Apple Shutting Down iWork.com on July 31 Amid Transition to iCloud

[MacRumors]

Apple today sent out an email to users registered for its iWork.com beta noting that it will be discontinuing the service as of July 31. The discontinuation comes as Apple places its focus on iCloud, which offers users ways to keep documents in sync among their various iOS devices.

Dear iWork.com user,

Thanks for participating in the iWork.com public beta.

Last year, we launched iCloud, a service that stores your music, photos, documents, and more and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices. Today, there are already over 40 million documents stored on iCloud by millions of iWork customers. Learn more about iCloud.

With a new way to share iWork documents between your devices using iCloud, the iWork.com public beta service will no longer be available. As of July 31, 2012, you will no longer be able to access your documents on the iWork.com site or view them on the web.

We recommend that you sign in to iWork.com before July 31, 2012, and download all your documents to your computer. For detailed instructions on how to save a copy of your documents on your computer, read this support article at Apple.com.

Sincerely,
The iWork team

iWork.com launched as a free beta in January 2009, with Apple eventually intending to offer the service with tools for collaboration on iWork documents for a fee. The service never exited beta, however, and with iCloud offering new options for moving documents around the company has decided to eliminate the program. But while iCloud does offer a number of new features, it does not offer the level of collaboration tools envisioned for iWork.com.

The elimination of iWork.com will come a month after Apple officially shuts down its MobileMe services. Apple has continued to support MobileMe since the introduction of iCloud last year in order to give users time to move over to the new service. But as of June 30, MobileMe and several of its features such as iDisk, Gallery, and iWeb publishing will no longer be available.

Article Link: Apple Shutting Down iWork.com on July 31 Amid Transition to iCloud

[Consultant]

It's been a year. That's a long transition.

[SandboxGeneral]

I received the email too, however I don't recall signing up, and participating in the beta. Oh well, it makes no difference to me.

[kendals]

Obviously since you cannot access iWork beta from Pages, Numbers & keynote after July 31st, sounds like an update to remove iWork and add iCloud will FINALLY be coming!

[rorschach]

A shame.

I've been hoping since the iWork.com beta first launched that Apple would develop it and offer a full web-based version of iWork a la Google Docs. With iCloud, it would make even more sense, because then you'd really be able to access your documents anywhere.

[Sky Blue]

There's no way to edit iWork docs in a web browser through, right (with iCloud)?

[Flitzy]

Oh no!

I hope iCloud will be developed to include public sharing, ala iCloud calendar. I don't mind about online editing but I liked being able to share documents with others.

[theelysium]

Bummer! I wonder if patents owned by other companies stalled or eventually killed this?

I think using crappy iCloud as an excuse is a cop out.

It could also be another example of Apple ignoring the pro/business user which would be the primary user of iWork.com.

[Sixtafoua]

I wonder if they will allow iCloud users to play presentations in the web browser like you can in iWork.com

[andrew.bussman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

It's really no big surprise for me. iWork.com has been beta for 3 years with no major changes or updates. I kind of felt like they already abandoned it with iCloud anyways.

[MikeyTree]

This would be fine, except that iWork for Mac still doesn't sync with iCloud.

[BJB Productions]

Anyone else see this coming the day it was launched?

[AriX]

This, along with the killing of some of the MobileMe features, is a Jobs-style focus move.

Apple looked at these features, realized that they weren't developing them, not many people were using them, and they didn't fit into Apple's current focus, and are now axing them so that they can fully move their focus elsewhere. It's a good move, I just hope that they have more document collaboration stuff in mind down the line.

[nuckinfutz]

Originally Posted by theelysium

Bummer! I wonder if patents owned by other companies stalled or eventually killed this?

I think using crappy iCloud as an excuse is a cop out.

It could also be another example of Apple ignoring the pro/business user which would be the primary user of iWork.com.

More likely acknowledging that they have no desire to be in the Google Docs, Office 365 Live arena.

iWork hasn't been updated in 3 year on the Mac with any significant new features. I wasn't pinning any hopes on iwork.com ever amounting to anything.

[GunZi]

So .... now i won't be buying Pages when i get my new iPad? ... i want to be able to but word files on my pages app. and Pages files on my Windows Computer with Word.

Are they removing that feature? pls, i don't quite understand this.

[2bikes]

Can we assume that Mountain Lion is going to be released before July 31st?

[jackc]

I'd like to know what their plans are for iWork -- will we ever get another major update?

[WhoDaKat]

Thats fine as long as they get their heads out of their...clouds, and get document handling fixed for iCloud. Great, so I can have my docs in the cloud, if I create them on an iOS device. On my mac, I have to manually upload and download them? Very very very unApple.

If I create a doc in Pages on my mac, it should go to iCloud, unless I tell it not to. It should show up just like if it was created on an iOS device. I'm really not sure why it isn't already like that.

[rmwebs]

Meh...hardly surprising. Apple isn't exactly amazing at online services, and thats putting it politely. I'd rather they stick to what they do best and leave this kind of stuff for others to do.

[nuckinfutz]

Originally Posted by WhoDaKat

Thats fine as long as they get their heads out of their...clouds, and get document handling fixed for iCloud. Great, so I can have my docs in the cloud, if I create them on an iOS device. On my mac, I have to manually upload and download them? Very very very unApple.

If I create a doc in Pages on my mac, it should go to iCloud, unless I tell it not to. It should show up just like if it was created on an iOS device. I'm really not sure why it isn't already like that.

Because that's hard to accomplish. Let's hope Mountain Lion completes the Documents in the Cloud strategy.

[v.pic]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I loved iWork.com. The service was wonderful, it was collaborative, made working on group projects a breeze. You could even present a Keynote from a browser via iWork.com. iCloud documents is nothing compared to iWork.com's functionality, absolutely lacking, and the move is such a disappointment. Unless they include the same features in iCloud docs and include all Mac docs automatically into the sync (presumably with Mountain Lion).. but as of now they haven't, and the end-user is at a loss of great features.

[andiwm2003]

well, apple has never been good or consistent with their online services. i would not invest too much time and effort in setting up a professional or even a consumer/semipro workflow with iWork or iCloud. There is simply a too high probability that they change or remove features in two years from now.

[musika]

Originally Posted by MikeyTree

This would be fine, except that iWork for Mac still doesn't sync with iCloud.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/16/...cross-devices/

[grapemac]

Originally Posted by MikeyTree

This would be fine, except that iWork for Mac still doesn't sync with iCloud.

That's coming with Mountain Lion.

Also why, last year, Apple gave MobileMe members until June 30th; MobileMe dies just as Mountain Lion will come out.

Mountain Lion will be MobileMe- and iWork.com-free

[AppleFan115]

I can't wait till Mountain Lion when they provide better integration between OS and iOS for cloud services. I want to be able to easily edit documents between all devices. With Mountain Lion, the cloud tab on the finder will make it so quick and easy to do that. Mountain Lion couldn't come fast enough.