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I agree, No ODF support equals lame, and also useless. Apple will eventually get tired of their apps and abandon them and their super secret format. As went Apple Works, and Claris Impact and their web page design program and who knows what else I've forgotten.
I was a big fan of ClarisWorks (and later AppleWorks) for Windows. I could produce documents with it that would make users of MS Office jealous. ClarisWorks for Windows was the main reason why I considered moving over to OSX (and eventually did).

I used to think that Apple would soon abandon iWork. But with the rewrite and introduction of the web version, I am not concerned about that anymore. iWork on the web is so good that I can start work on a document natively on my iMac, and near-seamlessly switch over to continue to work on it on my Android, Windows, Chrome OS, and Linux devices.

But having said that, I actually have the opposite concern. iWork isn't natively available on other desktop OSes and heavy reliance on it increases my reliance on Mac OS systems. I prefer the flexibility of using multiple platforms.
 
I use Pages and Numbers all the time. Pages is the best non-proprietary, non-subscription based note taking program out there. While I don't appreciate the direction the Numbers UI has been going with iPadOS, it's still better than Excel. I just wish iPadOS Pages had all the features of the desktop version. It's missing some obscure, but important features for me.
 
When I retired, I shifted over to iWorks and it has been great for household projects and the family real estate business. I find iWorks simpler and more intuitive than MS Office. That said, my son is an undergrad Business major, and I encouraged him to develop strong Excel skills. MS Office still rules in the corporate environment. This might change with time, but for now, it is an important tool.
 
Those apps are, in my opinion, awful. I can't work with the toolbar being to the right side, and the tables interaction is awful. I hate to say it, but make it look like Docs/Word
I used to have this opinion. After getting used to the toolbar on the side, I'm of the opinion that it is inherently better. Word drives me nuts now. Otherwise your document feels as though it is perpetually cut off on the top and bottom.
 
I love this update. It fixed a problem the apps used to have where an annoying-as-hell "Now Saving...." message would appear and disappear (almost like a flicker) at the top of the screen, breaking my concentration. Now there's no message and the document just automatically saves all the time. This is great.
 
Does support Numbers support formulae? to the same extent Excel does? including array formulae?
Do these 3 apps interconnect (say you copy paste part of a number sheet in Keynote or pages),
Does Numbers support pivottables?
Is there a cross-app scripting language like VBA in MS office (VBA-like in libroffice, or even python if i'm not mistaken)?

-> are these 3 apple apps actually any good in any remotely corporate environment ? (pretty sure the answer is no because of lack of cross-platform, but might as well check).
 
Now if only I could Mail Merge to my email….
I think they finally added that back in the update that came out on June 18? They had it in iWork '09, but the new iWorks apps are essentially new software. It's an entirely different codebase.
 
I use Numbers, Pages, and Keynote for personal use, Office 365 for work. Despite more limited features, I prefer the look and feel of Apple's productivity suite.

But one area needs a lot more work -- collaboration and syncing. Any changes should be synced as close to real time as possible. But in my experience, it just does not work consistently. Sometimes it takes several dozen minutes before the change is reflected on another device or user. This is probably an iCloud issue, but it reflects poorly on Apple's productivity suites where collaboration and sync need to work better.
I think cloud sync is where MS shines. I think that this might be from the overall investment in Azure cloud that MS has been doing over the years. It could be that iCloud is running on the back of Azure, AWS, or it's own infrastructure. But I think it needs an extreme overhaul. You can definitely tell the weakness in the iCloud back-end when dealing with things like merging and updating old/new icloud account or changing icloud accounts attached to the AppleCard and ApplePay. It's a mess and I'd love to see what they are running this system on. I'm honestly quite curious.
 
seriously? open excel docs in numbers, export numbers to excel. nothing could be simpler
Thanks for the tip, but the bigger question is is there an equivalent for multimedia? I have screenshots ands video clips I'd like to transfer to my PC. And vice versa. Drag and drop no longer registers like I used to be able to do back when I had my iPod Touch 5, and iPad Air (1st gen from 2013).
 
There's no way to transfer files locally?
On windows PC directly? Doubtful. If you got a spiffy iPad with the newfangled usb stick support, either USB-C or maybe a usb dongle (but the new one, not the old one like I got.. boo), you can stick the usb ...stick.. into the iPad and copy with the files app. Do it this way if you have a lot of files; iCloud.com would be painful.
 
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You know the iWork apps would be truly stellar if they used the MS Office file formates natively when you save files. It would legit make these apps usable as mainline work apps.
 
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Those apps are, in my opinion, awful. I can't work with the toolbar being to the right side, and the tables interaction is awful. I hate to say it, but make it look like Docs/Word
Half agree... I can deal with Pages because I view it as more of Page Layout app and the interface is OK'ish for that but I cannot deal with Numbers and I find good ol' Excel (despite Microsofts efforts sometimes to mess it up sometimes) is streaks ahead. Just look at the huge amount of space the same formula takes up on the screen for in-cell editing when comparing Numbers vs Excel. It's OK if you are on a 27" display but not on a super cute MacBook. Could you at least use real brackets and not those grey chunky things? Excel's simple format is so much easier to interpret quickly.
 

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I run a business through Numbers and Pages. It's fine. It's just different to Office.

The only thing that shafts me is the lack of engineering units in Numbers. Have to divide a lot of stuff regularly or use constant multipliers.
The thing that semi often catches me out is how poor the chart features are in numbers. I’m hoping with swift charts that apple is going to massively upgrade that soon.
 
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The thing that semi often catches me out is how poor the chart features are in numbers. I’m hoping with swift charts that apple is going to massively upgrade that soon.
I tend not to use the chart features on sheets. I'm interested in analysis so I look at the regression functions instead i.e. FORECAST.
 
I think they finally added that back in the update that came out on June 18? They had it in iWork '09, but the new iWorks apps are essentially new software. It's an entirely different codebase.
I’ve tried it on both IOS and MacOS and all I can do is generate a new document that has all the merged text (for example 10 copies of a form letter to print). There is apparently no way to have each individual copy of the merged document sent as an email to the recipient.
 
There's no way to transfer files locally?
if the iDevice (with iOS/iPadOS >=13) and your desktop are on the same network you can create a shared folder on the desktop and copy from and to it from your iPad or iPhone. Works similar with a Mac.
Otherwise you can use a NAS or likewise a router (as long as it allows to connect external storage) or - depending on your iPad - a dual Lightning-USB A-, Lightning-USB-C-, or USB A-USB C-stick.
 
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