“A handful of recently discovered job listings suggest a possible next-generation iWork software suite may soon see release, with the latest postings asking for specialists in quality assurance, one of the final steps in software building,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider.
“As of this writing, there are eight iWork-related positions on the ‘Jobs at Apple’ webpage, three of which deal with quality assurance or software verification,” Campbell reports. “One listing, posted on May 11, is looking for a software quality assurance specialist, a sign that Apple could be readying deployment some time soon.”
Campbell reports, “While there has yet to be any official word on a next-gen iWork product, the number of job listings and information therein strongly suggest such a product is in the offing, and could be released in the near future. The current iWork ’09, which includes Pages, Numbers and Keynote, was released in 2009, and is seen by some to be long overdue for an upgrade.”
Read more in the full article here.
Finally.
About time! 😮
Dear Apple,
Please kill Office once and for all.
Thanks,
JPC
Just kneecap it. Killing Office would kill Microsoft, and Apple needs it as an ally in the war against the Ad Axis.
A well placed stake through that soulless heart!
Unless the update is stellar I’ll skip it. 4 years is a long wait between releases!
Did iWork mysteriously quit working for you?
Nope and I’m not in the mood to wait 4 years after the next release to see any shortcomings fixed.
Really? I use iWork daily and avoid Office if at all possible, which it usually is. I could understand if there was something about iWork that just didn’t work for you, but I’d rather have no updates for 4 years than the mess of an update Microsoft peddled lately.
Please, Apple, don’t dumb down iWork to have only the features, fonts, and formatting that iOS can support. Right now, the file converter strips out things iOS cannot do, which means some files can’t be put on iCloud and retrieved. The converter should ignore and preserve what it doesn’t understand.
I do not like the direction that Apple is going, that the features on OSX are subject to the unavoidable limitations of a handheld device. An iMac ≠ an iPhone ≠ an iPad. Don’t turn my iMac and my MacBook Pro into giant iPhones. Don’t infringe on Microsoft’s stupidity patent.
The MS stupidity patent is registered with the USPTO under the name of Uncle Fester (aka S.P. Ballmer), inventor extraordinaire & value destroyer rivalling the mighty Hammer of Thor.
AKA Mjölnir
I don’t even try to pronounce that. Might get my tongue twisted.
As much as I hate Microshaft, Numbers does not even come close to the essential features that Excel has. At least I’ve never purchased an M$ product.
Sorry. I guess it is in the eye of the beholder. I know Numbers doesn’t do everything and there are some who need some features of Excel that Numbers doesn’t have. But the opposite is also true. It is painful when I have to use Excel. I miss the feature of multiple tables within a sheet that Numbers has and Excel doesn’t and numerous other things that make my life with Numbers and without Excel easier.
They can’t kill Microsoft Office if they kill OS X iWork and replace it with iOS iWork.
Amazing! Maybe Cook actually does listen to Apple users … who have been suggesting much-needed features and improvements to iWork since the last major release FOUR years ago!!!
Maybe there should be three versions iWork, Standard, iOS & Pro.
Don’t forget Home Business, Soccer Mom Away and the many other versions so Apple can be just like M$.
The OS X and iOS versions of iWork are already different. The problem is the documents they produce. Right now, the iCloud file converter strips out anything from the OS X iWork document that iOS iWork does not support. You can move a 1,000 page document from OS X to iOS, but you’ll grow a beard before you can scroll to the bottom of it in iOS.
It is not possible to upgrade iOS iWork to all the features of OS X iWork, but it would be possible to reduce OS X to the lowest common denominator. That would limit the documents it produces to what iOS can handle. Opening existing documents would strip things out. That, in my view, is a disaster, and I’m in high anxiety that Apple will do it.
What they could do is let iOS iWork and OS X iWork have appropriate but compatible feature sets. OS X iWork would have a superset of iOS iWorks’ features, and not use a file converter. In that scenario, iOS iWork could edit the parts of an OS X iWord document that it understands and leave the rest untouched. (OS X iWork, of course, would be able to work with documents produced by iOS iWork as it does today.) That would be okay.
Apple has become big (who knew, right…?)! In addition to the hardware lines (iOS, Mac OS), some of which already take up a lot of resources, they have software lines to support as well. There’s iLife, which, even though free, must be periodically kept up. We saw iDVD and iWeb getting jettisoned, streamlining the package to only the tools that majority of users actually use. Then there’s the iWork, which clearly needs attention. Then there is the set of pro apps: Aperture (also going by the wayside), Logic / Mainstage combo, remnants from the Logic Studio (from which SoundTrack Pro was jettisoned), as well as the Final Cut triptych (FCP X – Motion – Compressor), remnants of the old Final Cut Studio (from which we had lost Color, DVD Studio Pro, Cinema Tools, Live Type and Shake).
Even with all the streamlining and abandoning of some of these applications, Apple still has a lot of software on its plate to keep updating. I’m not quite sure they have enough people to do this efficiently and effectively.
And your list doesn’t even include any of Apple’s iOS apps to maintain and update, typically more frequently than the OS X updates.
And Apple please also port the _entire_ Keynote to the iPad: I’ve never managed to use it to give a talk. Half the figures are missing, half the effects don’t work, a real disappointment. Surely after all this time and with Apple’s resources this can be FIXED !
I’d love it if they fix the bug where a Pages document never forgets whatever printer was the first one you used with it. It doesn’t matter if you pick a new default printer, or even just go back to re-print the document you printed two minutes ago. That Pages document will pick the printer you used a week ago when you first made the document, entirely ignoring the Mac OS X setting to “Use Last Printer.”
And, no, don’t criticize me if you haven’t bothered to look this up. It’s well-documented, and real. No “nuh uh” posts welcome.
Hey guys don’t forget Aperture !
“A handful of recently discovered job listings suggest a possible next-generation iWork software suite may soon see release”
So, these people are being hired at the very, very end of a new product cycle?
“The current iWork ’09, which includes Pages, Numbers and Keynote, was released in 2009, and is seen by some to be long overdue for an upgrade.”
Basically, everyone who isn’t retarded feels it’s long overdue.
I find its funny that everytime Apple is doing something they have to post a job posting. Like they don’t have any talent in house or they are running bare bone staff.