Keynote is a

presentation software In computing, a presentation program (also called presentation software) is a software package used to display information in the form of a slide show. It has three major functions: * an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted * ...

application developed as a part of the

iWork iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc., Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. iWork includes the presentation program, presentation applicat ...

productivity suite by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

Version 14 of Keynote for Mac, the latest major update, was released in April 2024. Keynote is available for a range of Apple devices across macOS, iOS and iPadOS.

History

Keynote began as a computer program for Apple CEO

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

to use in creating the presentations for

Macworld Conference and Expo Macworld/iWorld (originally Macworld) was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to Apple's Mac platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conf ...

and other Apple keynote events. Before using Keynote, Jobs had used Concurrence, from

Lighthouse Design Lighthouse Design Ltd. was an American software company that operated from 1989 to 1996. Lighthouse developed software for NeXT computers running the NeXTSTEP operating system. The company was founded in 1989 by Alan Chung, Roger Rosner, Jonatha ...

, a similar product which ran on the

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...

and

OPENSTEP OpenStep is an object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification developed by NeXT. It provides a framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and developing software applications. OpenStep was designed to be plat ...

platforms. The program was first sold publicly as Keynote 1.0 in 2003, competing against existing presentation software, most notably

Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, developed by Microsoft. It was originally created by Robert Gaskins, Tom Rudkin, and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially ...

. In 2005, Apple began selling Keynote 2.0 in conjunction with

Pages Page most commonly refers to: * Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to: Roles * Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation * Page (servant), traditionally a young mal ...

, a new word processing and page layout application, in a software package called iWork. At the

Macworld Conference & Expo Macworld/iWorld (originally Macworld) was an information technology trade show with conference tracks dedicated to Apple's Mac platform. It was held annually in the United States during January. Originally ''Macworld Expo'' and then ''Macworld Conf ...

2006, Apple released iWork '06 with updated versions of Keynote 3.0 and Pages 2.0. In addition to official HD compatibility, Keynote 3 added new features, including group scaling, 3D charts, multi-column text boxes, auto bullets in any text field, image adjustments, and free-form masking tools. In addition, Keynote features three-dimensional transitions, such as a rotating cube or a simple flip of the slide. In the fall of 2007, Apple released Keynote 4.0 in iWork '08, along with Pages 3.0 and the new

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

spreadsheet application. On October 23, 2013, Apple redesigned Keynote with version 6.0, and made it free for anyone with a new

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

device or a recently purchased Mac. A version of Keynote for

visionOS visionOS is a mixed reality operating system derived primarily from iPadOS and its core frameworks (including UIKit, SwiftUI, ARKit and RealityKit), and MR-specific frameworks for foveated rendering and real-time interaction. It was develope ...

was released on February 2, 2024, alongside the launch of the

Apple Vision Pro The Apple Vision Pro is a mixed reality, mixed-reality headset developed by Apple Inc., Apple. It was announced on June 5, 2023, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and was released first in the US, then in global territories thr ...

. The app is largely based upon the iPadOS version of the program, and is currently the only component of the

suite to offer a native visionOS app.

Features

* Themes that allow the user to keep consistency in colors and fonts throughout the presentation, including charts, graphs, and tables. *

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

-powered 3D slide transitions and builds that resemble rolling cubes or flipping pages, or dissolving transitions that fade one slide into the next. * Dual monitor support: the presenter can show the presentation on a screen and still see the desktop or notes from their laptop or presenter screen. * Exports to:

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...

JPEG JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...

TIFF Tag Image File Format or Tagged Image File Format, commonly known by the abbreviations TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is w ...

PNG Portable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced , colloquially pronounced ) is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange ...

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

(with JPEG images) and PowerPoint. Keynote also uses .key (presentation files) and .kth (theme files) bundles based on

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

. * Supports all

video formats (including

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods ...

and DV) in

slideshow A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may be ...

s. * Version 3 brings export to

iDVD iDVD is a discontinued Mac (computer), Mac application made by Apple Inc., Apple, which can be used to DVD authoring, create DVDs. iDVD lets users design DVD menus (like a main menu and chapter selection menu) and burn movies, slideshows, and ...

with clickability. * Compatibility with

Apple Remote The Apple Remote is a remote control introduced in October 2005 by Apple Inc. for use with a number of its products with infrared capability. It was originally designed to control the Front Row media center program on the iMac G5 and is compat ...

and the Keynote remote application for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Keynote Remote

Keynote Remote was an

application that controlled Keynote presentations from an

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

over a Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth connection and was released through the App Store. With the release of Keynote for iOS, the app was integrated into the new Keynote application and the stand-alone app was withdrawn.

Version history

References

External links