“Apple updated its iWork suite on all three platforms (iOS, Mac, and iCloud) yesterday, with improvements to almost every aspect of every app, from editing in Pages to creating charts in Numbers and delivering presentations in Keynote,” Dan Miller reports for Macworld.
“All three apps will purportedly be more compatible with Microsoft Office (which, coincidentally, finally appeared on the iPad last week),” Miller reports. “On the Mac, the three iWork apps now aim to do a better job of exporting to Office’s XML formats. The iCloud versions of the three apps can now open password-protected documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. And the Mac and iOS apps claim to preserve custom number formats in charts imported from their Office counterparts.”
Miller reports, “The iOS and Mac versions of the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote can share password-protected documents via an iCloud link. The iCloud versions of the three apps can show you a list of the documents that other users have shared with you in the document manager; they also let you add passwords to documents you create online. The iCloud apps add some other new collaboration tools, too…”
Read more in the full article here.
This is good news for Microsoft.
As an aside, I received $US 4.63 from the Apple eBooks settlement in the form of a check.
They also updated Safari, this is good news for all.
I see they updated Pages but didn’t fix the iCloud connectivity, it still shuts off by itself!
Still a piece of shit: iWork 5+, the Tim Cook iTurd edition. Butt ugly: still has retarded and over-sized Inspector, too much wasted space on page. Ass-backwards page formatting now available in Numbers, which is used “after” a spreadsheet is created! Can’t wait until Apple tries to charge for this piece of shit! Apple Fanboys can offer all kinds of bull-shit retorts, with the Mac Douche-bag News, but people will pay Microsoft to use an Office Suite that actually works for people who need productivity, not elementary school limited software.
… this – you really don’t like iWork!
You DID get one thing right – it’s !F!R!E!E!.
You apparently missed out on who the intended target audience is – the SOHO market. Excepting, sorry, the offices of corporate lawyers, who REVEL in extra-fancy formatting.
If you have a “small” office, or an “office” at home, these apps should do just fine. And you won’t have to rent them, and their excessive, seldom-if-ever-used-“features”, by the year.
And … PLEASE! High School, at the minimum! And the first two years of college, if not all FOUR years. (scratch the remark about “you’ve never been there”, your English suggests otherwise … though you have yet to “grow up”)
@Speedplay
The brilliant insight and impeccable logic are enough in themselves and completely convincing. But then the way you add in the obscenity and swearing is – wow – just such a fine use of the English language. Makes the whole thing even more convincing, if that’s possible. Thanks.
I’m not positive but I kind of get the feeling you don’t care for iWork. I was glad to read your no-holds-barred review. Thank you.
Sorry, this was a reply to Speedplay not the original poster.
… “Reply” button – in blue, after the time stamp – is for. Not to worry, we understood. And agree.
Thanks.
Yay. iWork gets the love… today.
In 6 months Apple’s focus will shift to something else, and iWork will go to pot.
This is the rough pattern:
1. Apple assembles a crack team to develop a new app, or adapt one they bought. They identify 20 key features/capabilities that customers have asked for… and include 8.
2. They roll it out with breathless hyperbole.
3. Users excitedly get their hands on it, but find it fails to live up to expectations.
4. Apple squashes the first round of bugs, ignores please for inclusion (or more likely reinstatement) of key features.
5. After months of silence Apple adds a few new features.
6. Initial dev team is disbanded. Any new features from here on out are handled by 2 guys in some corner office.
7. After 4, 5 or 6 years Apple assembles another team with totally new people and a new brief, and they build a new unrelated version of the app. Previous key features are removed and optionally, they ensure old version files/workflows/scripts are incompatible with this new app. Users have to begin from scratch or have their files corrupted but it’s a small price to pay for progress.
7. Repeat 2 – 6…..
Agreed. Apple missed out on a significantly long open window to develop iWork into the Office-killer suite, complete with mobile versions and seamless file sharing/editing. And it didn’t need to be free; people would gladly have paid the $9.99 price for iWork apps that rivaled the important features of MS Office.
But Apple let iWork stagnate, and then the newly revised versions were really incomplete. What a shame.
… A war Apple cannot win. Not saying MSFT will actually “win” it, just that there will only be losers in that war. Apple is not seeking to destroy Office so much as to offer a SOHO option home users, and many small-office users, would prefer to a fully-featured/fully-priced Office.
Agreed: I’d be willing to pay a modest price … $19.99? … for a more robust feature set on the suite. OK, maybe even $9.99 for each app. But there are few features I can identify as NEEDS.
Yes, I’m still looking for an alternative to iWeb.
Oops, 8….