Keynote

Apple Updates iWork Apps with YouTube and Vimeo Embed Feature

Apple Updates iWork Apps for Mac for iBooks Author Transition, YouTube and Vimeo Embeds - MacRumors:

The Pages app now supports importing books from iBooks Author, which Apple discontinued and removed from the App Store on July 1. The update app also allows videos from YouTube and Vimeo to be played right in documents, with release notes below.

  • Play YouTube and Vimeo videos right in your documents.

I have been wishing for this feature for years. Embedding web videos is so useful in the classroom, where adding something like a YouTube video to your class presentation is as easy as pasting a URL to it in a slide.

I have been jealous of Google Slides for this feature (and pretty much only for this feature) and had just assumed that it was easier for Google to implement because both services are web-based. Apple doesn’t have a strong history of going out of their way to cooperate with the web, or Google services for that matter. So I am happy to see this feature here.

I have worked around this problem in the past by using two apps that are incredible utilities. Downie, on the Mac, which strips videos from the web and downloads them to your hard drive, and iCab Mobile, which is a web browser for the iPad that can download web videos to the Files app.

Both these apps, on their respective operating systems, have allowed me the control to download web videos and put them in slides. But this new iWork feature will eliminate several steps and make my files much lighter.