Apple's iWork for iCloud Apps Gain New Collaboration Features

[IJ Reilly]

Meaning, I'm not depending on it to get work done and can probably do it in other applications as well, I make it work. I also have Office here as well as Texpad.

What exactly is it you need to do? I use it to write the odd offering, some documentation and requirement specs.

Yeah but the assumption that it's a question of tradeoff is not necessarily true.

I'm a consultant. I write all of my reports in Pages. The template creation tool in old Pages is brilliant. It allows you to define sections of a report in a template and insert them wherever you need them, e.g., a figure page, or a photo page. I also created standard forms for my profession in Pages. They use both the section insertion function, and linked text boxes. I also wrote and designed an entire book in Pages, using both of these features heavily. Not even possible with the new version. These are just some examples of work that I can complete in Pages '09 that I can't do in '13.

I was also horrified to discover that the formatting of documents created in Pages '09 can be obliterated in Pages '13. The only document I tried opening in '13 (fortunately I was warned and made a copy) was totally screwed up. It would have taken me hours to fix the mess it made. Good luck explaining that to a client.

Of course it's a tradeoff, and an unwelcome one at that. We're not getting collaboration back in iWork '09, so at this point something else needs to be given up if that feature looks interesting or useful. To me it does, but I wonder if I will ever get to use it. Probably not. As someone who bought into Pages early, I think that belongs in the irony file.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

You can't even get that with different versions of Word.

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QFT. Bravo.

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The price the existing user base paid for collaboration is having scores of useful features removed, and the documents they created with those features destroyed. It should not have been an either/or proposition. I keep promising myself that I won't get involved in another thread on this debate but get sucked in when someone continues to try to minimize the impact of this "upgrade" on people who've been using these apps productively for years.

You can run iWorks '09 in parallel. Create 2 separate workflows, until they've satisfied your needs list before mixing the two.

 

[jcrowe]

iWorks fiasco in container of iOSification of MacOS X

Hi Folks,

The issues with iWorks should really be viewed in the context of how Apple is moving all of their products to play in the iOS arena. For some folks, the iOS user paradigm works well, for others, often referred to as dinosaurs, it's not such a fine trade-off. Personally, I intensely dislike iOS and the inherent limitations of iOS apps. Examples abound. (like the difference between a decent email client on MacOS X compared to the abomination in the closed universe of iOS). That being said, it is the direction Apple is moving and from a strictly business standpoint, right now, it makes sense. Apple makes tons more money on iOS toys than it does on Macs. And Apple is not alone in this as Google, et al, are also into the cloud based infrastructure. But as a confirmed old dinosaur, I have qualms about the whole cloud meme....I don't trust Apple any more than I do Microsoft with my privacy issues. The iWorks apps in the past have been very, very good, even compared with Office. Most of the negative criticisms came from people who did not understand the relative power and functionality of Pages and Numbers compared with Word and Excel (there was no such doubt when comparing Powerpoint to Keynote). In the new, cloud-based reality Apple may be succeeding....hard to say. But for those of us who want secure, powerful, functional, well-designed and well-implemented productivity software, iWork 13 must be viewed as an abject failure. The problem for Apple in this is that by publicly screwing the pooch on this, they are alienating a bunch of longterm Apple customers....not a value judgement, just an observation....hmmm...maybe it's time to revisit FreeBSD....

 

[Kleber19]

It would be awesome if we could be able to make folders in folders.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You can run iWorks '09 in parallel. Create 2 separate workflows, until they've satisfied your needs list before mixing the two.

Way too complicated and expensive, and besides, at this point iWork '09 runs in Mavericks, and installing '13 automatically associates documents with the new version.

 

[jadot]

Way too complicated and expensive, and besides, at this point iWork '09 runs in Mavericks, and installing '13 automatically associates documents with the new version.

This.

It's not just the practical issues though these do render the software unusable for serious users.
What i find really baffling is the blind loyalty and trust in Apple in this particular situation. The "Give them a break, they've built this from the ground up!" argument. This line of defence ignores the fact that features in iWork have been removed only to suggest "just use iWork '09 - THAT works" when presented with the evidence of such removed features.

Let's get this straight.
1) iWork 13 has reduced functionality compared with iWork '09
2) Though there may be a work around, iWork 13 files disable compatibility with previous versions.
3)Apple have apologised for the omissions and in an unprecedented (for them) move laid out a (sketchy at best) road map for re-introducing features that "weren't available for this release".
4) Lost time in workflow is to me literally as bad as losing money. Apple's free update does in actual fact come with very real costs.
5) If you only used Pages to write to Santa once a year you'll probably not miss what's missing, but if you actually use and rely on the software daily and this downgrade has crippled your workflow then you'll want answers. When you need the proper update as a priority suddenly everything else on that xmas list pales in comparison. I know what I want...
6) Suggesting using a patch is lame. And when that patch is using a 4 year old previous iteration of the same software, you're in trouble.

"It's OK - Appley Wappley will fix it - just give them time" doesn't cut it.