Keynote, from Apple is a presentation software with tools and effects, designed to make it easy to create memorable presentations, and comes included with most Apple devices. Use Apple Pencil on an iPad to create diagrams or illustrations that bring slides to life. With its real‑time collaboration features, teams can work together, whether they’re on Mac, iPad, iPhone, or using a PC.
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Microsoft Powerpoint
Score 7.9 out of 10
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Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation software designed to allow users to create slide-based presentations including video and images, as well as slide transitions and animations.
Well Suited: Setting up in-person presentations for clients. The transitions are nicely integrated, the master template easily adjusted, and the file size relatively small for ease in download and emailing as a leave behind. Less Appropriate: Clients often feel that EVERYTHING needs to be set up as a slide deck. However, it is key to listen to the client's needs to first determine the final output. What was initially predetermined to be a slide deck may often be more effective as an email, brochure, or flyer. Keynote does what it is intended to, well, but that doesn't mean that it should ALWAYS be the end product format.
Well suited for: Business presentations, storyboarding, instructor-led training, content slide creation for courseware, interactive kiosks and slideshows, logo design, posters, scalable PDF text, multimedia integration. Not well suited for: 3D object manipulation, layer editing, object trigger programming, complex graphic themes, advanced audio editing, advanced video editing, advanced photo editing, 3D modeling.
The way you adjust timings for builds and transitions was a bit counterintuitive for me. Once I got the hang of it, it was fine. The timings don't work the same as they do in PowerPoint. So if you are a PowerPoint user, that may be something you have to adjust to when you switch to Keynote.
I feel that adding images can be clunky when working with image placeholders. Apple Keynote forces you to use the Photo app to replace image placeholders.
It is already included with my Macbook and the design functionality is pretty advanced so I can upload my custom brand fonts and it is easy to create templates where you can drag and drop different images while keeping overall alignment and placement the same
Apple Keynote is incredibly user-friendly and largely intuitive. In the rare areas that Apple Keynote is not intuitive, there is a robust online community of fellow Apple Keynote users that can answer most questions I have about the program. I would encourage any of my coworkers - and anyone else in my same line of work - to adopt Apple Keynote because of its user-friendliness.
Microsoft Powerpoint is a strong tool specially when it comes to giving presentations and visually presenting ideas. It is a great tool to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical management and staff members, helping to present ideas in a clear and concise way. But when it comes to internal usage, Microsoft Powerpoint needs to be used along with a host of other tools to present details and adding diagrams
I've never had any issues with its availability. As it is installed on my machine, it's ready when I need it, online or offline. Creating large slide decks with complex elements like video and audio doesn't affect its stability. The only limitation would be the capability of your own computer, as far as I can tell.
The performance is very strong. It loads reasonably quickly. Large presentations load relatively quickly too, given their complexity, and once loaded each slide is readily available. It's easy to scroll up and down through your slide deck and go to the slide you want. Videos, pictures and music all load on demand, controllable by clicks.
I have never had to use the actual support. Most of my questions are "how to" questions and there is a rich internet full of users sharing their tips and tricks with this application. Sometimes I find the answers on Microsoft support site but often I don't
If you want to create presentations more often, Prezi and Canva or not even options, both of tools take a lot of time. So the real competitor for Apple Keynote is Microsoft Powerpoint. For me, Powerpoint is so feature-filled that makes it a little complex. On the other hand, Apple Keynote is a very simple and elegant, and easy-to-use tool.
Canva: The animations and effects are very limited and hard to customize unless you are a Canva Expert. Too many of the items are only available to premium subscribers (which can be highly frustrating). Some of the stock images, icons, etc., will be copied to your presentation. But when you go to download the presentation, Canva puts one of those annoying watermarks on the image, icon, or stock photo. Adobe Express: Although it is a free service like Canva, it still has the annoying issue with only paid users have access to the premium content. But with Express, the design options are almost limitless. Text is so easy to edit and create stunning text moments. Express does offer animations and effects, but most are only available to premium members (requires a monthly fee). Prezi: What I thought was going to be an amazing presentation creator falls so far from the mark that I hardly ever use it. The learning curve is very steep, and it does not offer all the bells and whistles that Microsoft Powerpoint offers.
Scaling up use of Microsoft Powerpoint would be a simple case of buying further licences. The software is intuitive and therefore training demands from scaling it to more departments or more individuals would be relatively straightforward. Google Slides may be easier to share among those organisations that use Google's suite of apps, however.
Improved efficiency since my presentations are quick to update
Improved efficacy since the UI makes creating attractive presentations easy to create
There have been a few occasions when I need to convert my files to PowerPoint when using virtual conference platforms since Keynote is not as ubiquitous
