iWork Details, Video Walkthrough and Document Uploading

[Cougarcat]

Given these features, I hope some kind of “guest access” is available, to help share in both directions with other (non-Apple) users/systems.

They have this already with iWork.com. Hopefully they'll merge it with iCloud and finally bring it out of beta.

 

[darbus69]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

futuristic for us oldies but goodies, this is definitely going to be an excellent year for apple...

 

[MacNewsFix]

It's not completely full-featured, if you take Word as the standard, but it's very sleek and usable for most things. If you're writing a thesis, with a thousand footnotes, and illustrations, and multiple parallel columns -- a page layout program -- you can use Word. Most of the time it's way too bloated for what I need.

I hear you, Swift! I think they say the vast majority of people using Excel use it to about 10% of its potential. I wonder what a study would show regarding use of Word. I've contemplated on at least one occasion picking up the newest Office for 1) Lion support and 2) the return of VBA support (We have at least one individual that could benefit from getting it back again. I wish I understood why they dropped support for a while.).

So far, iWork has delivered for us (both in getting things done and ROI). I won't say that some didn't hit some bumps adjusting ("OMG! We're not going to use Office? It's the End of Days!"), but in the end they liked it.

 

[(L)]

I hear you, Swift! I think they say the vast majority of people using Excel use it to about 10% of its potential. I wonder what a study would show regarding use of Word. I've contemplated on at least one occasion picking up the newest Office for 1) Lion support and 2) the return of VBA support (We have at least one individual that could benefit from getting it back again. I wish I understood why they dropped support for a while.).

So far, iWork has delivered for us (both in getting things done and ROI). I won't say that some didn't hit some bumps adjusting ("OMG! We're not going to use Office? It's the End of Days!"), but in the end they liked it.

I think it's interesting when some businesses adopt iWork. I think it's fair to say iWork has only a portion of Office's features, but generally does that portion a lot better. What would be nice is if Apple started adding more of Office's strengths... like vertical text alignment for certain languages. (I'm using iWork '08 so please correct me if they've finally fixed this.)

 

[RedPlanet]

iCloud just free replacement for MobileMe for me

iWork has never enticed me. Maybe I am so used to the MS office suite that I can not see the advantages of iWork, and I have tried several times.(NB also don't underestimate the effort it takes to build up your skills for complicated powerpoints/keynotes excelsheets and even documents) For me Dropbox has proved super convenient for syncing and sharing Office docs. I hope iCloud will synch other files then iWork only otherwise this is a dead duck for me. The big advantage though: the iCloud service is free for the parts I use on a daily basis as opposed to its mobileme counterpart.

 

[BWhaler]

Yup. I found the iWork beta to be great.

Great to read, and thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Questions for those who have used the beta.

1. Once you upload from the Mac to the cloud, do changes stay in sync or do you have to download/upload repeatedly.

2. How do things work when something is made on an iOS device? Do you have to go to iCloud and download, or do new files download to the Mac automatically.

My hope is there is zero thinking and all devices remain in sync without intervention from me (which is the way the iPhone and iPad and cloud work, still not sure about how much work the Mac takes.)

 

[macnisse]

This is nice for my Mac and iPad, but what I really need is the ability to edit iWork documents on my work PC. Just some basic online editing capabilities, like Microsoft and Google, or *gasp* a Pages app for Windows. What good is it to download my Pages document in .doc format if I can't edit and re-upload it? It is far from seamless to share/edit documents by converting back and forth from Office to iWork.

Totally agree on this one! Apple definitely has to get into online editing some way to stay on track with the competition. Hopefully it will not take as long as the iWork.com beta... So far I find dropbox way more convenient for sharing docs with the non-mac community.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

1. Once you upload from the Mac to the cloud, do changes stay in sync or do you have to download/upload repeatedly.

Uploaded files, when edited, are changed on both the iPad on the version in the cloud. If you edit the file on your Mac the next time you open it on the iPad you see it updating on its own.

2. How do things work when something is made on an iOS device? Do you have to go to iCloud and download, or do new files download to the Mac automatically.

Files uploaded to iCloud are currently stored in (Library/ Mobile Documents/com~apple~Pages/Documents). If you edit that file all other instances of that file are changed. Obviously this isn't optimal and the new version of iWork will clearly have added support for iCloud so you can designate location and/or files that are to be kept in sync.

 

[iMacDave]

Actually

I like the speed that it syncs to the iCloud. Hopefully it will keep up win it launches and millions of users start using it.

On another note, "actually" needs to be used much less by this dude as well as tons of other people out there. It seems to be replacing "um" and "err" in our language. Just a thought...

actually |ˈakCHo͞oəlē|
adverb
1 as the truth or facts of a situation; really: we must pay attention to what young people are actually doing | the time actually worked on a job.
2 [ as sentence adverb ] used to emphasize that something someone has said or done is surprising: he actually expected me to be pleased about it!
• used when expressing an opinion, typically one that is not expected: “Actually,” she said icily, “I don't care who you go out with.”
• used when expressing a contradictory opinion or correcting someone: “Tom seems to be happy.” “He isn't, actually, not any more.”
• used to introduce a new topic or to add information to a previous statement: he had a thick Brooklyn accent—he sounded like my grandfather actually.

