Is Apple Phasing Out the iWork Brand?

[Orazzan]

Sad. I miss the iLife / iWork from back in the day. I remember using iWeb to design a website years ago
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iWeb was amazing. Such a great time.

 

[Siliconguy]

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.

I remember Claris Resolve. I did the presentation for my dissertation on Claris Impact. Clarisworks was more capable that it got credit for, especially Clarisworks 5 which ran on an 8 MB machine.

When I dropped Windows I found iWork was not useful as they lack ODF support for the Linux box, and with Libreoffice being free and Apple Silicon native there was no reason to Use Apple's software.

Apple is a hardware company, their software support was never that good. I'm surprised Filemaker still hangs on.

 

[kalsta]

Apple said iWork was a successor to AppleWorks, an office suite that included a word processing app, a database, a drawing app, and a spreadsheet app.

Yes, you don’t hear anyone speak of AppleWorks these days, but I loved the database app—had used it to create quite a complex automated quoting tool for my small business. When Apple killed that, it really hurt—and no, iWork wasn’t even close to capable of all those features.

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.”

Good move!! 😄

 

[macaddiict]

Apple is certainly phasing out iWork users... I have moved on following the embarrassing launch of subscription word processor.

 

[macaddiict]

I'm surprised Filemaker still hangs on.

I think it is only around still because Apple themselves rely on it so deeply throughout operations and support.

ClarisDraw v1.x was still being used for internal hardware design/spec sheets up to the mid-2000s in some  departments...

 

[Superhai]

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 have used Pages, Keynote and Numbers for a long time, and they have been steadily improved. Microsoft Office is an expensive flagship product, and of course much better (more features), I would also say LibreOffice is better, but it is very clunky and disparate in the user experience, Google Docs is for kindergarten however, it is barely better than WordPad or even TextEdit. I never consider those an MS Office replacement, but they are very good for majority of people and have a proper and unified Apple style and UI.

 

[trixit]

Oh, looky look: FREE, private office suite LibreOffice looks better and better by the day. New update 26.2 is out.
These guys are used in govt., educational facilities, businesses, and homes all around the world so they are not going anywhere, unlike Aperture.

Perhaps, in the not so distant future, Pages, Numbers and Keynote will meet the same, Aperture style, swift and brutal fate... Exactly for that reason someone mentioned above - that younger generations are NOT using these apps anymore.

My teen sons live in Canva and Google Docs. They have NEVER heard about Pages or Numbers. Or Keynote. And they grew up on iPads! Both have a Mac now as well.

They are using what they learned in schools - and in schools Google apps rein supreme.

Now... for privacy reasons, I'm teaching them, as smart parents should, to also take their private and school (soon business) documents away from the cloud, and AI, and use tools that are local. LibreOffice is such a tool.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

 

[jdawgnoonan]

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.)

Including the iWork apps in the Creative bundle makes no sense at all. Especially if all that you get is some stupid templates and AI crap. I am sorry to say, AI is great at many things but writing in a way that does not sound like a non-native speaker is not one of them.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

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.

Well, Microsoft also saw the writing on the wall as Windows became more of a corporate OS than a consumer OS. Microsoft needs Office to remain the industry standard and if they are not well represented across the consumer market then they will lose young people. Most consumer PCs sold are either gaming PCs or very cheap PCs, neither of which is real likely to include a copy of Office. And truthfully, Office is not so special that it could not fall in the corporate world if the people in the public did not know how to use it. The only truly advanced tool in Office is Excel, especially now that Microsoft is pushing people to the modern version of Outlook. The modern Outlook has grown on me, at first the only advantage that I saw to it over classic was that it is at least an attractive piece of software (which classic Outlook never was). Word is honestly nothing special. Access is cool but mostly irrelevant. And Powerpoint is the program that we put up with at work all of the time. Honestly, I think the real glue of office is SharePoint (which I think is a highly useful and incredibly crapily designed tool but made indispensable by Teams - another product that deserves a worst UI award, though which is quite nice to have). The best thing that I can say about Office honestly is that when they finally brought it to iPad and iPhone they also started treating the Mac version like a first class citizen unlike the old days when the Mac versions of Office were awful.

