“Apple’s iWork is slowly but surely getting back to its old form,” Don Reisinger reports for CNET.
“The company on Thursday updated its iWork suite with several features it took out of the latest launch,” Reisinger reports. “The biggest update is the addition of customized toolbars — a feature power users enjoyed in previous versions but were sad to see go in the latest option.”
Reisinger reports, “Apple’s updates are available now in the Mac App Store.”
Read more in the full article here.
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See?
Saw!
Lol
I wish Rosetta would reappear.
Copy that
Why?
Good things come to those who wait, impatient bitches!
These features already existed before the geniuses at Apple removed them. Apple corrected a mistake, Apple did not introduce anything new or revolutionary.
Not so fast.
The new versions are exactly that: newly-written applications.
Clean-sheet rewrites; they didn’t rip out bits from the existing code base, and it takes time to reimplement all the features from scratch.
Patience, it will all come together in good time.
And what percentage of the rest of my working life will have gone by that time?
Oh, goody! Apple have returned “a few” of the many dozens of features dropped. Whoop-di-doo.
Poor baby. It’s all about YOU!
What kind of a myrmidon are you? The flaw was not in changing the software; it was in NOT telling people. Touting upgrades and comparing iWork favorably to MS Office was incredibly misleading when loads of basic functionality were removed from the upgrades. It’s about transparency and honesty, which were stunningly lacking in this recent release.
That’s life in the fast lane.
If the suite had been labeled “beta” and made optional on the iPad (retaining in the meantime the original IOS pages), then users would have had more options.
Easy solution, don’t buy iWork. Things stop being simple to use when there’s too many features.
I’m sorry. Was this app too expensive for you?
So, don’t upgrade!!!
Zero percent. The old versions remain installed. Nothing is stopping you from working as you did before.
Speaking of returning features . . .
How about the ability to sync one’s calendars, reminders, bookmarks, etc., among devices WITHOUT going through the vaunted Cloud? A direct, local sync option was available pre-Mavericks and iOS 7, BUT NOT NOW!
I and a couple of zillion other people on Apple’s Discussion Forums cannot get this “ethereal” connection to function properly within Mavericks and iOS7, but no help is forthcoming from the company whatsoever.
Thank Gawd I still have a set of Snow Leopard/iOS 6 devices that work PERFECTLY between and amongst each other. I will NEVER let them go.
Amen for Snow Leopard. I too keep an older Mac around and my iPhone 4S running iOS 6 that just works sporting classic artwork that NEVER gets old.
Don’t use iCloud syncing because of known glitches friends and family have experienced.
But home or office cloud syncing on a backup device that I own/manage couldn’t come soon enough. 🙂
Mail Merge
Hear hear! Boy I miss being able to print personalized junk mail, err flyers/adverts. Oh well, back to Word.
But bookmarks are gone. This just destroyed a lot of work I’d done in some important documents. You absolutely have to be able to trust a vendor not to mess up old work with a software update. I understand and appreciate Apple’s desire to simplify things. But they’ve really shaken my trust with this.
Use time machine, grab your old file and only open it in the previous iWork’s. Problem fixed. Bill to follow in the mail.
Imagination, creativity and reading instructions again? You must be a real Apple user.
Not to mention mercy and charity instead of snark about first-world problems, etc.
This is a step in the right direction. Finish the job of turning these applications into the needed powerful tools. Then Microsoft can keep their over-priced bloatware.
One thing we noticed by accident yesterday was that my partner suddenly discovered while moving music onto her music player she could play her music through our intranet direct onto our Sony Bravia TV, no set up at all. This from her cheap PC laptop. Despite this intranet being set up for my iMac and iPad I of course embarrassingly knew I cannot do this from my iPad as is. I immediately checked out a Sony app and yes I can now do the same thing with anything on the net from the iPad but of course iTunes no way allows it. So I guess even though the functionality is clearly there I can’t actually do this unless I buy an Apple TV. Or does anyone know different? But at least I now know this is a ‘political’ decision rather than a technical one just seems short sighted to me.
Ironically it sounds exactly like the sort of politics over usability decision that ended up hurting Sony so much as their customers started looking elsewhere. Maybe Apple need to go through a period of pain as Sony did before they understand that interoperability is the only way to do this sort of thing.
I wish it could update me back to AppleWorks 6. I miss ________________. Fill in the blank with your whiny opinions.
😉
I keep a mac pro running Snow Leopard on hand
to run AppleWorks 6. I downgraded back
to Mt Lion because Mavericks can’t run
iMovie HD.
