Apple Releases iWork '09 9.0.3

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/28/apple-releases-iwork-09-9-0-3/)

Apple today released iWork '09 9.0.3 (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL833), bringing fixes for several minor issues as well as general improvements in a number of areas.This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, updates the help, and fixes a number of other minor issues in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. The issues addressed include:

- Reducing file size of images that have Instant Alpha applied
- Managing file size when inserting some movies
- Working with dates and durations in the Chart Data Editor in Keynote and Pages
- Exporting to CSV from Numbers when using table categories

Improvements to comment notification and security in iWork.com Beta are also included in this update.Detailed information on changes included in the update are available on Apple's support page (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3681) for the update. The download weighs in at 59.62 MB and requires OS X 10.4.11 or OS X 10.5.6 or later.

Article Link: Apple Releases iWork '09 9.0.3 (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/28/apple-releases-iwork-09-9-0-3/)

[ortuno2k]

Getting it now...

[Kilamite]

Page 1? Sure I saw this on page 2 10 minutes ago..

Anyway, downloading..

[Sky Blue]

I completely forgot about iwork.com

[MrMoore]

downloading it now...

I was wondering what the status of iWork.com

Next would be the capability to edit iWork files on the iPhone

[infiniteentropy]

Was 66.1 MB for me, for what it's worth. Whenever they post these updates it's usually "Bug fixes and speed improvements." But this one added features... maybe that new accounting model is helping after all...

[The Past]

Updated iWork earlier but iwork.com has been lame at best so far. Not yet sure where this is going.

[crackbookpro]

...thanks for reminding me I have iWork!!! :D

[Doctor Q]

I haven't tried the collaborative hosting. Who's tried it? What's it like?

[vohdoun]

Really slow download through SU?...

[marcj]

Was 66.1 MB for me, for what it's worth. Whenever they post these updates it's usually "Bug fixes and speed improvements." But this one added features... maybe that new accounting model is helping after all...

I'm going to guess you haven't read/understood the article about the new accounting model...

[jaw04005]

I haven't tried the collaborative hosting. Who's tried it? What's it like?

It's like Google Docs without the editing capabilities and integration. It's basically a fancy iDisk-like sharing page designed for iWork that offers no real integration with the suite itself other than you can upload directly from Pages (and maybe Keynote or Numbers, haven't tried them).

All revisions must be downloaded from the browser, then re-opened with Pages (or Keynote or Numbers). There's no editing capabilities. There's no real collaborative features other than allow [Person B] to view/comment on this document.

[alexbates]

Any chance that they fixed printing issues? (not sure if anyone has had this problem or not) Many times, when I try to print (File --> Print), Pages freezes for a couple of minutes with the color wheel even on my new uMBP with a fresh install of SL. Maybe this could be a SL bug instead of a iWork '09 bug?...

[Detlev]

I can't sign into iwork.com. Says my Apple ID or password is incorrect. :eek: I hope it works soon. I might be tempted to leave google docs if it is comparable.

[fleshman03]

...thanks for reminding me I have iWork!!! :D

How could you forget? I can no longer use MS office, I've used iWork so much.

I'd be lost if I needed to switch back. Especially if I needed to use MS office Mac Edition.

[Doju]

I can't sign into iwork.com. Says my Apple ID or password is incorrect. :eek: I hope it works soon. I might be tempted to leave google docs if it is comparable.Me too, strange because I enter the password and ID daily, and even verified it in iTunes.

[MAcNIAC]

so STILL no autosave?

[georgetang]

Can't wait to next "real update" from Apple on iWorks.

I'd like to see iPhone/iPod Touch integration, and have Keynote Remote Apps do something better.

There are bunch of ideas in my head that'll make iWork and iPhone/iPod Touch better.

[malachiman]

I can't sign into iwork.com. Says my Apple ID or password is incorrect. :eek: I hope it works soon. I might be tempted to leave google docs if it is comparable.


Same for me, but then I discovered even though itunes used myname@mac.com iwork only worked using @me.com looks like they want people to change over!

[felt.]

seems snappier :)

[twoodcc]

i shall download and install shortly

[nanoboy]

This really is a major issue with Pages:

If you have a table spanning longer than one page, the rest of it will not appear in the next page.

