Apple Updates Pages, Numbers and Keynote for Mac and iOS

[Epiphron]

i agree. Why the hell isn't there track changes with comments by now. Import word documents with comments still fails with the update..

[neutrino23]

Thank God we are seeing improvements in iWork at last.

I would like to see a lot of improvements in Keynote. I'd like "light table" of previously created slides so I can quickly create a new presentation from previously created slides.

I wish Pages for iOS would gain layout mode. That is what I use most.

I agree with everyone else that iWork should support Dropbox as well as iCloud.

I'd like to have a way temporarily hide objects when working on animations. It can get pretty crowded at times. Support for layers would be great as well.

Regarding equations, I haven't tried this yet but I wonder if you can create equations in the newest iBooks Author and copy/paste them into Pages and Keynote. Kludge but helpful if it works.

I just created a poster for AGU with Pages and Numbers. I use Pages a fair amount for writing reports and I use Keynote all the time for presenting to groups and for teaching. I'm basically happy with iWork but I wish Apple would show it more love. It's not like they can't afford it.

[BBuchanan24]

I only have keynote installed how do i go about updating this app, i have tried the mac app store updates page but nothing appears. Also what is the latest build 5.2 (1125)?

cheers

[charlesdayton]

Apple should do a real update to iWork. It is overpriced and the competition strong.

Documents to Go keeps getting better everyday, and is just $9.99 for the whole suite.
MS Office for iOS is just around the corner.
Google bought Quickoffice (Currently $4.99) and probably will make it free when incorporated to Google Drive.

[frosty001]

This always dumbfounded me.

iOS Pages (and I suspect other iWork Apps) would only let you 'Share' some of the files from the Document Chooser window.

There was no real rhyme or reason. You could click a document once, highlight it and click the 'Share' button and email it as a Word or Pages doc. Yet, some seemingly identical files would make you open the file then click the 'Share' button from that screen. A little irritating and also stopped the ability to send multiple documents on one email. Very irritating.

I asked Apple about it as they said their was designed to work in this (broken) way.

[hamkor04]

There is (in iWork) only one winner (keynote)
IMO Microsoft office unbeatable (word and excel)

[Stu-Pid]

Originally Posted by theanimaster

You're kidding, right? The ribbon interface is total CRAP. I've been using it for 2 years now and STILL can't figure out where everything is!

All of this Ribbon hate confuses me.

I'm a power Excel user who has just (reluctantly) switched to 2010 from 2003, and although the Ribbon was a slight pain in the a*se to start with, I really don't see how anyone could hate it. Keyboard shortcuts remain unchanged (and that is how most power users do 95% of their work in Excel), and features that most everyday users struggled to find in the old menu system (and so never used) are much easier to find now, and so make non-power users more productive.

It's also ridiculously easy to customise the quick access toolbar at the top of the page so that all of the most used functions are available at the click of a mouse pointer no matter which page of the ribbon that you are on.

Excel 2010 is a far superior product to Excel 2003, and anyone that can't learn where things are on the Ribbon, or can't customise the quick access menu to suit their needs, is just being lazy. I certainly wouldn't go back to the limited functionality that the 2003 menu system offered, and the expanded functionality simply wouldn't be possible in the old format.

However, having said that I would love for them to go back to the old 2003 colour pallet rather than the awful selection that they've used for 2010...

Oh, and just to drag this post back on topic, Numbers is a poor substitute for Excel I'm afraid, and Excel for Mac is the main reason why I'd always stick to a PC for work.

[everything-i]

Originally Posted by zin

The iWork apps for Mac need a complete overhaul, in my opinion. I think that Microsoft did a great job with the ribbon interface; it really fits well for productivity.

Unless you think ribbons are an awkward wast of time like me and quite a few others I know. Ribbons are ok if you have time to relearn how to use the software I suppose but for infrequent users its just maddening. The interface is slow and clunky on my Windows machine and I can never remember where things I need are and a lot of things need more clicks than they used to, the ribbons are generally graphically cluttered making it harder to focus on the click targets for specific functions.

Still it forced me to learn keyboard shortcuts so not all bad I suppose.

[theKiwi]

The link at the end of the article to the Mac App Store for Keynote is wrong - it points to the iOS page. The link should be

http://appshopper.com/mac/productivity/keynote

Cheers

Roger

[everything-i]

Originally Posted by Stu-Pid

All of this Ribbon hate confuses me.

I'm a power Excel user who has just (reluctantly) switched to 2010 from 2003, and although the Ribbon was a slight pain in the a*se to start with, I really don't see how anyone could hate it. Keyboard shortcuts remain unchanged (and that is how most power users do 95% of their work in Excel), and features that most everyday users struggled to find in the old menu system (and so never used) are much easier to find now, and so make non-power users more productive.

Exactly, your a 'power' excel user who uses the thing day in day out and can therefore get used to the new layout plus you knows all the keyboard shortcuts. For the less frequent user who has built up proficiency over years ribbons are a hopeless wast of time.

[hakr100]

As far as I can tell, the newly updated Pages still does not allow me to automatically save or open documents in MS WORD format, the format 100% of my clients use, so, nice as Pages is, it'll remain mostly unused on my iMac.

[genovelle]

Originally Posted by gtg660w

Like many of the posters have said...iWork is utter crap. I've tried to use it multiple times, and it never fits the bill. Conditional formatting in Numbers is crap, the inspector popup is annoying as hell. Why can they not integrate something simple into the ribbon up top like Microsoft did? It is annoying as hell to manage all those different pop-ups for inspector windows, shape windows....the list goes on. And besides that, numbers does not have any capability for automation power...no c# or vba/vb support or anything. Sure, I've read that you can use Apple Script, BUT WHO THE HELL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD USES THAT BS???

