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Apple Announces Upcoming Features for iWork Mac Apps Following Criticism

I am disappointed with these new versions as well. Stripping useful features at the cost of iOS > Web > Mac OS compatibility is a non-starter for me. The feature set and ease of use is more important than portability for me.

As I said, I'm disappointed, but I'm not mad. Apple haven't left me high and dry, I can still use the older versions that I like for the time being until they beef up the new versions. I definitely feel that this has been overblown.
 
tethead said:
Unbelievable that they are not re-introducing linked text boxes in Pages. The application is completely useless to me now, and have had to revert back to Pages '09 until that feature is put back in...
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That was the first thing I checked when I tested the new Pages at the Apple Store.

Disappointing that this feature and Layout Mode are not mentioned on the list of things to be put back in the near future.
 
I keep getting surprised not enough people are seeing the real problem here:

If full iOS editability is the rule for iWork, it will never be as powerful as it used to be or as powerful as the Mac can make it. If Apple continues to base its decisions of iWork by being able to do everything you do on a Mac with a 4 year old iPhone, then the Mac will always be screwed, as well as Mac users.

Why isn't anyone seeing this? Why isn't anyone addressing the main issue that any software will be screwed if Mac to iOS feature parity is mandatory? It is not like the FCP X debacle, it is much worse. Imagine FCP X being bound to iOS and you will get the picture. :mad:
 
katewes said:
But Apple are masters of spin. They delete, then see if users scream. If no sound, they bury the body silently.

Look at anti-glare screens. They're gone, in spite of the protests. Apple cares only about money.

In order to focus on money, they focus their products on the dumb masses.

What does it take to have an expert setting in the software - where we can un-hide the settings needed by a smaller number of people. Why must Apple's software and hardware be dumbed-down? Money, of course. To target the masses who can bring in most profits.

I hate it when Apple discards people who don't want dumbed-down products.
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I don't like it either.
 
Taz Mangus said:
I really like how a writer can organize thoughts using the note cards. My wife is using Scrivener to write her novel.
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Scrivener is a powerful and flexible beast. Has layers of potential that people can use in so many different ways. I wish your wife every success with her novel.
 
Just stop making changes!!!

I updated my software, and accessed a numbers doc. It is not as I left it. Apple, stop making changes that YOU want. Leave MY docs alone. You are creating more work for me.

Come up with something new instead of nit-picking on what works for all of us.
 
boss.king said:
I went back to iWork 09, not switching to the new version until it can at least match the old one.

Why has Apple been letting so many half-assed projects leave the campus lately?
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Because we look at these from the viewpoint of experienced users we see all the things that are missing. Give these tools to kids just starting out and they start exploring and finding what is possible. Sad for us, good for them.
 
sigh...

I hope Apple reinserts export to .rtf in Pages.

That is a big one for me, so Pages 2009 will continue to be on my desktop.

I think Apple should have waited until more of the proposed features were included before the relaunch.
 
One of the things I've always loved about the iWorks apps is the alignment guides that would automatically pop into place to you move and resize elements. Each time I open up pages, I have to go into the options and turn on the ruler and the alignment guides. For whatever reason, these revert back to being off each time the program restarts. Hope that little but annoying thing gets changed.
 
newagemac said:
Actually the new apps didn't REMOVE a single thing. Apple completely rebuilt iWork from the ground up on a totally new codebase. Apparently they didn't have time to add all of the new features and obviously they wouldn't have put all that effort into rebuilding them if they weren't planning on making major improvements over the coming months and years.

The old iWorks sat stagnant for years likely because of its old codebase that never was compatible with their newer projects on the web and iOS devices. In particular compatibility with the web version is important for iWork users to be able to have cross sharing/compatibility of iWork documents with the 80%+ of people who don't own a Mac.
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Developer jibber jabber is irrelevant to users. It is results what matter, nothing else. Features were removed from the user perspective, the only perspective that really counts.

AND the name of the suite is iWork.
 
This is why, at least thus far, Apple iWorks software is not a serious contender in the business realm. Can you imagine Microsoft pulling key features from Excel or Word and then claiming they won't return for 6 months?

The key to successful business software platforms is providing effective tools that you can rely on. I love my Mac but I will continue to dual boot into Windows in order to run my business.
 
That Scrivener tool looks really impressive indeed. At my day job I'm forced to use Word and Excel and always hated what they did with the more recent versions where you're getting an extra portion of mouse movements per day to get to all functions that are now tucked (far) away.

At home and university I always use Pages and always felt that I had more control over things like formatting, that are always a source of frustration in MS Word. Numbers could be using some simple updates to bring it on par with Excel, especially in the formatting and styles department.

But I always felt comfortable and at ease with their functionality and let me get the job done. Really a shame what they did with these new dumbed down versions..
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
Massive cash hoard that could make it easy to throw a thousand programmers at a "from scratch" rewrite.
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:rolleyes: This here is the easiest way to identify a person that has absolutely no idea how development works. It is not as easy as "throwing a thousand programmers" at the problem. Most programmers will agree that adding more people to a project will often make it take LONGER!
 
juancarlosh said:
Developer jibber jabber is irrelevant to users. It is results what matter, nothing else. Features were removed from the user perspective, the only perspective that really counts.

