Pages 15 vs. Pages 14.5 . . . Why the change?

Pages v14.5 is end of life and there will be no further updates to it.

Pages v15.1 brings with it adaptations for Sequoia v15.6 and later, some product changes, and additional premium features for those that optionally choose to subscribe to Apple's Creator Studio. There is also an in-app purchase menu item on the Pages v15.1 application menu for that purpose. After installing Pages v15.1, I moved Pages v14.5 to the Trash and emptied it.

As these are strictly fellow user-supported, public communities, there are no Apple employees participating here to answer "why" questions. Apple's software. Their decision.

Pages v15.1 is compatible with documents that you created with earlier Pages applications. The one caveat is that if you still have any iWork 'YY created documents, it may be wise to open copies of them owing to Pages v5 -> v15.1 penchant for converting them into current Pages document format which would not be backwards compatible with Pages 'YY on Mojave or earlier.

tomatosauces wrote:

Do you know if file compatibility works both ways? I have devices that will only run Pages 14.5 and I'm concerned that if I update one machine to Pages 15, it'll do something to the files that mean they won't open on my old iPad or Macbook Pro.

Yes file compatibility works both ways. You can open a Pages 15 document on Pages 14 and the other way around. It even works cross platform where I can create a Pages 15 document on my Mac and open in on my iPhone using Pages 14.5. Changes made on the iPhone are then reflected when opening the document back on the Mac.

There is also no need to use the subscription service, if you are just looking to use Pages like you always had. The subscription covers new Templates, Image Generation, and AI Writing tools that are not required and you can continue to use the app for Free without paying anything.

Do you know if file compatibility works both ways? I have devices that will only run Pages 14.5 and I'm concerned that if I update one machine to Pages 15, it'll do something to the files that mean they won't open on my old iPad or Macbook Pro.