 

[Wx_Man]

They should kill off every brand they have and rename it….

iSubscribe

 

[TheOldChevy]

I liked AppleWorks.

 

[Wx_Man]

What a long and strong trip. I started out on AppleWriter on a ][+ then AppleWorks on the + and later GS, then through the various transitions on a Mac. Never really use iWorks as I use office because for work reasons as all my clients use it and I need 100% document compatibility. I check docs in Office via vm to be sure on critical docs.

That said, iWork's is a great package for many users, especially for free, which I suspect Apple will keep doing.

They still need to bring back FileMaker light (aka Bento) to complete the package.

Bento for the (hopeful) win.

 

[rick3000]

I don't care if they rebrand it from iWork to something else. But I am going to be livid if they try to make such basic programs a subscription.

Apple has already completely abandoned making software for pro's, paywalling a word processor, spreadsheet and slideshow app would be as dumb as axing Aperture and FCP7 at their zenith...oh wait...

 

[lfaa]

Sad. I miss the iLife / iWork from back in the day. I remember using iWeb to design a website years ago
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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.

the way iWeb was stopped was pretty brutal. I had hundreds of pages. Alternative solutions never worked correctly. I remember trying to import my web site into other tools, never worked correctly, although my site was simple , static photos and text.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Shame.

Having the three iWork suite of apps included with every Mac was one of the reasons I bought a Mac in the first place.

There's no need for Apple to continue doing this, other than greed.

No doubt, those who think Apple can do no wrong, will dislike this comment, but I don't really care at this point.

 

[GianL]

With Gemini the G Suite works much better...

 

[Jamie0003]

It's the apple brand they're phasing out, that's for sure. Not that the transition happened overnight though.

Don’t you mean the “I” branding?

Anyway, can’t wait for all my Apple apps to be full of ads! What a world we live in!

 

[svish]

Apple might be rebranding some apps and focusing on subscriptions. Pages and Numbers are very good apps and it is disappointing to see Apple making some features available only through a subscription.

 

[iPay]

so, they ditch the iWork brand and make their apps paymium. Let me patent iPay just in case...

 

[yabeweb]

I work is nice and all, but nothing beats Office.

Tried many times switching, bit missing features and sometimes file compatibility makes it impossible in the office.

 

[loby]

iWeb was amazing. Such a great time.

Can't forget iDVD.

Those who like iDVD, there is a great Open Source program that goes beyond iDVD functionality.

DVDStyler - Free DVD Authoring Application

www.dvdstyler.org

 

[ginkobiloba]

“The iWork apps were designed from the ground up, and were essentially the Mac equivalent to Microsoft Office.”

iWorks wasn’t really designed as the Mac version of Office. It was more like the continuation of the “Computers for the rest of us” Apple slogan . It was “Office for the rest of us” in a way. Simpler , easier to use productivity apps for people who don’t need the massive complexity and power of Excel or Word.

Except maybe for Keynote. Steve Jobs always saw it as a PowerPoint-Killer, a real direct competitor.

 

[zombierunner]

what next? you gotta pay for macos upgrades?

 

[loby]

the way iWeb was stopped was pretty brutal. I had hundreds of pages. Alternative solutions never worked correctly. I remember trying to import my web site into other tools, never worked correctly, although my site was simple , static photos and text.

Yes, it was brutal if you used it as your sole creator for your website.

I do not think Apple wanted to deal with the coding on the back in as virus, hacking etc. was on the rise during the time. I had to switch to Dreamweaver, but when Adobe bought it I said, "No thanks.."

 

[BC2009]

This is a mistake. These apps do not belong in Creator Studio.

You nailed it. They did not have enough content to justify Creator Studio so these are backfill apps. Pixelmator Pro is the bridge app — halfway between belonging with iWork and halfway belonging with Creator Studio.

What feels really weird is that I had to download a whole new Pages app on macOS to get the new icon (gah) and new features but otherwise it is the same app minus my “recently opened documents” list. Why not just make it a standard app update?