AND the name of the suite is iWork.
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Indeed as a customer i really don't give a **** about that. Rewrite or whatever is not my concern and even that it doesn't mean that automatically you must drop features.

They have the balls to leave all apps stale for almost 5 years and then have the guts to justify it with some lousy rewrite.
 
AustinIllini said:
At least this Tim Cook version of Apple is willing to admit they are wrong.
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They didn't admit they were wrong. They made a conscious choice to basically start again to unify the different versions (iOS, Mac, iCloud) and they realized that it would mean a first version that was a "backwards step" (in terms of functionality).
 
ssspinball said:
:rolleyes: This here is the easiest way to identify a person that has absolutely no idea how development works. It is not as easy as "throwing a thousand programmers" at the problem. Most programmers will agree that adding more people to a project will often make it take LONGER!
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Yeah, yeah. Same old broken record.
 
shortugae said:
i swear if apple doesn't fix this crap where i have to manually capitalize every sentence and "I", i will move to Microsoft office. Nothing could possibly piss me off more than this, apple.
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I was just telling a friend how the advent of smartphones and tablets have turned people into horrible writers.

Really? You're upset because you have to use the shift key????? Autocorrect and caps are nice, but I'm not going to kill myself if they aren't there.

Good thing you never had to use a manual typewriter! You had to manually set it to the next line to continue - the horror!
 
Still no Database Equivalent

Yeah, well, Steve Jobs killed off AppleWorks, too, with the introduction of iWork. The only problem was, there wasn't a substitute for the Database part of AppleWorks. Oh, I know, you can use Filemaker with its huge learning curve (not to mention price tag), or you could have used Bento before Filemaker killed it off (and even then, Bento was no substitute for the ease and sophistication of AppleWorks' database features).

So, here we are, nearly 6 years later, and Apple STILL doesn't have a decent database program for its consumer. (And it's still the reason I am using Snow Leopard, since AW requires Rosetta -- something Apple with all its billions could have easily leased or outright purchased.)

And before everyone chimes in about just bucking up and upgrade, may I ask why Apple cuts off support for its own not-so-old hardware and/or software, yet still makes almost all of its software available for PC users still using Windows 98 with Service Pack 2?
 
HobeSoundDarryl said:
How does this even happen? It's not like Apple is still in 1996 and barely holding it all together. Biggest company in the world (at times). Massive cash hoard that could make it easy to throw a thousand programmers at a "from scratch" rewrite. And yet, Apple keeps doing this: rolling out the new without a bunch of features of the old. Then, there's backlash. Then, a pseudo-apology with a promise that features that used to be there will come again. Why keep recycling this approach?

As smart as they are, you'd think they'd learn from- say- rolling out FCP X without core features important to users of the prior version, getting fierce backlash, then apologizing and promising to resurrect features. How long did they have to build this version of the iWork apps? 4 years?

I use these apps just about daily and have turned others onto Macs because of these kinds of apps. What a disappointment to have brand new versions come out stripped of many popular (or even fundamental features). Vertical ruler? Really?
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I don't think you really appreciate how hard it is to write new apps from scratch. Look at Microsoft and Adobe: They're just piling new stuff on top of old stuff. I think both Windows RT and Photoshop/InDesign/Illustrator are testaments to how poorly software can become. They're not optimized for today's hardware at all, lag like crazy and aren't the most resource efficient.

Would be nice if they had the guts to cut out all the legacy code.
 
NOV said:
Final Cut Pro X
iTunes 11
iOS7
Logic Pro X
iWorks
(not getting into other disastrous side line projects like 'Maps')

The saga continues. Wow, these guys really know how to destroy good working software.
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I see what you mean with FCPX (although it's matured nicely now), but iOS 7 didn't remove a ton of features, in fact it added a ton (see all the excellent reviews). Logic also didn't remove anything important, it has a 5 star rating on the app store and reviewed very well by music professionals.
 
Well' my friends, here's news: I LOVE the new iWork! I love the new UI, cross-plattform compatibility and collaboration. It's all I was looking for. Even compatibility to MS office seems improved.

Old features introduced back shortly. New features coming up and across all devices.

The new iWork rocks and will be even greater in a year from now. Quite a strategic area for Apple and they got it right.

Keep it up. :)

PS: yes, they should have informed us about the stripped features
PPS: yes, I am still looking for a manual?
PPPS: and yes, I finally will get rid of MS offices altogether at work. And home I'm already iWork only.
 
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snarton said:
Thanks for the tip. After looking at their website, I see two possible issues with using Scrivener instead of Word.
1) I use Mendeley for reference tracking, but there's no integration with Scrivener. How do you track references?
2) In the office where I work we usually pass documents around as Word files and mark them up with tracked changes. When you need to collaborate, do you export from Scrivener to Word?

Of course, the above two concerns are in comparison with Word. Pages isn't even a serious consideration.
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I am sorry, but I don't have experience of Mendeley. The Scrivener forums might be useful.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=24929&p=163837&hilit=Mendeley#p163837

It is possible to export and collaborate as you suggest...or you can persuade your colleagues to adopt Scrivener as well. Very useful tool for preparing materials for publication. After using Scrivener, the inclination to use Word quickly evaporates.
 
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