There was my 30 second rant...they either need to completely overhaul iWork or it needs to die...

The End

I only use IWork for my school papers. When I am forced to use word at work I hate the stupid caos that is the ribbon. It is far too confusing. It seams like you need a training session to figure out how to print. Give me the inspector any day. The ribbon is straight garbage!

[Stu-Pid]

Originally Posted by everything-i

Exactly, your a 'power' excel user who uses the thing day in day out and can therefore get used to the new layout plus you knows all the keyboard shortcuts. For the less frequent user who has built up proficiency over years ribbons are a hopeless wast of time.

So you are upset that MS is making improvements to their products to benefit those of us that use them all of the time and rely on them for our living? Are you proposing that instead they should stall the products and keep them outdated so that occasional users don't have to spend a small amount of time learning where the buttons for basic functions are now located?

There is even a very simple workaround offered by MS where they allow you to edit the quick access toolbar to include as many or as few functions as you desire. So occasional users could almost certainly have all of their commonly used functionality available via a single click on the (ever-present) quick access toolbar.

You also have to remember that for completely new users of Excel, learning to use the Ribbon is undoubtedly easier than sifting through the old menu commands from 2003.

[ugahairydawgs]

Originally Posted by everything-i

Exactly, your a 'power' excel user who uses the thing day in day out and can therefore get used to the new layout plus you knows all the keyboard shortcuts. For the less frequent user who has built up proficiency over years ribbons are a hopeless wast of time.

So they should cater to the folks who barely use the program?

[mono1980]

I really hope that Apple is working on a HUGE update for Aperture... It needs some major help and we've been waiting for YEARS.

[macnisse]

Hmmm... just updated iWork and can't seem to use Pages in fullscreen mode on external display?! Instead Pages "jumps" out of the external monitor into fullscreen mode on the laptop screen and the external monitor goes black (not the canvas background). Can't remember seeing this before? Simple setting for this?

[atMac]

When will Pages get the ability to open Rich Text files from iCloud? Thats all I really want.

[Shaun, UK]

Originally Posted by AppliedMicro

What do you think is missing?
Sure, Pages uses something like an inspector window instead of ribbons but is that necessarily bad?

If you take that view we would all still be using AppleWorks.

Reminds me of that famous line from Steve Jobs about not asking people what they want because they don't know until they see it.

It's the same with iWork and iLife. I don't know what's missing but I would sure like to see new versions of both suites to see what Apple can some up with.

Apple used to have new versions every year but now - nothing. Minor updates to keep them running is not good enough.

I think that they are either working on something totally new or they plan to ditch the paid for versions of iWork and iLfe and simply give it away with OSX. I think the latter is more likely now in which case they should stop milking it and get on with that.

[alexkywalker]

big surprise there

[mw77]

Just tried updating, but app store is "temporary unavailable," anyone getting through now?

[mw77]

Originally Posted by theanimaster

But I'm with you -- iWork NEEDS a complete overhaul. Just some examples:


• Keynote needs to display presenter notes PROPERLY on the presenter screen. As it is you have a HUGE screen filled with uselessly large info but your presenter notes are still fuggin' 12 point text.... that doesn't automatically scroll!! How hard is it to get a mini-teleprompter in there?? HUH??? REALLY?? (Even MS doesn't have it ... so Apple better get in there QUICK!!)

+1000 on this point. You can customize your presenter display quite bit: look under the app. prefs and then Presenter Display -> customize presenter display button on bottom. This will allow you to set your notes window to take up more screen space. It is a pain having to resize fonts in the presenter notes though, and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to set a default font size for a sort of set it and forget functionality. It would also be nice to have a better way to scroll through notes. When lecturing from a trackpad laptop, it is very easy to advance to the next slide when you wanted to scroll down on your notes.

Also hoping Apple will finally allow for auto-scalable text inside of objects. It boggles the mind why they have not fixed that yet.

[HenryDJP]

Originally Posted by SamGabbay

It's about bloody time.

About time for what? A software update? At least for the Mac, Apple needs a completely new version. Sheesh, we've been on iWork since '09 and the world is about to turn 2013 in 3 weeks. While Keynote is great and Pages is fair, Numbers has too many compatibility issues and while I use Pages for work to create banners and flyers for our office, the templates are getting stale and they could always add more creation tools.

[leo.andres.21]

I am not sure if Apple still wants customers to use their iWork suite on the Mac anymore. iWork iCloud integration on Mac OS is bad and everyone knows it, iOS version is fine though.
They should release a new version with fully integrated iCloud support, reduce baggage and allow the apps to be as light weight as possible. And best of all, wait for Office 13 to release, then increase compatibility between the two.
It's not like iWork is anywhere as good as Office (maybe Keynote is marginally better), but Office has everyone using it, which is the biggest selling point of these apps.

[Razeus]

As soon as Office for iOS is out, I'm done with the iWork suite for good. I've already made the change for the desktop. Why bother with "exporting" to an Office format, when the MS makes the program native?

[dru`]

Originally Posted by neier

Apple seems to have stopped support for 10.6.8 at 4.1. And, afaict, there is no way to get 4.1 from the app store any more...

This is a scam IMO.

Who has ever released an interim point update for a nearly four year old software package that blocks it from OS releases the software was created the run on?