iWork for iCloud Beta Apps Now Accessible Without an Apple Device

[thefourthpope]

Give it a few minutes for MacRumors users to poke holes in this news.

The news is good to me, but I remained stunned by how long this stuff is taking Apple.

 

[sbailey4]

Why would anyone who doesn't own an Apple Device want to use iCloud? If you're an Android or Windows user, Google and Microsoft offer services that much better integrate with their devices.

I guess this is nice of Apple, but can't see any non-Apple users actually taking them up on their offer.

Same thought here. Nice to do but why? Also Microsoft is giving 100gb storage free for 2 yrs via Bing rewards. So yeah 1gb and 5gb is pretty lame especially for users who paid a premium for iDevices.

 

[JGIGS]

Good luck Microsoft.
Nearly no presence in smartphones. Latest iPhone sales suggest this will drop in the year to come.
Major products Windows and Office are competing with OS's and productivity suites given away for free from two of the best capitalized and most innovative companies in the world (Google and Apple).

OEM hardware makers are unable to sell their high end devices in sufficient volume to compete on design and build quality with Apple, so high end of market seems to have moved nearly entirely to Mac. Devices like Retina iMac are coming out and months or possibly even a year later there is no sign of a competing product.
One fairly nice tablet hybrid form factor in the Surface that has semi-decent sales.
One fairly nice home console that is slightly underpowered compared to its rival, but is being propped up by Microsoft paying for software exclusives. And the hardware is sold at a loss.

They will be just fine. They make there money on selling software licenses to the business world. Most companies run windows and microsoft office and aren't going to change. I'm still using xp and office 2007 and I work for a fortune 500 company. Apple is very niche in the business world.

 

[McFreggle]

It's nice to see iWork still gets some love from

 

[ZombiePete]

The news is good to me, but I remained stunned by how long this stuff is taking Apple.

Cloud services and storage really hasn't traditionally been their business model; I would say that all things considered they've done a decent job of catching up, particularly now that they've ironed out a few of the deal-breaking iCloud Drive bugs (duplicating folders, lost data, etc.).

 

[siddavis]

Same thought here. Nice to do but why? Also Microsoft is giving 100gb storage free for 2 yrs via Bing rewards. So yeah 1gb and 5gb is pretty lame especially for users who paid a premium for iDevices.

Own Apple devices, but forced to use Windows machine for work. Now I can more easily access iWork docs without jacking them all up converting back and forth.

 

[maflynn]

Why would anyone who doesn't own an Apple Device want to use iCloud? If you're an Android or Windows user, Google and Microsoft offer services that much better integrate with their devices.

I guess this is nice of Apple, but can't see any non-Apple users actually taking them up on their offer.

Because people who own iPhones may use PCs or Macs using Android.

 

[Traverse]

Great, but what about a meaningful update that restores some lost functionality.

How long has it been since there was an update that wasn't just for a "stunning new Yosemite design" or compatibility. I still lament the loss of Pages 09.

Give it a few minutes for MacRumors users to poke holes in this news.

I'm not trying to poke holes, it's nice that they're expanding their potential user base, but it is still inexcusable some of things missing from a productivity suite.

 

[hellosil]

Why would anyone who doesn't own an Apple Device want to use iCloud? If you're an Android or Windows user, Google and Microsoft offer services that much better integrate with their devices.

I guess this is nice of Apple, but can't see any non-Apple users actually taking them up on their offer.

1: Collaboration: Now you can work on a document with a non-Apple user. More value for the Apple user, less arguments to co-work with other solutions.

2: Maybe (and this is just my theory), this also fits into a system where the Apple ID can be used platform 'independent', where non-Apple users can create an Apple ID for use with their 'Beats' Music app and such on non-Apple platforms.

 

[Cmd-Z]

Now I can more easily access iWork docs without jacking them all up converting back and forth.

You could have done this before today, since you already have an iCloud account. The news here is for people who do not have an iCloud account, and likely don't have any Apple devices. Thus the question -- why use this if you're not an Apple iCloud/device user?

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Good luck Microsoft.
Nearly no presence in smartphones. Latest iPhone sales suggest this will drop in the year to come.
Major products Windows and Office are competing with OS's and productivity suites given away for free from two of the best capitalized and most innovative companies in the world (Google and Apple).

OEM hardware makers are unable to sell their high end devices in sufficient volume to compete on design and build quality with Apple, so high end of market seems to have moved nearly entirely to Mac. Devices like Retina iMac are coming out and months or possibly even a year later there is no sign of a competing product.
One fairly nice tablet hybrid form factor in the Surface that has semi-decent sales.
One fairly nice home console that is slightly underpowered compared to its rival, but is being propped up by Microsoft paying for software exclusives. And the hardware is sold at a loss.

Microsoft's old money printer was the fact that if you were a business, you had to use their products. With IBM and Apple now partnered up, I feel that Microsoft's money printer is going to jam up very soon.

 

[5097842]

Because people who own iPhones may use PCs or Macs using Android.

That's my point. Anyone who has an Apple device can sign up for a free iCloud account with 5GB. So the iPhone user in your example would already have (or be able to signup for) an iCloud account.

My question is why would anyone who doesn't own any Apple device (and was previously ineligible for an iCloud account) would want to use iCloud.

