Apple Announces 'iWork for iCloud' for In-Browser Use

[numlock]

Considering most people that use a spreadsheet have no idea what a pivot table is, let alone use one, would make me not consider it a basic feature. if anything, I'd like to see Apple spend more time on formatting than adding advanced feature sets.



Libre/Open/Neo Office is a pretty big bag of hurt if you view from an Apple design perspective; let alone compatibility. It would make no sense for Apple to try to turn it into something to put the Apple brand on even if only by inference.

they may not know it by name but what do iwork user do when they want to see data drawn together and be able to make sense of it.

you may call that an advanced feature. it was just at the top of my head. what about filters?

maybe everything but summing up 3 columns is advanced?

btw if everything is so advanced for the common iwork user why create new document formats that most of them will probably send the file in to a non iwork user?

but when iwork first came out i really liked how they allowed you to drag in formulas, see the result for few kinds of formulas etc but if you dont follow that up feature set and updates who cares?

i just dont see apple being serious about creating the best office application (dosent mean it has to have the best set of feature), or the best cloud syncing, or the best maps application, best password syncing, best browser etc etc. unless they prove me wrong with the next iwork suite they just let it sit there and i worry that will happen into most of their new ventures. they are more a disruptor and divider to me as it stands. what was the last market they entered where without a doubt they have the best offering today?

apple just went through a big bag of hurt updating the appearance on their ios and mac. i never said put the apple brand on it. i said put their weight behind it. they can assist with the ui and make it more accessible for the less "advanced" users.

Microsoft has 30+ years of engineering and untold millions of dollars spent on development. I think there is room for competition but at the same time each consumer is judging each app's worth (like numbers) based on their compatibility, matching every feature identically, with that of Microsoft Office, all while not being a Microsoft product.

i wouldnt agree with thats how they are judging it. i think they judge everything based on their usage and needs and when people need something that isnt there thats when say something.

you also realize that apple has many many years of experience in the office apps world?

btw i wasnt aware that apple bought editgrid. for a long time i thought it surpassed google sheets and had more advanced and better features. they probably still do since google has killed a few things off. for instance it was much easier using editgrid to get data of other websites.

 

[michelepri]

So with iWork for iCloud, you will able to start working on one document and then the US government [through PRISM, or another data harvesting method] can read it on another.

No thanks.

I don't think they would care about my documents

 

[haravikk]

Browser versions are interesting, but I'm most interested in the desktop version of the apps, as that's where all the best features and performance still are.

Being able to do stuff in a browser is fine, but what about sharing/collaboration? Those are the things that most appealed to me about iWork.com, which Apple helpfully shut down.

 

[JayCee842]

I wonder if they'll update the desktop version?

 

[numlock]

I wonder if they'll update the desktop version?

they said something along the lines that they would release awesome versions/updates for mac and ios soon

 

[AppleMark]

I don't think they would care about my documents

Possibly not. They would not be interested in mine either, but that's not the point.

The fact that they can access and read them, [without my knowledge and consent] to determine that they are not very interesting, is the point.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Well they have to figure something out because either way isn't good. If they add in feature parity, then those features won't fit in nicely to the touch UI (though if you look at how they managed iPhoto and the filters and similar tweaks, it was done quite well). That much I agree with. But on the other hand, if they don't do it, then you are stuck with multiple copies of a file and the syncing between iOS devices and OS X doesn't work properly, or worst case, you are limited to the feature set of the iOS suite if you want syncing to work properly.

So either way there are problems. I rather they enable comments and similar things in the touch UI in a manner that is a little awkward, if it means I can finally sync my iWork documents properly without resorting to duplicates or data loss. In others words, syncing the files without stripping them of content is the #1 priority. Design the UI around that.

Perhaps, but as another poster pointed out above, without font support, the entire multi-platform concept is hamstrung by definition. We use a "non-standard" text font for all of our business documents, and a proprietary font I designed for our logo. What this means is that I cannot use Pages on the iPad for editing any of these documents as they are fundamentally screwed up right from the start. It's an inherent limitation, which you have to decide if you can or cannot live with before deciding whether to use the product. It isn't for everybody or every purpose.

In terms of the UI, again and again, I see Apple deliberately sacrificing feature quantity in favor of feature quality. The question got asked frequently when the iPad came out why it didn't have one or another feature. The answer I thought was clear: because that feature wouldn't work properly, and features that don't work properly blemish the entire product. This design philosophy is one that distinguishes Apple from essentially all of the other tech companies. I wouldn't expect them to violate these principles on purpose for any product. This is why I expect functional limitations on the cloud implementation of iWork.

