Apple Makes iMovie, GarageBand, and iWork Apps for Mac and iOS Free for All Users

[QuarterSwede]

They made them free to any new owner since 2013... surely everyone has met that criteria by now right? Who will this appeal to?

Genuinely curious, not bashing!

They probably had to do it that way for some sort of accounting reason. Now that all the majority of devices are newer they can move it to free as they're accounting for their sales with hardware. It's a guess but usually in business and retail how things are accounted for cause some wacko issues.

Source: I am a retail manager and have to explain stupid reasons to customers daily.

 

[iToph]

iWork is not worth a cent. So, it should have been free since 2013

 

[satchmo]

but but but Apple is a greedy company? I thought TC only had money on his mind...

Because free apps to entice consumers into the Apple ecosystem isn't strategic at all.
It's a good move, but don't pretend he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. It's just business.

 

[/V\acpower]

Eh....

I recently got a Pages document and I couldn't open it with MS Word. There needs to be better compatibility between the two apps.

The problem is Microsoft not willing to add Pages documents support to Office, obviously because they are the dominant platform.

Apple did what they had to do : support for opening and exporting to .doc and .docx.

 

[shk718]

Great news. If Apple want the iPad to be a laptop replacement they need to get coders on-board and create more sophisticated apps.

 

[citysnaps]

Eh....

I recently got a Pages document and I couldn't open it with MS Word. There needs to be better compatibility between the two apps.

Tell Microsoft you need to be able to open Pages documents with Word. Or tell whoever sent you the Pages document to export it in Word. Easy.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Very nice of them but they still need to match MSO.

 

[CaTOAGU]

They made them free to any new owner since 2013... surely everyone has met that criteria by now right? Who will this appeal to?

Genuinely curious, not bashing!

There are still 2011 and earlier Macs running Sierra, it's possible anyone owning one of those machines has not made a purchase since 2013

 

[oldtime]

Hmm. For those that have used both: iWork or LibreOffice?

 

[DaveN]

Not really MS Office is a more robust suite of applications.

As for the move, I think its a good move and I think was curious that they were charging for this when they were giving it away for new owners.

Not really. Word and Excel are better than Pages and Numbers for hard core users but Keynote is better than PowerPoint for presentations. I have both app suites and slowly migrated to the Apple suite because I need a great presentation program but no longer have a need for a complex spreadsheet program.

 

[John.B]

Good. I just realized a couple months ago that I had the old Mac version of garage band when I was using the guitar lessons to self teach guitar. I debated if it would be worth it to buy the new one, because there were some bug/compatibility issues I was running into. I didn't. Now I'll check it out. I've gotten away from practicing so many this will give me just enough motivation to get back into it!

Worth researching whether the new version still has the same features.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Hmm. For those that have used both: iWork or LibreOffice?

iWork. Both LibreOffice and OpenOffice just seem... ugly. I know it's an odd word to describe, but when I use either, it feels like I'm using Office '95, or something lifted out of Lotus 1-2-3.

I guess that doesn't make much sense. The best way I can put it is that neither application feels like it could be a valid Office alternative, day-in, day-out. iWork is at least nice to use, and whilst it's not an appropriate Office alternative for businesses, it's more than good enough as a polished consumer product (IMO).

 

[Jon from HR]

They made them free to any new owner since 2013... surely everyone has met that criteria by now right? Who will this appeal to?

Genuinely curious, not bashing!

I was seriously thinking of the same thing. Been using these apps for free for a long, long while. Maybe for people using a pre-Retina MacBook Pro, or iPhone 5?

 

[einsteinbqat]

Pages and Numbers definitely cannot beat Word and Excel. However, Keynote really is much better than PowerPoint. I believe that by making them free, it would allow the casual user to do some word or number processing without having to buy a complete office/productivity suite such as Microsoft Office for such thing as writing a resumé or making a home budget.

 

[Dekema2]

MS Word is a sucky application on the Mac — especially the one I use, 2011. It looks like it was 100% ported and runs in X11, Java, Flash or Wine. I don't know if the latest one is like that, but I don't care because I'm not buying it anyways.

On the contrary, Pages is elegant, text is as smooth as a baby's behind, editing tables is so easy a caveman can do it. I'm using it to make my own resume and template from scratch and it's impressed many people already.

Also, I agree with the above poster that Numbers can't beat Excel. I tried using it in an engineering class one time and many features were just MIA.

 

[IJ Reilly]

iWork. Both LibreOffice and OpenOffice just seem... ugly. I know it's an odd word to describe, but when I use either, it feels like I'm using Office '95, or something lifted out of Lotus 1-2-3.

I guess that doesn't make much sense. The best way I can put it is that neither application feels like it could be a valid Office alternative, day-in, day-out. iWork is at least nice to use, and whilst it's not an appropriate Office alternative for businesses, it's more than good enough as a polished consumer product (IMO).

I keep LibreOffice around for occasional compatibility use. It is capable of opening more archaic formats than anything around, so it's invaluable for legacy files, if nothing else. Otherwise it is way too clunky for every day use.

Can't agree with your definition of what is appropriate for business use. We've been using iWork in our business for over ten years now and never found it to be inappropriate. We have however stuck with Pages 4.3 rather than its emasculated successor.

 

[Rogifan]

Why do people cheer free software? It just makes it harder for 3rd party developers to develop pro software because no one wants to pay for it.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

I bought Garage Band for Mac and iOS a while back. Will I get my money back?

 

[Loge]

Don't think they updated iOS numbers apart from making it free; it's still has the broken numeric input.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I keep LibreOffice around for occasional compatibility use. It is capable of opening more archaic formats than anything around, so it's invaluable for legacy files, if nothing else. Otherwise it is way too clunky for every day use.

Precisely, it's really clunky for every day use! Thank you for articulating it better than I did.

Can't agree with your definition of what is appropriate for business use. We've been using iWork in our business for over ten years now and never found it to be inappropriate. We have however stuck with Pages 4.3 rather than its emasculated successor.

My vocabulary lets me down once again. Appropriate wasn't quite the word I meant. I guess Office is... easier for businesses. Not perfect but no real reason to change, especially when you consider iWork is macOS only.

 

[Rogifan]

Because free apps to entice consumers into the Apple ecosystem isn't strategic at all.
It's a good move, but don't pretend he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. It's just business.

So no matter what Apple does it should be knocked because "it's just business". Ok.

 

[mdridwan47]

Good move. Long overdue. This will simplify things significantly. These are truly some of the best productivity/edutainment apps on the app store. Thank you Apple.

 

[dysamoria]

A very strong move against Microsoft Office. I must admit, back when I was still using macOS these programs were a very productive and efficient addition to my workflow.

The iWork suite was labotimozed and is no longer a challenge to MS Office. Making this software free doesn't much inspire faith in Apple spending money improving them.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I bought Garage Band for Mac and iOS a while back. Will I get my money back?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: Maybe if you made a bit of a fuss to Apple, they might give you a gift card or something. But honestly, no point being that guy. Spending an hour arguing the toss over something so trivial isn't something a lot of people should feel comfortable doing. Besides, if you got $15 use out of it already, then you might as well call it even.

 

[mcilwraith]

This is great! i have a 5 year old MacBook Pro bought second hand. It still kicks butt (core i7, 500Gb SSD) but i did not have these apps. will now happily switch to Pages from Word. Thank you!