“Apple has opened up its iWork for iCloud beta to a large number of new beta testers, so I’ve spent a couple of hours taking a look at what’s inside the cloud-based productivity suite,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“All three apps are fast,” Evans writes. “Move on page items around and you’ll see near real-time text wrapping around objects and images; you experience near instant application of formatting, style and even font substitutions (I count 47 fonts within Pages).”
Evans writes, “Performance is reassuring, though we will have to wait until the suite is made more widely available before we can be certain Apple’s servers can consistently maintain the suite’s responsiveness when it is being used by large numbers of people at once. Given that iCloud is frequently slated for performance log jams this point will be critical to the success of this suite.”
“I’m impressed with iWork for iCloud,” Evans writes. “Fast and responsive, and accessed through a pleasantly laid out interface, if this is the future of Web apps and Apple’s first move into offering a suite of cross-platform cloud-based tools, then I think it’s safe to say we’re resolutely now in the world of post-PC.”
Much more in the full article here.
Sure wish Apple would include it’s FileMaker in iCloud system too!
… the iWork package.
I’m sure there are folks who would like FinalCut and similar “pro” packages to be iCloud-enabled, but that will have to wait. Maybe after iLife gets iCloud-enabled?
Yes! I’ve been a Mac-fan since first Mac512 and FM was Claris(?). I should have written it, for better understanding, that I wish iWork had a database included in it to round out the package. Not Bento, yet Apple’s FM as the database!
The first macs were 128K the 512 was know as the “fat mac” (the 1024 as the “mac plus)
File maker was an Apple product in those days (Clarus was the name of the software company Apple spun off in ’87, long after the original Mac)
Funny you don’t know all of that, since you owned them. (and even more curious… I DIDN”T own a Mac till after OS X and I did) The mind reels.
Well oh my dear aren’t you clever?
Try thinking a bit harder and you might get the point of my reply. It was not about self aggrandizing (knowing the early mac models wouldn’t be much of an achievement now would it)
Wasn’t FileMaker actually done by Nashoba Systems back in the day. Not sure when Apple bought it from them…or perhaps bought the MA-based company, but it must have been Nashoba’s when the 512k Mac was around. I have a working Mac Plus. And Clarus was actually the name of Apple’s beloved dogcow, not the Apple spinoff.
Don’t know about that but Apple defiantly spun off a company called Claris in the late 70’s (who had filemaker)
However my original comment (and that point was not made well) was more about the credibility of the original poster. When I see a negative first post of a product the press is heaping praise on, I always think “is this another one of the anti apple astroturfers or a legitimate user”
When the second post claimed to be a rabid mac fan and a user since the original Mac I get even more skeptical (doesn’t every astroturfer claim to be a user since 1984 and list the apple hardware they have?)
Then when the poster was confused as to what the early models were and that filemaker was an Apple product at that time (didn’t become Claris till ’87) it really called the authenticity into question (for me)
My “isn’t that curious post” was simply an (apparently) not so clever attempt to highlight the fact that that it seemed to me that if you actually owned the products back in ’84 (and weren’t just astroturfing) you would be familiar with the names and models.
Oops typo…
…spun off a company called Claris in the late 70′s
Should be
…spun off a company called Claris in the late 80′s
We need this to get away from the clutches of Evil Google and data mining ways for cloud office productivity.
I’m pretty sure the fast responsiveness is exactly why iWorks for iCloud will be able to scale with no regard for Apple’s servers: It’s all done in Javascript on your local computer.
iWork, not iWorks, Numbers for iCloud still cannot lock a cell. Also, cannot find the Inspector in the iCloud apps. Yes, still Beta.