 

[Senseotech]

Has anyone actually had this show up at http://beta.icloud.com yet? They said in the keynote it was available for devs that day, but I'm still not seeing it show up there.

 

[BRussell]

Well they have to figure something out because either way isn't good. If they add in feature parity, then those features won't fit in nicely to the touch UI (though if you look at how they managed iPhoto and the filters and similar tweaks, it was done quite well). That much I agree with. But on the other hand, if they don't do it, then you are stuck with multiple copies of a file and the syncing between iOS devices and OS X doesn't work properly, or worst case, you are limited to the feature set of the iOS suite if you want syncing to work properly.

So either way there are problems. I rather they enable comments and similar things in the touch UI in a manner that is a little awkward, if it means I can finally sync my iWork documents properly without resorting to duplicates or data loss. In others words, syncing the files without stripping them of content is the #1 priority. Design the UI around that.

Yeah the compatibility between iOS and OS X is a disaster right now. It's essentially unusable to me, and I use Keynote every day. This browser-based iWork only compounds the issue.

My hope is that it's going to be a big focus in the upcoming revisions of iWork, but I'm curious how they will deal with the issues. Ideally they'll increase the capabilities of the iOS and browser versions to parity with the Mac versions, but that may not be possible.

An alternative would be to have a kind of "compatibility mode" in the Mac versions, where you can check a box and it will limit your work to things that will work in the browser and iOS too. Yechh, but that's probably better than reducing the features of the Mac version down to the level of the iOS and browser versions.

 

[Wolfpup]

Yeah the compatibility between iOS and OS X is a disaster right now. It's essentially unusable to me, and I use Keynote every day. This browser-based iWork only compounds the issue.

I'm amazed at how horrible the inport/export thing is between your PC and iOS for iWork. It's got like 90 extra, baffling, pointless steps. I've never seen anything so confusing.

Don't much like the programs either. For how big they are, you'd think they'd be a lot better, but I'm stuck using Docs to Go or Google Docs.

 

[Kiwi 99]

Beta test

Has anyone actually had this show up at http://beta.icloud.com yet? They said in the keynote it was available for devs that day, but I'm still not seeing it show up there.

It doesn't show on the front screen, but if you sign in and if you're a developer, the icons all re-arrange and the new ones show up (it's a developer beta). I was in the same boat wondering why I couldn't see it until I signed in.

I only used it for a few hours, but it really is as smooth as shown in the keynote, and I often forgot whether I was editing in the native version or the browser!

I'm trying it on IE at work today so that will be an acid test!

 

[BRussell]

It doesn't show on the front screen, but if you sign in and if you're a developer, the icons all re-arrange and the new ones show up (it's a developer beta). I was in the same boat wondering why I couldn't see it until I signed in.

It says something about setting up the developer ID on the latest version of iOS or OSX. Have you installed Sea Lion (ha) or iOS 7?

 

[Senseotech]

It says something about setting up the developer ID on the latest version of iOS or OSX. Have you installed Sea Lion (ha) or iOS 7?

Running both with the iCloud ID connected to both; until I set one up, I couldn't even log in to the beta site, but after adding it to both, I can at least get logged in. I log in, but get no iWork icons (the old, single iWork icon is there and behaves like the regular iCloud version).

 

[Kiwi 99]

It says something about setting up the developer ID on the latest version of iOS or OSX. Have you installed Sea Lion (ha) or iOS 7?

No I haven't installed anything new yet. I'm running Mountain Lion on an MBPr, and ios6. I just go to https://beta.icloud.com, and sign in there with my developer id, and it all just works. In my case I haven't done anything on my developer account for a while, and when I signed on to the mac dev centre it said I had to accept new terms and conditions, and I think I did that before I tried just signing in to the iCloud beta, so maybe just check that's not holding it up? Otherwise I have no idea.

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It doesn't show on the front screen, but if you sign in and if you're a developer, the icons all re-arrange and the new ones show up (it's a developer beta). I was in the same boat wondering why I couldn't see it until I signed in.

I only used it for a few hours, but it really is as smooth as shown in the keynote, and I often forgot whether I was editing in the native version or the browser!

I'm trying it on IE at work today so that will be an acid test!