This makes Pages unusable in many instances, I can list two examples that affected me:
1) Application forms that use a table format for text boxes for you to fill stuff in.
2) Meeting minutes - a common minutes style is a massive table with columns like item no., discussion, action and persons responsible. Then the number of items make up the rows of the table.

[xIGmanIx]

i am just waiting for google wave to invite me to their beta. I will pass on apples cut at it.

It's like Google Docs without the editing capabilities and integration. It's basically a fancy iDisk-like sharing page designed for iWork that offers no real integration with the suite itself other than you can upload directly from Pages (and maybe Keynote or Numbers, haven't tried them).

All revisions must be downloaded from the browser, then re-opened with Pages (or Keynote or Numbers). There's no editing capabilities. There's no real collaborative features other than allow [Person B] to view/comment on this document.

[MartiNZ]

How could you forget? I can no longer use MS office, I've used iWork so much.

I'd be lost if I needed to switch back. Especially if I needed to use MS office Mac Edition.

I'm guessing you don't need compatibility with MS Office either. I bought iWork '09 after installing Snow Leopard and am doing my damnedest to have it work as a replacement for Office:mac in a Windows-heavy environment.

Unfortunately Pages still fails all over with Word compatibility, Numbers lacks basic cell manipulation and scrolling shortcuts, and then fails with Excel compatibility, and Keynote can't be tricked into being a .ppt editor through the .plist like the others can for their respective equivalents.

Oh and that last comment is odd, given that at least Word:mac and Excel:mac are much nicer to use than Word 2007 and Excel 2007!

Oh well, installed the update, must have done something, back to work :).

[Alfuh]

Looks good to me ... DLing now

[Alfuh]

@Martinz - I've also noticed some issues with formatting from pages to word. Sharing docs with windows users can still be a pain

[aaronsullivan]

About the Office 2007 vs. the Mac versions. I personally like Office 2007 (on Windows) FAR better than the Mac versions of Office, especially the last 2008 thing. That is a mish-mash of interfaces of the worst frankenstein result, imo. They couldn't go full-on with the ribbon, so it ended up really, really weird and incoherent.

The ribbon in 2007 is basically fantastic. It takes the best parts of the pallete that MBU created and makes it far more usable in practice. IMO, best innovation to come from Microsoft in a long time. (Why the weird circle Office button, though? Ugh.)

Now, the problem with the ribbon is the adjustment period. If you are really diehard into the older methods you'll likely resist everything and make it painful for yourself. I teach classes using Office 2007 and I find it to be much more intuitive and graspable than the older stuff, especially for new users.

Just sayin'.

back on topic:

As far as the iWork upgrades. I'm always rooting for iWork, but there are always parts of it that drive me nuts. No angled labels in Numbers makes it impossible for me to work with my grade books the way I do in Excel and it makes anything I bring over from Excel unusable. Always a disappointment because I generally LOVE the rest of the way the app works. Pages, too.

All the office programs are in a weird place on all platforms because the use for them is getting antiquated. Not long ago there was a great article on Ars Technica about the waning utility of Word. Google Apps are becoming a much smarter solution and as they evolve to more fully featured apps, I think the middle ground is where most office work will get done eventually.

I'm glad Apple (and Microsoft) are also heading in that direction. Competition has done great things for all these solutions.

[fef714]

How could you forget? I can no longer use MS office, I've used iWork so much.

I'd be lost if I needed to switch back. Especially if I needed to use MS office Mac Edition.

Office 2007 (windows) is a piece of garbage, and Office for Mac 2008 is another step down.

Although I do prefer iWork to either of these, my app of choice would be Office 2003 (windows)... go figure. :rolleyes:


I grew up on 2003, it does everything I need it to do, and I know it inside and out... like literally, I know every feature... every one... :p

to be honest, the only time I ever fire up my old pc is to use 2003 PowerPoint, but I simply can't use any other version of ppt. keynote included, although I'm slowly warming up to it :o

To me, all text editors are the same, yes I prefer 2003 over any other, but all I need to do in a word program is type words.

I survived almost a month with just text edit :eek:

[guklein]

Same problem here. 'iWork.com' doesn not recognize my user/password.

Why? Suggestion?

Thanks.

[rowanmmcdonald]

THANK GOD there is finally a direct iWork.com website.

It used to drive me insane having to search through emails to find a link to the document when I didn't have iWork on the computer I was using.