For all the kudos Apple gets for so many great
things it’s inconceivable they would be this
stupid and then try to put a positive spin
on making trouble for people who
depend on their supposed high
standards. Throwing chinks into
a user’s workflow just because some
software dev team leader needs to make
his mark by undoing all previous efforts;
it’s really bizarre they let some of this
stuff happen. The FCPX debacle is the
classic smoking gun, j’accuse.
My personal beef is iMovie, all
versions following HD just stink.
I’m still having problems since the “upgrade.” I have not had a productive day at my desk since it was released and that is the truth! I decided to downgrade to Mountain Lion, but that isn’t exactly just a flip of a switch. So I have since decided to just wait it out with various work arounds until they release 10.91, which hopefully will be within the next few days based on previous .1 releases occurring about a month after the initial release. Fingers crossed…
Whether you are joking or not, NOTHING has the ability to insert a database or spreadsheet into a word processing document and then followup with drawing and painting like AppleWorks 6.
It was such a novel and useful feature that Adobe once upon a time promised that version 2 of the creative suite would work with the same level of integration between inDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and etc.
Of course Adobe NEVER made good on its promise, and then Apple ditched AppleWorks for iWork.
Sure we’ve found some work arounds for the lost functionality, but its still lost.
That this reappeared so fast suggests to me tht removing the features permanently or at least testing the waters for it may have been the main plan.
I can tell you (from time spent as a developer) than many times when you are doing a major rewrite you sometimes disable minor features and concentrate on the core and the most popular features (when you are coming up on a brick wall due date) Several time my dept. shipped a product that was not 100% complete and fixed (and re enabled) the features in an update. Admittedly we told people (in the release notes) exactly what and why we had removed features and or options (normally stability, better to disable than to allow it to crash the app) But it was (decidedly) not consumer software and so we had a very different relationship (and demands) with our clients. (stability was paramount)
I really don’t see the big deal, Apple’s install left the previous version intact and have fixed some (or all?) of the missing functionality already.
Seems more like this, like Apple’s maps on iOS, is an apple hater talking point rather than real users (everyone I spoke to liked the new maps app and had very few issues with the mapping data (& similar issues are found in all mapping software)
So while I have not really asked others what they thought about “iworkgate” I have a sneaking suspicion this is not real users outrage but is just the usual haters shouting at the top of their lungs in the inter-web echo chamber.
Tessalator:
I have been an Apple user and lover since 1982. My office bought the first Apple LaserWriter printer sold in Central Texas so we could use our Macs for desktop publishing. I have used Apple computers to produce documents since before MS Windows existed. I resent like hell having to justify myself to self- appointed Apple defenders who probably weren’t alive when some of us stuck with the platform and enabled it to survive through the lean years.
The recent changes to Pages make it unsuitable for desktop publishing. That is a fact, not whining from an Apple hater. There is no guarantee that the missing non -interface features are coming back. That has quite severely impacted my family’s ability to make a living without moving to non-Apple software that is inferior in usability to Pages 4.3. That is also a fact, not opinion.
It is people like you that perpetuate the image of Apple users as religious fanatics. The company has done quite well without your assistance. If you cannot accept the notion that no human institution is infallible, I wish you would transfer your loyalty to the papacy. The Holy Father might appreciate your support. I doubt that Apple does.
Two parts here, the version you have been using was somehow rendered unusable? (hell our web guy still uses iWeb for quick layouts he even figured out how to insert HTML5 widgets from hype into iWeb layouts)
I really don’t see the need for all the hand wringing and angst at this point: you have working software. if Apple doesn’t bring the new version to where it fits you specific needs in 9 mos or a year, then begin to wring you hands, but that seems somehow false or fabricated at this point.
The “That has quite severely impacted my family’s ability to make a living without moving to non-Apple software” crap” One it just isn’t true, Two it is -waaaaay- over the top and three it screams I’m a troll
Second, I will take you at you word but I have to tell you you have made that difficult, you have tipped many red flags here
Cautionaty red flags indicating a not real user:
List you apple equipment
talk about how long you have been an apple user (1984 or before)
Talk about how you suffered through the bad time with apple to show your dedication.
Lastly call any one who debates you a religious fanatic (or at least a mindless fanboy or lemming)
So I have a trust problem here on the one hand your angst seems premature and over the top (given the situation) and then you are ticking ever “I’m a troll” box along the way.
But I am taking you (as I said) at you word and as such I would say Keep doing what you are doing, nothing has changed that. See if apple brings what you need to the new version in the next year or so. If not Deal with it rationally and methodically at that time.
Previously I thought you might be an a##hole, but I wasn’t sure. Now I know you need a proctologist. You apparently think that anybody who sees any fault in Apple is a troll. Well, fella, it isn’t me living under a bridge. Most people with real jobs understand that only a fool bases his business plans on software that has been formally declared End-of-Life. Only an even bigger fool bases his plans on the notion that features that have deliberately been dropped to repurpose a program to do collaborative word processing with iPhone users are ever coming back to make it a DTP package again.
