Apple's iWork Apps for Mac and iOS Gain Text Styles, Apple Pencil Customization Options and More

[Virtual Steve]

Updates weren't showing up for me either (that's happened to me before with the Mac App Store), so I just did Store > Reload Page [or Command + R] and then the updates showed up for me to download and install. Might save someone else the trouble of deleting/reinstalling the apps, assuming that works for you.

 

[StralyanPithecus]

Updates weren't showing up for me either (that's happened to me before with the Mac App Store), so I just did Store > Reload Page [or Command + R] and then the updates showed up for me to download and install. Might save someone else the trouble of deleting/reinstalling the apps, assuming that works for you.

Thank You! It worked for me. I always forget to do a page refresh

 

[ipedro]

Remember when an iWork update would take up an entire segment at Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote address? These days, it's just another Tuesday.

 

[easteraries]

Indeed. I don't think PC can use .pages (or .keynote) files, except perhaps if they login to icloud.com
That's unfortunate because I find iWork substantially superior in terms of UI, features, stability. They've done a wonderful job here and they keep upgrading them with new features.

I have the incredible good fortune to work in an all-Apple company. We use all the internally and are soooo much happier for it.

And we credit Keynote for a big portion of the wow factor our client get from our presentations. Not to mention that we do essentially all our page-layout in Pages, and our collateral looks so much better for it.

 

[notrack]

Nice update.

Nice that they keep updating these at regular intervals.

But I never have come across people who actually use these. At work, my shopping life , my friends and family always either use Office or Google Docs.

I never get pages or number files

I use Numbers and Pages daily as well as most of my customers, mainly small businesses or for personal use.

I uninstalled Office a few years back. But I understand that there are situations that require using it for some.

 

[BWhaler]

Huge update. I love iWork and use it daily for work.

Yes, like others have noted, at times, one does have to export to MSOffice and Google docs, but the amazing iWork apps and gorgeous templates are worth the extra step because you have beautiful, compelling documents in a sea of enterprise beige. Others simply cannot compare.

Thank you Apple and the iWork Team. I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us for iOS 13 and multiple instances and other surprises.

 

[SurferPup]

I love Pages and Numbers. iWork is all I use personally (only Microsoft Office in the work place). All my personal hardware and software being Apple, using iWork is seemless plus the easy conversion process to Office makes iWork my only choice. Love⛎

 

[iDento]

I love iWork, I use it for a small business (dental practice) and it works like a charm.

Apple is on fire this year.

 

[jd73]

Man, I’m a spreadsheet junkie and I absolutely LOVE Numbers - or I did until Apple royally screwed it up and removed all the main stuff from the toolbar and forced you to spend all day clicking around in the new tabbed “inspector” to the right. It used to be so fast and easy to use - everything you needed was in one place as opposed to four different tabs - but they completely dumbed it down and made it way harder to use. I honestly wonder who approves this stuff in Cupertino. Thankfully the old ‘09 version still works as of Mojave, but it would be nice if they made the current version as full-featured as it used to be. I abhor all things Microsoft and have no need for all that bloatware... why can’t Apple just keep things that work?!

 

[Analog Kid]

It looks like they hired a few new hands into the iWork division! I was fearing that iWork was dead, but they seem to be making some serious improvements. Bravo!

I get forced to use MS Office and Google Docs sometimes, but when I originate the document, I start with iWork and export. Office is too cluttered, and Docs is sadistic.

 

[AstroRob]

I don't think I've touched PowerPoint to make a presentation in a decade, and my results are FAR superior because of Keynote.

I'm forced to use MS Word as the lowest common denominator in collaboration with external folk, but it is a bloated mess of a UX disaster. I almost always do my own work in Pages for its visual elegance and intuitive UI, and if needed export to MS. I'm trying to get some of my coworkers to use Pages collaboratively now as well.

