Is Apple Phasing Out the iWork Brand?

[swilcox69]

This was me also. I bought into both these bundles back in the days of my iBook g4 with aperture as my core photographic application and even did my piano lessons in garage band. There was a similar story that sparked my recollection of Bento also recently. These were great value for money apps against very expensive competitors. Some of that magic has been lost.

I miss Bento.

 

[QuantumPulse]

I’m surprised it took them this long to retire it. iLife was retired many years ago.

 

[TechnoMonk]

About time and improve the whole product line. Never really used it over office. Add more writing ai and grammar features to pages, and more design tools in keynote. Not sure if numbers will ever catch up with excel.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

This was me also. I bought into both these bundles back in the days of my iBook g4 with aperture as my core photographic application and even did my piano lessons in garage band. There was a similar story that sparked my recollection of Bento also recently. These were great value for money apps against very expensive competitors. Some of that magic has been lost.

I always bought the new versions of iLife and iWork. I actually still think iPhoto was a better app than Photos ever has been. I really wanted to buy Aperture back in the day, but never did. I did have a boxed copy of Logic though. I miss the days when GarageBand had meaningful updates. Honestly, I think it sucks that my iPad Pro is stuck with the mobile version of GarageBand. I wish that the Mac version of paid Logic included Logic for iPad.

 

[DanteHicks79]

"we need more revenue"

...might be to help offset the rising costs of RAM/NAND that would otherwise impact price points across the hardware line.

 

[anthony13]

As long as this doesn’t mean the actual apps are going away idc. Pages and keynote are amazing apps. (Numbers on the other hand….)

 

[Sputman99]

Also the new icons - yuk - but at least it fits in with the awful LiquidGlass disaster

 

[AdmiralKirk]

Apple has in reality neglected the iWork apps for a long time. Most people are either using Microsoft office, Google docs, or libre office, which are in reality superior products.

I think Apple will continue the stagnation and eventually discontinue them in the years to come. They don’t make any real money from them and clearly aren’t investing in development to challenge the others.

 

[Nyx1]

It's should be free 😏

 

[orbital~debris]

Also noticed that Apple seem to regard Freeform as a new part of what was iWork (which is still a thing at least according to autocorrect on my iOS 26.3 iPhone keyboard!).

Freeform is supposed to be gaining similar AI features & premium content in a future update, along with a teal colour-themed icon redo to make it more seamless with the rest of the CS apps:

“and intelligent features and premium content for Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and later Freeform for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.”
— https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026...dio-an-inspiring-collection-of-creative-apps/

I love the lineage of these apps, right back to ClarisWorks…

 

[Dan From Canada]

I've had macs for many years now and have never used any of the iWork apps.

 

[Abydos]

the goal could be to redirect hostility at Microsoft over making office365 the go to suite or maybe no one cares other than the usual kvetchers

 

[Virinprew]

Gen z these days are using Canvas instead of PowerPoint, let alone Keynote.

 

[iGeek2019]

Or maybe iFoundthisontheweb?

...and rebranding Siri as iDon'tWork ?

 

[Deep Dish]

Man, I miss ClarisWorks!

Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time...

 

[Spock]

Bring back Claris Works!

 

[JonYo]

I think it's a huge error in judgment to force this awkward "bundle" association between the obviously pro-level apps Logic/FCP (and Motion/Compressor/Pixelmator, where Pixelmator is probably somewhere between a starter and pro app) and the decidedly non-pro iWork apps. Fundamentally, they're just not the same target audience.

(Given that a more appropriate bundle would be iWork with GarageBand and iMovie rather than Logic and FCP, bundling those and then CHARGING for them, given that all 5 apps have been free for ages, would be total non-starter.)

If they're now going to try to erase the "iWork" brand, that just shows that they're really committing to this realignment that just makes no sense to me. It's just bad choices after bad choices.

Many will remember how creating the iWork apps and including them for free on all newly purchased Macs starting 20+ years ago was originally a way to stack up bullet points of advantages over PCs to lure PC->Mac switchers, and I've sure it was valuable in that area for some time. Even if including iWork on all Macs is no longer serving that purpose due to the fundamental changes to the consumer computing landscape (IE- everyone's using their phone for most things), it just doesn't seem necessary to make a change like this inappropriate bundling with pro apps, given all 3 iWork apps are quite mature and don't really need any significant upgrades beyond keeping them working with new OS versions. We all see how each MS Office update is just rearranging the deck chairs and there's no real fundamental functionality change, just some new media inclusions (clip art, templates, etc) and trying in vain to refine the UI that for better or worse is probably as good as it's going to get.

Is anyone clamoring for drastic changes to the fundamental functionality of the iWork apps that would justify lumping them with pro creative apps?

(Disclosure: I am a daily user of both Pages and Numbers, and I do not use either Logic or FCP, though I'm very involved in multiple non-Apple "pro" audio apps, including Reason Studios and Max/MSP.)

 

[leehericks]

For me, the early 2020s reason to buy a Mac was the including software, the backup, etc. by branding the components you could be catchy and stay in people’s minds. I think it’s a bit disappointing to move away from this and honestly I think Apple could do better at marketing not-new features like Time Machine for Mac

 

[zapmymac]

I wouldnt put it past them to deprecate and rename the suite

 

[parameter]

Gen z these days are using Canvas instead of PowerPoint, let alone Keynote.