To repeat, religious fanatics like you give all Apple users a bad name.
Hey Tessellator:-
How do you think Micros**t has got to where they are? By showing business users consistency.
It’s about trust, and yet again Appje has shown the business world that it cannot be trusted. This is not debatable this is a matter of fact.
Fantastic, Apple is putting something back in that should have never been left out if the update. Another hundred features to go…
“That this reappeared so fast suggests to me tht removing the features permanently or at least testing the waters for it may have been the main plan.”
Or maybe it’s all newly-written code, and they’re rolling in less-critical functionality as fast as they can reasonably do so.
It’s new code, nothing was “ripped out”, it just hasn’t all been put in place yet.
Better, but still need to customize my presenter display in keynote!
Bring back CoverFlow in Music.
Too little to get excited about yet. So far it’s only fluff features. Where are features that make the DOCUMENT useful, like link text boxes?
Pages 5 is dead to me until they reinstate a straightforward Advanced Find & Replace. A word processor that cannot find 2 spaces and replace it with 1 space, or change a Line Feed to a Carriage Return?!
I quickly ran over to amazon and bought an iWork ’09 disc for $25, shipping included to put in the safe deposit box.
Uh… you might want to double check that….
The new version I have (5.0.1) can replace double spaces with single spaces just fine.
And can search & replace with invisables like newline or paragraph simply by using the “use selection for find” and “use selection for replace” functions
Until they put “auto-fill” into the new Numbers, I’m still using Numbers ’09. I’m not a huge spreadsheet junkie, so I haven’t used whatever new features Numbers has at all, but I sure miss the ones they (hopefully temporarily) ditched.
Again, Uuuuuh… you might want to check that
Autofill (right, left down & up) is under “Autofill Cells” in the table menu.
That took me 20 seconds to find…
That’s not the same “auto-fill” I was talking about. I can’t pin down what it’s supposed to be called, but “auto-complete” is what I really need.
I miss norton disk doctor and ram doubler. Two of my best productivity tools.
Nobody here seems to have noted the biggest effect of this upgrade. The ratings on the Mac App Store were overwhelmingly negative. By issuing a new version that only addresses one minor issue among the 90 or so-some crippling-omissions to Pages, Apple resets the clock under the “current version” tab. All the negative comments and ratings move to the “all versions” tab, where they fade into the favorable ratings and reviews of iWork ’09. Most Pages 4.3 users can live without customizable toolbars and had already switched on the Pages 5 version of guides. They need the many other features, most notably linked text boxes, that have not been restored and that Apple has never promised to restore. The tipoff is that the earlier versions of Pages were described as both word processing and page layout software. The current version is solely described as a word processor. Page layout is no longer a major target, probably because it would be nonsensical to do page layout on a tiny screen in a program designed to work identically on everything from a 27-inch iMac to a 3.5-inch iPhone 4S. The page layout users of Pages need to be looking elsewhere BEFORE an operating system upgrade breaks their 2009 software, and makes their files unreadable.
It is frankly amazing to me that people who have quite clearly never used the page layout features removed from Pages consider themselves competent to tell those who have been using them on a daily basis that they are whiners and trolls who just need to shut up and die. The same thing happened to Final Cut users , of course. People who had never edited anything more complex than the iPhone video of their kid’s birthday party felt free to tell people with million-dollar editing companies that they were fools, whiners, trolls, anti-Apple, or worse because they couldn’t use FCX in their workflow. Apple is a great company, but it does make mistakes. It is not a service to the company or its users to attack those who politely ask Apple to correct those rare errors.
Woohoo! Apple fixed Pages 5 by restoring customizable toolbars!
Wow! Customizable toolbars!
Now global search and replace for special characters, specifying space before and after in paragraph styles, importing styles from templates or style sheets, and mail merge all pale into insignificance, because now I can customize toolbars! Wow!
Pages 5 reminds me of the old Certs commercials: it’s a breath mint, its a candy mind, it’s a breath mint, it’s a candy mint: it’s two mints in one! Oh, make up your mind. Is it an incomplete upgrade, or is it a new program that wrongly usurped another?
Every feature you think is trivial is major for someone else, and every feature you don’t use is essential to someone else’s daily work. If Pages 5 is an upgrade, all the complaints about missing features are valid. If Pages 5 is a completely new program, then Pages 4.3 should still be in the App Store until Pages 5 reaches feature parity.
Don Reisinger? That guy?
There must be a top 10 list cooking here somewhere…or it’s just not a Don “I’m so lazy I write my hack pieces in a pre-canned formula” Reisinger column.