Numbers has a spectacularly flexible whiteboard layout UI but is deeply impaired in its lack of critical pro functionality easily accessed in Excel (I always need Excel for processing text tables into sheets intelligently. The really sad thing is that its charting function UI is delightfully easy to use, but it is so simplistic in its functionality that I end up having to use Excel for anything more complicated than a simple column of data or two.

 

[B4U]

I use them almost everyday. Pages and Keynote specially. Keynote is far superior to PowerPoint.

I second to the keynote part.
Did a presentation using keynote for the first time in an undergrad class.
Classmates were shocked and keep asking how come my group’s “PowerPoint” is so much more nice looking than what they can do with theirs and which version of PowerPoint were we using (instead of asking about the project that my group presented...)

Now, on the other hand, don’t get me started to rant about the MS Office 365 subscription model...

 

[fronesis]

For everyone out there saying "I don't know anyone who uses these apps," keep in mind that a lot of iWork users are longtime Apple users, and some of us remember the bad old days where there was enormous hostility to any docs not in MS format.

I'm an author and I collaborate all the time. I use Pages daily (extensively), Numbers almost-daily, and Keynote about once a month. I've been using iWork for more than a decade.

But when I send someone a word processing document, I convert it to Word or PDF first, because non iWork users EXPECT all documents to be in MS format. So they don't know I write in Pages.

If I give a presentation, no one knows I'm using Keynote, because unlike PC users, I don't start my presentation at the Windows desktop; I start it with my title screen slide.

I collaborate with most people using MS or Google formats, but all the content is created in iWork. And every now and then I find someone who I know is using Pages, and then I stop having to convert things.

 

[DanielDD]

If you are a quant, you have no choice, since Excel is the standard.

Excel cannot keep up with the today's demands of data cleaning and data analysis. Over the last two years I completely abandoned Excel in favour of Python / Stata for heavy work. I also started using Numbers for personal stuff (keeping track of finances, mostly). Maybe the corporate world sees it otherwise, but to me Excel is the worst of both words. It cannot compete with looks and simplicity of Numbers, and it cannot compete with much more powerful and efficient statistical software.

 

[Kierkegaarden]

Finally, images within text! I actually sent an email to Steve Jobs about 10 years ago asking if they could implement this feature into Pages. I’m guessing that either he immediately started a team on it back then and they just now have perfected it — or, he never saw my email and they just came up with it on their own. Pretty obvious what happened.

 

[Mainsail]

Excel cannot keep up with the today's demands of data cleaning and data analysis. Over the last two years I completely abandoned Excel in favour of Python / Stata for heavy work. I also started using Numbers for personal stuff (keeping track of finances, mostly). Maybe the corporate world sees it otherwise, but to me Excel is the worst of both words. It cannot compete with looks and simplicity of Numbers, and it cannot compete with much more powerful and efficient statistical software.

It is funny because my son is a recent grad double major math and economics, and he feels exactly the same as you. He uses Python, Stata, and R extensively. Perhaps, my frame of reference is dated, since I retired a few years ago. Back in the day, all quants used Excel and Numbers was essential unheard of.

I’ll take your (and my son’s) word for it.....Excel might be falling out of favor for heavy lifting and numbers crunching.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Nice that they keep updating these at regular intervals. But I never have come across people who actually use these. At work, my shopping life, my friends and family always either use Office or Google Docs. I never get pages or number files

I didn’t think I did either, for a long time. Then I tried them, realized how much nicer Keynote was over PowerPoint, then got over the annoyances and shortcomings of Numbers, switched over to Numbers on iPad, where I now do nearly all my (nearly constant) spreadsheet work, and then a funny thing happened. The oft-ignored Best Practice of sending proper .pdfs rather than original editable .docs or .docxkxs (or whatever they’re up to now) became the default, since I couldn’t count on anyone having pages on the other end. The advantages in security and liability that come with .pdf transmittals eventually allowed us to block attachments of the high-risk original Office formats before they even reach us. You’ve very likely been receiving Pages-made documents the whole time.