Apple Continues Rolling Out iWork for iCloud Beta Invites

[velocityg4]

I could have done with this last week before I spent my limited funds on the OS X version to fill in one job application

You could have just used the free LibreOffice. Much better and more compatible than iWork.

 

[JarJarThomas]

You could have just used the free LibreOffice. Much better and more compatible than iWork.

And much more sluggish and at least i can't edit documents on the web or on the ipad

 

[steveing64]

I got an invite but when i log into the beta.icloud and try to work on a spreadsheet i have i can only download and i have logged in to the beta.icloud.com site

 

[baller1308]

I got an invite but when i log into the beta.icloud and try to work on a spreadsheet i have i can only download and i have logged in to the beta.icloud.com site

What browser are you using?

 

[viacavour]

I tried it a bit yesterday. First impression is rather positive. Will use this for the next few weeks and see how it goes !

 

[Scott6666]

I'm not a developer but I just went to url and logged in. Might be open to everyone.

 

[69650]

I mean this in the most sincere way but why bother even posting here if you are disinterested in web apps? The thread is about Apple's web apps. I mean, why do people always need to come to a thread and say they are disinterested in the topic at hand and ask about something else that has nothing to do with the discussion?

I thought my comment was related. If they are working on a web app version does that mean an OSX version is in the pipeline or are they planning to abandon the OSX version in favour of a free web app? It would be nice to know.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Yawn. Wake me up when Apple releases the fully-updated Mac-native version of iWork 13, or whatever they want to call it, which is way waaay overdue.

Not gonna use a web browser for office productivity apps...would rather use a web browser for, uh, web browsing.

Bitch and moan about Apple not releasing product updates, the last version of Office for Mac was released in 2010.

 

[fithian]

If you can't login be sure you use the email account that you used to create the free developer account and then change it to your present email.

I think the Pages and Numbers web apps work fine, with changes showing up on my iPad and on my Mac. Much better than the iOS versions.

 

[mdelvecchio]

It's too late. Already made the move to gDrive and gDocs. And unless Apple is going to make this work on non-iOS devices, there's no going back.

what are you talking about? it's a web solution -- has nothing to do with iOS.

 

[oliversl]

Surprise, I can confirm Apple invited a non paid developer account. Nice!

 

[DavidTheExpert]

"Safari, Chrome, or Internet Explorer"

Why doesn't it include Firefox? Oh well I'm going to try it in Firefox anyway and I'll report back if it works. IMO, Firefox is the most powerful and flexible browser well suited for OS X.

 

[numlock]

Although i agree that iWork in the cloud was not apples business, i don't agree with "they strike back".
It is more a situation like "How does it make sense for our customers".

See working with google docs on ipad is not fun at all, regardless of all the other shortcomings of google docs (by the way it is interesting if you read something like "Microsoft office can do much more and in the next sentence u read use google docs which can't do all the stuff either)

For apple customers it means
buy iworks for a relative cheap price (or only part of it),
you can use it on your mac, you can use it on your phone or tablet with sync thanks to icloud. And hey if you are at a location where you don't have access to your devices, you can modify it also on the browser.

So for apple it is a logical extension of their services for the customer. And thats everything i think is behind it. Because google docs to microsoft and back is already extremely annoying and bad. Adding another step is much worse.
Now you have one toolchain you can use. I like that really, because it saves much time and effort.

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dont see any real problems with iworks where they need to catchup.
Office is bloated with 90% features less than 10% of the users really use.
Libreoffice and openoffice are just free versions of office.
With worse usability but they are just cheap as in free.

Pages/Numbers/Keynote is not office, it is reduced to what most people need.
Adding useless features is simple, everyone can write features regardless how useless they are. And that leads to software like office ... thousands of useless features, some basic features not working as good as they can and some features for experts that are really worth the money.

The best thing apple can do is make the basic features perfect.
Because experts whcih do need expert features will use office, regardless of the price or system. And all other users have a affordable and better usable alternative.

Don't know why apple should change this. Truth is, if Apple would bloat iWorks, it would not longer worth the money. Because you can't make it work like office, so you can't replace office with it if you need the features.

