
I never use Keynote, Numbers, or Pages. I’m a long-term Office 365 user (just $69/year including a large OneDrive and some Skype benefits). It’s mostly been for compatibility with other people.
But this article has gotten me interested in trying Keynote, Numbers, and Pages.
One question I have is what is the compatibility with Office equivalents? Can I import from the Office files and, if needed, export back to them for sharing? And what about uploading the files to Google Docs and Sheets if needed?
Besides these new AI features, are there any other overall benefits to using the Apple apps here?
I can report that import, editing, and export back to Office formats works…as long as you don’t have any of the sophisticated stuff like pivot tables. There may be some slight issues with fonts, but overall it seems to work just fine. The advantage to Apple’s apps is that you can edit on any Apple device and it syncs back to the other devices perfectly. Opening an Office file makes a copy and while it can easily be exported…there’s that whole version issue and you end up with multiple copies of almost the same file…and editing in Office and then back to you for more editing compounds the versions issue. IMO…if you really need to pass back and forth with track changes and multiple edits and re-edits…that’s a good reason to stick with Office. If you need the exotic Office features…again, stick with Office. Otherwise…Apple’s apps are adequate and don’t have the versions issues.
And once again, Apple is completely silent about backwards compatibility. If I install Numbers 14.3 on my iPad, will the files it edits be editable by Numbers 12.1 on my Macintosh? Once upon a time (some years ago, I believe), Apple released a new version of Numbers that was not compatible with some older version and provided no warning. I suppose Apple’s attitude is that I shouldn’t own hardware that cannot be updated to a version that is still compatible.
I have not run into issues with opening new iWork docs on non-updated systems lately.
Since I know Apple has alerted to the issue in the past, my assumption now is that if they say nothing on the matter, that means backward compatibility should not be affected. I hope that is not being overly naive. But as I said, so far no issues here.
Thank you twice. I was able to download the file and add a line for my tires; it seemed to work.
As far as I can recall, that was the first time I’ve been to dropbox.com and therefore the first time I’ve downloaded anything from there. This old dog learned a new trick.
Thank you.
I’m glad to hear that. As I said, I got bitten once. While I cannot swear that Apple didn’t warn me and I just missed the warning, my assumption is that Apple didn’t warn me, and I’m glad that warnings are (probably) now part of the release notes.
Using Apple Intelligence Writing Tools to get key bullet points from selected text