And, how sad the world has turned out. I have to work with clients using Canva for all kinds of great (not) mockups, random whatevers and all kinds of stuff just willy nilly sent to me now, that I then have to decipher and try to work with. It's a step in the complete wrong direction for SO many things. Designers (which is not me) are there for a reason. Sure, AI is neat and can do certain things. But we aren't in a place where things like Powerpoint/Keynote and Pages/Word aren't needed anymore. Not yet.

And Google Docs? To me, that is almost worse than a bad web app that has the features of TextEdit. That's not a real word processor, or even close. The same with Google Sheets. On and on it goes.

GenZ is a nightmare. The world has changed, and they definitely have not made many improvements.

I know, I'll get tons of flack for this.
But it's the honest truth. The age of the devs at Apple these days is basically some Millennials, and then all of the dreaded GenZ, making tons of improvements across the board like Liquid Glass. Great job kids!

 

[AncTreat5358]

About time and improve the whole product line. Never really used it over office. Add more writing ai and grammar features to pages, and more design tools in keynote. Not sure if numbers will ever catch up with excel.

When I moved from Windows to Apple, I chose to cut ties with Microsoft Office completely. For my needs, Pages and Numbers are perfectly aligned. Plus, they don't feel overly saturated with features and choices not relevant to me.

 

[klasma]

According to Corey Doctrow in his book “En********ation” Jobs had it called iWork because they reverse engineered Microsoft Office file formatting so that content produced “Worked” with Office.

Since Apple doesn't "just work" anymore, it makes sense that they are phasing out the name.

 

[mk313]

Ah yes… another rebrand, another “it’s not dead, it’s just evolving” moment from Apple. At this point installing a new Apple app feels less like downloading software and more like adopting a goldfish — enjoy it now, because there’s a solid chance it’ll get quietly flushed down the toilet while Craig Federighi smiles on stage telling us it’s the “best experience ever.”

Remember Aperture? Pour one out. That thing didn’t just get canceled — it got Thanos-snapped and replaced with Photos, which spent years trying to remember it was supposed to be a pro tool. iTunes got split into a family of apps like a messy tech divorce, iPhoto vanished, Dashboard went to the great widget farm upstate, and now iWork might be getting the slow fade into “Creator Studio.” Cool name, but also sounds like something designed by a branding committee locked in a room with too much cold brew.

The funniest part is Apple still builds insanely good hardware while their software strategy feels like musical chairs. One year it’s “pro workflows matter,” the next year it’s “here’s a template pack and AI remix button.” I half expect Pages to become “Apple Writing Experience+” with a monthly fee to unlock bold text.

Don’t get me wrong — Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are actually great apps. That’s what makes this cycle so weird. Apple creates something solid, ignores power users for a few years, slaps on a new subscription wrapper, and hopes nobody remembers the last five rebrands.

Anyway, I’m off to export my Keynote files into three backup formats just in case the next keynote announces Keynote is now called “SlideVerse.”

While I don't disagree with your overall premise about Apple and apps, the iWork apps aren't going anywhere. Apple created them (at least on the iOS side) to allow basic office document handling for the iPad when it became clear Microsoft wasn't going to offer anything. Apple needed to fill that gap. And that gap still exists today. You can get office for iPad, but only on a monthly subscription. Apple needs to offer this basic functionality to ensure the iPad can be considered as a computer replacement for those who don't need high end features. Pages, Numbers & Keynote will be around for free, in some basic format, 10 years for now, the same as they are today.

I'd also take a bit of exception with the iTunes commentary. People were complaining about iTunes being too big & messy all the time when it was around. I personally liked it much better when everything was in iTunes, not Music, TV, etc. But Apple wasn't driving the change there, users were. And they got what they wanted.

 

[Johnstrass2]

It's should be free 😏

Yes. A computer should have some basic functionality from the start. The iWork apps are essential.

I love keynote

 

[mk313]

Apple has in reality neglected the iWork apps for a long time. Most people are either using Microsoft office, Google docs, or libre office, which are in reality superior products.

I think Apple will continue the stagnation and eventually discontinue them in the years to come. They don’t make any real money from them and clearly aren’t investing in development to challenge the others.

I completely agree with your first statement, but not the second. I think the lack of attention is intentional. Apple needed to create the iWork apps to allow basic office document functionality on the iPad. They were obviously hoping Microsoft would port Office over, but they never did & eventually Apple offered iWork for iPad. Before that, you had to buy some third party software and hope that the document conversions worked. Once Apple offered them for free, the iPad became a viable computer replacement out of the box, for people with simple computing needs.

And it eventually caused Microsoft to offer Office, even though it's only available by subscription.

I think Apple is happy offering basic functionality, with extremely few updates, and leaving the high end of the market to Microsoft. I actually think Apple is better off ensuring that Microsoft remains committed to future versions of Office for Mac, than they are building out a more robust set of office apps.

the apps aren't going anywhere, apple needs them to be available, but they also won't get much better.