“Before I begin my analysis of Apple’s iWork for iCloud beta, I want to note that I focused specifically on Pages,” Kaled Ali writes for AppleTell. “This is because most users are looking for something that functions similarly to Microsoft Word.”
“After many months, Apple finally answered the prayers of so many customers like myself and introduced iWork for iCloud at WWDC 2013. iWork for iCloud is an entirely browser based version of the iWork suite that is available in the Mac App Store and the iOS App Storw,” Ali writes. “Currently, developers can log in through beta.icloud.com and not through their normal iCloud accounts.”
Ali writes, “Editing Pages on Apple devices just got so much easier, especially because you can work off of an iPad and view it on the large screen of your Mac.”
Read more in the full article here.
iCloud cannot replace Word, unless perhaps you are doing a pre-school report. Otherwise, LOL.
I am a physician, a researcher and a scientist. I have replaced Office with iWorks for the last three years. I have numerous documents I produced in the past in Word. I have exclusively used Pages to open old Word documents and convert these and write original manuscripts, reports, presentations, books and other teaching materials. I have sold numerous copies of my Pages built self published book and it is for sale on Amazon. I finished preschool 60 years ago and am going strong with a post graduate education, that would no doubt dwarf your own. Regardless of your education, your ignorance is palpable.
Michael,
Absolutely brilliant! I could not agree with you more! I have grown past the Mac Vs PC debate half a dozen years ago but I LOVE the aesthetic beauty, productivity, pleasure of working with Pages, Numbers and Keynote Vs. MS Office ANY TIME! I have never come across something that I could not accomplish with iWork and have NEVER caught myself thinking “if only I had MS Office….” iWork (desktop) is a solid, beautiful product (all products have a few minor things here and there but that’s because it’s designed by HUMANS. It’s expected).
No one could have put it more succinctly than you did! Note even me 🙂
LOL! I’ve written numerous short stories, the first novel in a series of nine volumes of a Science Fiction series, and am currently working on another novel in the Thriller genre. . . all created in Pages. I am a published author and have been an editor and publisher. I find I must agree with Michael. Your ignorance is abysmal.
Actually, it can. The design of Word in office 2011 closely emulated Pages. Pages is faster, much easier to use and does not require the massive amount of resources to function. Fast, elegant, sleek. What’s not to like? The iWork suite is pure pleasure when compared to Office. Pages, Numbers, Keynote – I have them on my Mac, my iPhone and my iPad. They work seamlessly with iCloud. These apps should come pre-installed, in my opinion. The iWork suite makes Office seem positively antique.
What is not to like is the lack of 100% compatibility when working in an office environment and sharing files with others which must be in MS Word format.
I use both Pages and Ms Word – pages for personal documents and posters and Ms Word for work documents. I find both to be good pieces of software – neither are antique.
You can still use Pages to create and edit Word documents and that’s the point here; you don’t need Word.
Word has become so complex and bloated, that most of the features are not used by most people anyway. Sure there will be a few, but by and large, something as simple as TextEdit could replace a lot of what people use Word for.
Although I will say, Microsoft’s court mandated Open Office Document Format is so complex and full of proprietary “options” that it is almost impossible for any other office suite to be completely or even nearly compatible. People need to learn to cut the cord, try something new. Maybe keep a computer in the corner with Office installed for backwards compatibility.
With loss of formatting and tables.
A computer in the corner of an office? In order to ditch MS Word. Are you for real?
Word is bloated
So is “the joker”.
It already does for me, it opens some old word Docs that Word itself can’t, it is easier to use, more flexible and far easier to use. Additionally it is far easier to create attractive desktop publishing type docs than the laboured Complex and user unfriendly Word. Don’t touch word at all now unless I have to.
Correct. iCloud could never be as aggravating as Word. I mean come on, we cant wrap text in a text box. Word is amateurish at best.
the joker is an idiot…and clear it does not know what is talking about.
I’ve used pages for years as well as word.
I agree that the “joker” is an idiot.
… a troll.
But the statement “iCloud cannot replace Word” is not so wrong. Word is a hugely complex program with more features than most professional writers use in their life-times. Nothing, so far, can touch it. My wife, OTOH, is a playwright (has been produced) and a theater critic – a LOT of writing – and she doesn’t use most of the much smaller feature set found in Pages. So … MOST people CAN replace Word with an admittedly lesser product! Because, even admitting it is lesser, it does all the job they ask of it.
Less is often more my friend, word has complexity that makes it difficult to use and most of those functions will never be used by most. It also fools people into thinking it is. DTP program which it patently is not and all their work has to be undone just so that we can create a printable product. It simply flatters to deserve and is the biggest pain to designers.