So happy :D

[Cold-1]

Come on Apple, this is getting annoying! Always stating how great open formats are and how propelled you are supporting these, you still can't manage to implement ODF??? Even Microsoft Office can handle it.

[MartiNZ]

About the Office 2007 vs. the Mac versions. I personally like Office 2007 (on Windows) FAR better than the Mac versions of Office, especially the last 2008 thing. That is a mish-mash of interfaces of the worst frankenstein result, imo. They couldn't go full-on with the ribbon, so it ended up really, really weird and incoherent.

The ribbon in 2007 is basically fantastic. It takes the best parts of the pallete that MBU created and makes it far more usable in practice. IMO, best innovation to come from Microsoft in a long time. (Why the weird circle Office button, though? Ugh.)

Now, the problem with the ribbon is the adjustment period. If you are really diehard into the older methods you'll likely resist everything and make it painful for yourself. I teach classes using Office 2007 and I find it to be much more intuitive and graspable than the older stuff, especially for new users.

IMO Office:mac 2008 got it pretty well right with what you can turn on and off –*customisation! Definitely not something that Apple is likely to provide, and as it turns out, Microsoft are trending away from such themselves, hence no preferences for the ribbon in 2007. It decides what to show you, and leaves a huge amount to be desired. At least the fact that keyboard shortcuts from 2003 still work means one can still find things, whereas I've been using 2007 for work for about a year and only just found out the other way to bring up the font dialog, paragraph dialog, and styles pane ... a tiny glyph at the bottom right of the ribbon areas, so inferior to choosing options from a menu that I couldn't begin to describe.

Anyway, for instance with Word:mac 2008, you can set custom keyboard shortcuts to your heart's content, modify the menus themselves, hide the toolbar completely, as well as the sections of the formatting palette that you don't want to see appear, and you end up with a highly tailored interface that actually works quite well. There is a lot in the Ribbon that I would hide and change in the ribbon in the 2007 apps –*just being able to have it vertical on the side à la the formatting palette would be great and save that valuable vertical screen real estate on a wide screen!

Back on iWork again, one big problem is that the apps disagree vehemently with their MS Office equivalents on how much content can fit on a page, with exactly the same margins and paper size. This means you can't rely on things looking the same on the Windows side with exports. Page and section breaks also tend to ... break in conversion. Anything with images becomes a nightmare to get looking good on both sides, and Pages just willy-nilly removes any content it doesn't like. I've just changed a 'text frame' to a 'text box' in a template from Word 2007, so that Pages doesn't just completely delete that content.

I have set up empty new documents for the iWork apps for creating Office-friendly files, and that helps a lot, and I guess once you learn the big problems, there is a lot you can avoid. Conveniently I'm pretty sure that will mean completely avoiding making graphs in Numbers ... boy is that a painful experience. Excel 2003 made the process pretty much foolproof. Excel 2007 made it so much harder I didn't think there was a beyond, until Numbers showed me the path :).

[iMaggot]

I'm going to DL it asap, hope it all goes well.

[Zyniker]

When I update, I opened up a number of Pages documents immediately after (updating was a nice excuse to postpone some homework) and my Template Chooser failed to display any thumbnails and Numbers and Keynote failed to function correctly. Not sure what it was...but closing all of the applications again seemed to fix it. Just a heads up if anyone else runs into a similar/the same issue.

Edit: If the problem persists, relaunch Finder (force quit it from Activity Monitor).

[BWhaler]

Can't wait to next "real update" from Apple on iWorks.

I'd like to see iPhone/iPod Touch integration, and have Keynote Remote Apps do something better.

There are bunch of ideas in my head that'll make iWork and iPhone/iPod Touch better.

I love iWork, and I too can't wait for the next release.

[Ericatomars]

The download took FORRRREVER...


thank you, now I'm done being dramatic for the day

[AccordionNoir]

I took the 30 day trial of Keynote recently, and it was very pretty. But I was doing a music history presentation and Keynote totally lacks basic audio features like cueing music over more than one slide. This made it pretty much unusable for me. I wrote Apple Feedback with my concerns after several of us tried very hard to hack around this in the discussion lists.
http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Is Keynote a dead loss when it comes to music?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10137719#10137719

I'd love for there to be an audio update for Keynote. I'd buy it for that.