 

[Poll Smoker]

I like the speed that it syncs to the iCloud. Hopefully it will keep up win it launches and millions of users start using it.

On another note, "actually" needs to be used much less by this dude as well as tons of other people out there. It seems to be replacing "um" and "err" in our language. Just a thought...

actually |ˈakCHo͞oəlē|
adverb
1 as the truth or facts of a situation; really: we must pay attention to what young people are actually doing | the time actually worked on a job.
2 [ as sentence adverb ] used to emphasize that something someone has said or done is surprising: he actually expected me to be pleased about it!
• used when expressing an opinion, typically one that is not expected: “Actually,” she said icily, “I don't care who you go out with.”
• used when expressing a contradictory opinion or correcting someone: “Tom seems to be happy.” “He isn't, actually, not any more.”
• used to introduce a new topic or to add information to a previous statement: he had a thick Brooklyn accent—he sounded like my grandfather actually.

Actually, you're an a**hole. Was that right?

 

[Fraaaa]

The only concern I have on iCloud is that I want to use the @me.com account I used on a trial mobileMe to be my only account/email address, instead of the @mac.com which has been my apple ID and not my email address - and I can get rid off gmail too.

 

[zedsdead]

Is there any integration with the Mac version of iWork?

 

[Popeye206]

This is going to be great of iOS apps. Not only does it give you access to a cloud based file system for documents and files, it auto sync's with all your iDevices and your Mac.

The eco system is getting some new glue.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

Is there any integration with the Mac version of iWork?

I covered that in post #33...that's a few posts up.

 

[zedsdead]

I covered that in post #33...that's a few posts up.

Can you elaborate more. Are the files only in that folder you specified, or are they located in the app itself like it is on the iOS devices.

Also, there are still major differences between iOS and Mac versions of iWork (such as no Page Layout support). Has the iOS version improved with this update?

 

[Gemütlichkeit]

How will people hate on this?

 

[kurosov]

I use iWork for iPad on a daily basis to create model release forms, contracts and invoices. I always export to pdf for the client copy because it isn't the kind of document you want to be editable.

iCloud should help cut out the need to constantly sync documents when i get back home. Would be nice if they added a signature option so i can drop the third party app though.

 

[BillyBobBongo]

Can you elaborate more. Are the files only in that folder you specified, or are they located in the app itself like it is on the iOS devices.

That's the only place that the file is located. I have a clean developer system with nothing on it, and that's where the document appeared. Through the iWork applications there is not currently an option to access iCloud. I do however expect the iWork Beta integration to be move to iCloud.

Also, there are still major differences between iOS and Mac versions of iWork (such as no Page Layout support). Has the iOS version improved with this update?

Not played with it that much, perhaps someone else can offer some better insight into that.

 

[maczero]

When installing the IOS 5 iWork beta app I get a message it can not complete it. I followed the instructions carefully, anyone knows what I am doing wrong?

Thanks.

 

[ksgant]

How about working on it from a Windows machine... or a machine that isn't yours? The benefits of actually working on a document just through a browser are numerous, just as webmail has uses and applications.

I always hear that argument, but it never seems to pan out in "real life". If I'm working on a document that deserves my time at all, I work on it at my computer.

 

[mjtomlin]

This is nice for my Mac and iPad, but what I really need is the ability to edit iWork documents on my work PC. Just some basic online editing capabilities, like Microsoft and Google, or *gasp* a Pages app for Windows. What good is it to download my Pages document in .doc format if I can't edit and re-upload it? It is far from seamless to share/edit documents by converting back and forth from Office to iWork.

Apple will eventually create an iWork in the cloud only when they feel they can implement a good portion of the functionality from the iOS and Mac OS X versions of the software. They're probably waiting for all the major modern browsers to implement a few specific HTML5, CSS features before they can.

 

[itsalexaye]

i hope they make it like Google Docs, but only allowing access to those of us who bought iWork for either iOS or OS X.

That would be awesome.

 

[Winni]

I really wish I could edit the documents on the icloud site similar to google docs or other variants.



Wait for it... 1... 2... 3... thats the sound of people negging my post.

That will never happen. Apple wants to lock you into their hard- AND software. Google's approach, on the other hand, makes you independent from hard- and software - you just need some computing device with some web browser to use their stuff, and they don't try to sell you either.

And I won't be pushing any of those arrow buttons because I honestly don't care for those voting toys.

 

[mjtomlin]

Totally agree on this one! Apple definitely has to get into online editing some way to stay on track with the competition. Hopefully it will not take as long as the iWork.com beta... So far I find dropbox way more convenient for sharing docs with the non-mac community.

There's no reason to give up DropBox, it is a completely different service from what Apple is offering with iCloud.

 

[Burger Thing]

That will never happen. Apple wants to lock you into their hard- AND software. Google's approach, on the other hand, makes you independent from hard- and software - you just need some computing device with some web browser to use their stuff, and they don't try to sell you either.

And I won't be pushing any of those arrow buttons because I honestly don't care for those voting toys.

Yeah, Apple is very mean and restrictive in their approach. They might even try to make money with their service. They should be more like Google and offer services because of love of mankind - and our data would be secured forver, too