I’ve always been a really big fan of the Shapes feature built into Keynote, Numbers, Pages and Freeform, because there are hundreds of really quick graphics you can use in your presentations or your documents. And in my classroom, it’s been such a timesaver to get people to find really appropriate graphics for their work super fast.

But in the Creator Studio version of these apps, there’s a brand new feature where you can actually generate your own custom shapes using Apple Intelligence that perfectly fit whatever it is you’re working on.

So, all we’re going to do is press the Shapes button at the top. And normally when you search, there are perhaps about five or six hundred shapes that you can choose from. But if there isn’t the one you want, you can now tap here where it says Generate Shape. And then you’re going to give it a text prompt of exactly what you want.

So for this poem, I’m going to ask for a treasure map of an island with a parrot and a treasure chest on there. And then we’ll give it a couple of moments to generate. And just like Image Playground, you’re now going to see four different versions of that shape generated on the iPad. I can swipe sideways between them. And if I find one that I like, I can simply add it to my page like any other shape. If there isn’t one that I like, I could refine my prompt and I could try again.

But I really like this one here. So, I’m going to drop it onto my page. And then I can treat it like any other shape in the app. I can change the text alignment, I can change the colour, I can add a border, I can break it apart, all of the things I would normally do with a shape. And now I’ve got a bespoke treasure map for this poem that looks great and fits the style of my other shapes in my other documents.

The really cool thing here is when you generate new shapes, they’ll also be added to your shape library. That means the next time you search for pirate or treasure or parrot, this one will come up along with all the ones built into Keynote, Numbers and Pages.

And if you want to see what else is new in the latest updates of these apps, and of course more iPhone and iPad tricks, I think you’re going to love this video next.