Keynote for iOS: A Game Changer

Arguably, Keynote by Apple is the best presentation tool available for desktop and mobile platforms. Historically part of Apple's iWork Suite of applications, including Pages, and Numbers, Keynote established itself as a desktop application, gradually making its way to iOS. In general, MacOS and iOS are beginning to look a lot alike in terms of the graphic look and feel of the operating systems, but also in terms of continuity and accessibility.

New Developments

The similarities between both the desktop and mobile platforms are especially noted in some of the latest developments in Keynote for iOS. Here is breakdown of the latest features in Keynote.

Shapes

Originally, Apple introduced shapes as graphic elements that could be added to your presentations. The basic shapes feature now has been greatly expanded to include thirteen additional themes: Objects, Animals, Nature, Food, Symbols, Education, Arts, Science, People, Places, Activities, Transportation, and Work. Shapes can be formatted like any other shape, including the ability to change to solid or gradient colors; add shadows, borders, and reflections; add text, and animations. 

Slide Size

Typically, presentations come in two formats: 4;3 (standard) and 16:9 (wide screen). Under the documents set up tab, Keynote offers additional sizes, such as, 3:4 (standard portrait size) and 1:1 or square. The most significant option is the ability to customize the document size to include, for example, 9:16 or what has become a standard for Instagram Stories and IGTV.  This level of customization expands the scope of what you can do with Keynote on your IOS device, especially when accompanied by advanced options for exporting projects.

Exports

Up until recently, the parity between MacOS and iOS was okay (taking into account recent developments with iWork in the cloud), but still lacked behind the desktop due to the limited ability to export projects. Keynote for iOS has been limited to exporting to PowerPoint, and PDF, making it barely useful beyond the iPad itself. As of this date, Keynote now offers the ability to export images in high or low resolution and in PNG and TIFF formats; you can also designate a range of slides for exporting images. 

An Added Bonus

In addition to exporting images, Keynote now exports to movie format. This development is probably the most substantial, bringing Keynote for iOS closer to the Mac in terms of performance and features. When exporting to movie, the number of seconds for slides and builds can be customized and options for resolution include 720p, 1080p, and 4K. 

Conclusion

In summary, the productivity level of Keynote for iOS has been greatly enhanced by expanding the integration of graphic elements in the form of thematic shapes, adding customization to slide and/or project sizes, and expanding export options to include images and movies. Furthermore, other enhancements like iCloud Drive or Files integration and drawing tools as a additional resource for adding content to slides makes Keynote a game changer.

Timothy Brown, Host of My Apple Podcast