Keynote 8 For MAC: New Image Gallery, Better Interactivity With Other Iwork Apps

Keynote 8 (go.macworld.com/kymc) for Mac hasn’t reached the apex of its perfection, but Apple clearly didn’t have a wishlist of features to push it forward. The latest release for Mac brings it up to date with simultaneous releases of Keynote for iOS (go.macworld.com/kyio) and Pages (Mac [go.macworld.com/p74m] and iOS [go.macworld.com/p44i]) and Numbers (Mac [go.macworld.com/nm4m] and iOS [go.macworld.com/nios]).

- Glenn Fleishman

GETTING UP TO SPEED

We haven’t reviewed Keynote since version 6.5.3 in 2015, so it’s worth a look of what’s changed since then. Apple continued to push forward development through incremental releases from 7.0 to 7.3, which restored a number of features that we found lacking (go.macworld.com/ ky65) in 6.5.3.

Version 7.0 added a beta of collaborative real-time editing. Version 7.1 offered up one of the most significant changes: an Object List that made creating complicated builds vastly easier, as selecting and ordering items in the build was a frustrating process that lead to literal head-to-desk slamming. It’s still weaker than other presentation apps, and I’ve spent hours moving items around to create the right flow—but at least now, it’s feasible. In version 7.2, navigation and marking up a document in text (with replies and threaded comments) became far better.

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