No one would dispute that Word has more capabilities than Pages for iCloud. But to imply that nothing can touch Word for writing professionals would NOT be an accurate statement. Word’s formatting and style template organization is terrible compared to other existing technical writing software. I’m amazed at how many people try to use Word for generating documents that are 100s of pages long. Word is not cut out for such tasks and those who use it for large documents are in for a world of hurt and possible data loss. Not to me tion the fact that it’s designed by committee with a terrible and inconsistent user interface.
I love Pages. And from what I’ve seen of the iCloud beta, I will love it even more when that becomes available. It is so much easier to use than Word with it’s peculiarly designed “ribbon.”
Ah, yes.. what would a discussion be without the inevitable use of the word “idiot?”…. – Rush Limbaugh’s (Idiot No. 1) Alternative Universe.
… it opened a new window and the same screen.
Not a very well done pre-review, but it is what it is.
Has anyone noticed the main iCloud screen shot? Is that not an entire office suite of applications? Is this how Apple will sneak onto Windows dominated Corporationland desktops? I’m not saying it’s going to replace Microsoft Office in the enterprise, but Google’s craptastic web apps, just got pushed out of the way.
This is an embarrassment to Google. THEY are supposed to be the Internet/Cloud company and yet it takes Apple (once again) to show everyone what HTML5 is really capable of.
What if Apple releases their HTML5 API and allows developers to begin building powerful web apps available on iCloud? This will turn iCloud into a 4th platform; OS X, iOS, AppleTV, iCloud… All targeted and optimized for very specific needs. I think it’s becoming clear why Steve Jobs was so excited by iCloud and its future.
Relax. Apple doesn’t own the technology Pages is running in online.
We don’t need Apple for HTML5. It’s open source.
Now tell us something we DON’T know, Slimeball.
Huh? Yeah, never said Apple owned HTML5, it’s an open standard… What they obviously do have is a rich API’s based off HTML5 (this moniker includes, CSS, Javascript, etc, as well).
Here’s the correct link to the article:
http://www.technologytell.com/apple/119592/pages-for-icloud-beta-hands-on/
word processors in general are pretty much equivalent neither word or pages is really good for professional publication in fact importing text from a word document into a professional page layout program like indesign or Quark is a nightmare. If you guys were savvy to the fine points of typography like page justification that does not create “rivers” or” widows and orphans” or kerning and leading you would realize your arguing over which toy is better. copy and paste out of word and you will see all the idiosyncratic code . especially when a user has “tricked” word into doing something with extra returns or spaces . getting things like text flow or drop caps to work i word is a chore and the results are as exciting as the clip art library. save your word or pages documents as PDF’s and you will never have to worry about getting them to open or sending them to a professional printer and getting no surprises . pages advantage is it is a native pdf word processor so the pdfs it creates need no “translation” and will import into a professional layout program with much less surprise than word affords us. kudos to the professor for creating and publishing a book with pages. next time try indesign and see if you can do even better .
widows and orphans are words that are unnecessarily hyphenated to make the page justify the type . rivers are gaps that flow through the text leaving rivulets of white most visible when word trys to center justify . kerning is tightening the space between two individual letters that may have too much space leading is compacting a few words or sentences to make them fit in a column with out creating orphans (there now you know)
I understood widows and orphans to be a last or first line of a paragraph that’s left on its own after the paragraph is split by a page break (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_and_orphans). Leading is extra spacing between lines, named from the practice of inserting thin strips of lead metal (or even cardboard) between the individual lines of text. Ah, the days of hot lead and hand-setting headlines. I used to work in my brother’s printing shop after school, and got to melt down the used lead for recasting into ingots. Hand-setting headlines is where I learned to read upside-down and back-to-front – quite useful when you want to read documents on the boss’s desk 😉
I was playing with Numbers (haven’t gotten to Pages yet). It’s so nice to finally see cell numbers, but overall it’s wonderfull to easily edit and save a document in the cloud. I think this is a big improvement for Apple and will definitely compete with the MS Bloatware
The overwhelming opinion, with which I agree, that the ‘Ribbon’ is the worst interface possible for any program with as many features as Word offers does not trump the FACT that Word has more features and capability than Pages or any other popular word processor.
… and sorry, but tethering to some @#$%^& “cloud” isn’t any improvement to computing. iCloud has pathetic file management capability. Definitely not a tool for serious users.
If you are happy with Pages ’09 today, fine. It’s 4 years more obsolete than Word, even with the horrid Ribbon experience.
With the school computers being upgraded from total garbage to rubbish, I will use the iCloud iWorks the second it is released. Please let me be able to use Keynote for my lessons and I shall be released from the evil Microsoft for ever. (Unless the IT department block iCloud.)
I’m off out to the mancave now, to continue the research on my book on the history of squash in Scotland using Scrivener (my all-time fave programme), Numbers and Pages.