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

Prior to using Keynote, Jobs had used Concurrence, from Lighthouse Design, a similar product which ran on the NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP platforms. Keynote began as a computer program for Apple CEO Steve Jobs to use in creating the presentations for Macworld Conference and Expo and other Apple keynote events.