Ok, on IE10 it wanted to download a plugin which I couldn't on the work machine (but you can carry on anyway). So some slide transitions didn't work and some did. Editing keynote slides worked fine. Presumably would have worked better with the plugin.

Chrome didn't need a plugin or anything and worked pretty well. A few glitches but pretty impressive. I'd say it works 98% on safari, 90% on chrome, and 80% on IE (presumably better with the plugin).

I'm impressed.

 

[Michael Goff]

Anyone know if this allows for collaboration?

I currently use Google Drive for that, because it's easier, but I'd love to be able to use iWork for it instead.

 

[Abazigal]

Anyone know if this allows for collaboration?

I currently use Google Drive for that, because it's easier, but I'd love to be able to use iWork for it instead.

Sounds possible, but it seems like everyone will need to login using the same ID for that.

 

[Michael Goff]

Sounds possible, but it seems like everyone will need to login using the same ID for that.

Then that's that.

I'll just use Google Drive, where it... works.

 

[Wolfpup]

Then that's that.

I'll just use Google Drive, where it... works.

Not impossible it'll have that.

I think Microsoft supports it too? Actually I SHOULD switch over to using Microsoft's products as they seem to do better than Google's, but then I rarely use Docs anyway so eh lol

 

[BRussell]

Sounds possible, but it seems like everyone will need to login using the same ID for that.

You could certainly set a file as shared, like assigning a photo to a shared photostream.

 

[Michael Goff]

Not impossible it'll have that.

I think Microsoft supports it too? Actually I SHOULD switch over to using Microsoft's products as they seem to do better than Google's, but then I rarely use Docs anyway so eh lol

I hope it does, it'd be nice to be using one less Google service.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Here's a vid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gns-Sx00Fk


https://vine.co/v/blU5amWDDww

 

[gnasher729]

they are never going to catch google docs.

Never is an awful long time.

And there is one company selling you computer devices, and another company selling your data to advertisers. Who would you trust to store your documents?

Apart from that, iWork for iCloud also has native apps everywhere, something that Google Docs doesn't have.

 

[Wolfpup]

Never is an awful long time.

And there is one company selling you computer devices, and another company selling your data to advertisers. Who would you trust to store your documents?

Apart from that, iWork for iCloud also has native apps everywhere, something that Google Docs doesn't have.

Technically Apple and Microsoft are ad companies now too...although probably much less so than Google, and I trust 'em both more than Google (which is sad lol).

Google Docs has native programs for iOS and Android (and syncs with Windows and OS X). iCloud only has native programs for iOS (and so far they're TEEEEEEERRIBLE) and I suppose OS X, so IMO it's actually better there with Google Docs, but it wouldn't be hard to destroy Google Docs. Manly current iOS iWork is just hideously bad, but if Apple wanted to they could easily make it better than Google Docs whenever they wanted.

 

[numlock]

Never is an awful long time.

And there is one company selling you computer devices, and another company selling your data to advertisers. Who would you trust to store your documents?

Apart from that, iWork for iCloud also has native apps everywhere, something that Google Docs doesn't have.

as the poster below you says apple is an ad company as well. just because they arent very successful there (as in many new fields they enter) dosent change anything in that regard.

maybe ive been following apple long enough and been using their products long enough to know when i think they have realistic chance in a market and when they are just using their size to disrupt.

you can pm me when apple maps and iwork is better than google maps and google docs.

if apple released a native windows app or linux app i missed it.

google docs is available on ios and android as well as any browser.

Technically Apple and Microsoft are ad companies now too...although probably much less so than Google, and I trust 'em both more than Google (which is sad lol).

Google Docs has native programs for iOS and Android (and syncs with Windows and OS X). iCloud only has native programs for iOS (and so far they're TEEEEEEERRIBLE) and I suppose OS X, so IMO it's actually better there with Google Docs, but it wouldn't be hard to destroy Google Docs. Manly current iOS iWork is just hideously bad, but if Apple wanted to they could easily make it better than Google Docs whenever they wanted.

thats the thing. its not shortage of talent at apple but for some reason they often dont have it in them to stick to a product like this long term which is why i think they should follow jobs´s advice and concentrate on a few products and do it well instead of invading markets just for the sake of it

 

[harrisondavies]

I feel privileged. I'm not a developer, yet Apple sent an invite to participate...

Did any other non-developer get the invite?