So go apple go, you are doing it right. But i am sure apple knows that

talk about towing the company line.

everything is bloatware and useless unless apple has the awe inspring idea to add it. see two button mouse, see tabs in finder, see notifications etc (this list is longer than the list of innovative apple products)

ive been using google docs pretty much since it was launched so i think im in a fine position to criticize the shortcomings of this "beta" product and how it compares and feels to a non office expert.

if iwork is fully featured and not bloatware because it can just about make a nice piechart that can display "hanging-out time" and "just kicking it" then please hope they dont update, add to or improve it.

it also quite ironic that iwork is meant to be this lackluster product with little to no marketshare since apple cant help but proudly show its dominance when its suits them.

 

[steveh]

It's too late. Already made the move to gDrive and gDocs. And unless Apple is going to make this work on non-iOS devices, there's no going back.

Read Apple's description, if not the article.

iOS, OS X, Windows. Current versions of Safari, Chrome and IE supported.

 

[Beachguy]

In Europe, any cloud will be a flop. You know: We are very afraid of your NSA organization.

But you weren't afraid of what the Soviet Union did for 70 years?????

We in the USA don't like it either, but to suddenly take offense at the USA after many decades of spying by other European and Asian nations is just plain silly.

 

[decimortis]

I'm not a developer but I just went to url and logged in. Might be open to everyone.

I did the same and it worked too. Never signed up for a developer account and I'm 100% sure of this.

I did however buy Numbers for my iPad so that might have something to do with it.

D.

 

[donutbagel]

It's like Google docs except is doesn't support multiple people editing the same file at the same time, which makes it - in comparison: useless.

A check in / check out workflow is so 2005.

What I meant is that it's web-based. Anyway, I'm going to be using Dropbox I think. I don't care if multiple people can't edit it at once.

 

[parlour]

All this confusion about the future of iWork showcased here and elsewhere is sickening and manages to demonstrate the piss-poor attention to detail Apple rags like MacRumors have. During the Keynote Apple was extremely explicit about the future of iWork (compared to Apple’s usual openness about future plans) – but I guess if it’s not some stupid unconfirmed rumour but something someone from Apple actually explicitly says on stage you people don’t care and apparently don’t listen.

Firstly, no, this browser version of iWork will not replace any other version of iWork, neither on iOS, nor on OS X. (As an aside, this kind of thinking is messed up. It’s so far out from Apple’s approach to apps and web apps and only manages to display your own astounding ignorance about all thing Apple.)

This was explicitly said during the Apple Keynote, right at the start when they demoed iWork for the browser. Quoting: (after talking about the OS X and iOS versions of iWork) “… but today I wanna introduce the newest member of the iWork family – introducing iWork for iCloud.”

It's merely a new member, not a replacement for anything.

Secondly, besides iWork for iCloud, new iOS and OS X versions (the actual apps, not this thing in the browser) were explicitly announced and will be released “later this year”. They were not demoed or shown, but they were announced, even with a rough release date.

To see this we just have to expand the aforementioned quote a bit backwards in time: (after lots of stupid self-praise for the iWork apps) “and later this year we are gonna have awesome new releases of both our Mac and iOS suites, but today I wanna introduce the newest member of the iWork family – introducing iWork for iCloud.”

You can verify this for yourself. It’s at 1h 2min and 50sec in the Keynote video of WWDC.

So, to recap, no, iWork for iCloud is no replacement of the iOS and OS X version of iWork and yes, new releases of the iOS and OS X versions of iWork were announced for later this year.

 

[SgtPepper12]

I can't believe Pages still doesn't have a built-in equation editor and has absolutely no support for references. Aren't university students one of Apple's biggest markets?

Nobody at the university uses Word or Pages for that. That's something you're taught very early. If you don't want to get laughed at, you use LaTeX for something like that.

 

[benfischer]

first impression

Pages seems to be OK and is a potential competitor to Google Documents. It looks nicer when moving an image around in the text and watching the text reflow.

the spreadsheet is an interesting concept but hardly a professional product. It doesn't even have graphs.

I'm not sure why Apple is devoting the energy and money to do this. Can't they redirect some of these resources to getting better performance out of the OS and filesystem?

 

[McFreggle]

Weird. I'm no dev and I didn't receive an email. But I do have full access to the iCloud beta. So I thought it was open to all.

Apparantly not. Weird.

 

[Truffy]

It's like Google Docs.

That is not a proper answer to the question.

 

[fishdoc]

I, too, am not a developer and have full access to the site. Odd.

 

[Toltepeceno]

I cannot access it, says developer account needed.

 

[mejsric]

Oh haters.. who love visiting this site. Thank you!