I like iCloud as a Mac/iPhone/iPad owner. But if I only had Android or Microsoft, I wouldn't use iCloud.

 

[Traverse]

Great news for games.

Why?

 

[siddavis]

You could have done this before today, since you already have an iCloud account. The news here is for people who do not have Apple devices and who did not have an iCloud account. Thus the question -- why use this if you're not an Apple device owner?

Ah, I see. Yeah, that's a good Q

 

[hanser]

You could have done this before today, since you already have an iCloud account. The news here is for people who do not have an iCloud account, and likely don't have any Apple devices. Thus the question -- why use this if you're not an Apple iCloud/device user?

Because you might collaborate with Apple users on a iWork based project?

 

[deanbar]

Numbers is still horrible.

I second that. Extremely cumbersome and totally unintuitive. Tried to set up a few spreadsheets for simple (very simple) cash flow. Took hours. Not using it again. This from a Mac user since 1989. No wonder they're giving it for free. Too much Apple software these days is not so user friendly as in the past. Must do better in this department, Apple.

 

[newagemac]

That's my point. Anyone who has an Apple device can sign up for a free iCloud account with 5GB. So the iPhone user in your example would already have (or be able to signup for) an iCloud account.

My question is why would anyone who doesn't own any Apple device (and was previously ineligible for an iCloud account) would want to use iCloud.

I like iCloud as a Mac/iPhone/iPad owner. But if I only had Android or Microsoft, I wouldn't use iCloud.

That doesn't make any sense. That's like saying if you don't have a Microsoft device, there is no reason for Microsoft to offer Office on the iPhone or iPad. Or if you don't have an Android device, there is no reason for Google to offer gmail to you.

Pages and Keynote especially are really good. Better than anything else out there in my opinion. You don't have to own an Apple device to use a better presentation software tool than MS or Google offers. Keynote is available on the web now.

Also, people who use Apple devices and iWork might want to share their iWork created documents and collaborate with other people who don't own any Apple devices. Before this would have been impossible. Now they can.

 

[Traverse]

I second that. Extremely cumbersome and totally unintuitive. Tried to set up a few spreadsheets for simple (very simple) cash flow. Took hours. Not using it again. This from a Mac user since 1989. No wonder they're giving it for free. Too much Apple software these days is not so user friendly as in the past. Must do better in this department, Apple.

I've extensively used Office and all three iWork Apps. I much prefer Pages to Word, Keynotes tends to make smoother presentations than PowerPoint, but Numbers can't touch Excel.

Forget about the features that Excel has over Numbers, the features they do share are so unintuitive in Numbers. Adding simple double underlines to cells took 20 minutes and still didn't look right. Setting up basic spreadsheets just took way too long.

But look at Apple's website. Each screenshot of Numbers shows a few cells with some figures and all this fancy text and graphics. Numbers was designed to make frilly tables, not complex spreadsheets.

 

[alvindarkness]

I've extensive used Office and all three iWork Apps. I much prefer Pages to Word, Keynotes tends to make smooth presentations than PowerPoint, but Numbers can't touch Excel.

Forget about the features that Excel has over Numbers, the features they do share are so unintuitive in Numbers. Adding simple double underlines to cells took 20 minutes and still didn't look right. Setting up basic spreadsheets just took way too long.

But look at Apple's website. Each screenshot of Numbers shows a few cells with some figures and all this fancy text and graphics. Numbers was designed to make frilly tables, not complex spreadsheets.

I agree with everything you have said. Don't mind Pages (in comparison to Word), love Keynote (and is my go to presentation software) , but the Numbers UI is very counter intuitive even when doing the most simple of spreadsheety things. Its so bad I dont even think twice and simply open OpenOffice/LibreOffice for spread sheet stuff by default (since I dont have MS Office anymore). One must think they thought more about making it look good for screen shots than actually being a useful spreadsheet app.

 

[Traverse]

One must think they thought more about making it look good for screen shots than actually being a useful spreadsheet app.

Exactly! I mean, look at the attached screenshot from Apple's site. I'm not saying that this kind of use doesn't happen, but really, nobody is using a spreadsheet program to make this kind of stuff! People often use it for complex number analysis.

Even people that just use it for really basic tables I doubt make it all frilly like this. People want to get their work done and end it, not sit there and make it look cutesy.

 

[oliversl]

You can buy music/movies/etc from iTunes in Windows without having any Apple hardware products, so, this makes sense.

BTW, No one is using iWork on the web so, who cares.

 

[Tony Danger]

Give it a few minutes for MacRumors users to poke holes in this news.

I've been using it for weeks on Chrome on a win 7 machine at work for a couple of months now...

 

[TechZeke]

I've extensively used Office and all three iWork Apps. I much prefer Pages to Word, Keynotes tends to make smoother presentations than PowerPoint, but Numbers can't touch Excel.

Forget about the features that Excel has over Numbers, the features they do share are so unintuitive in Numbers. Adding simple double underlines to cells took 20 minutes and still didn't look right. Setting up basic spreadsheets just took way too long.

But look at Apple's website. Each screenshot of Numbers shows a few cells with some figures and all this fancy text and graphics. Numbers was designed to make frilly tables, not complex spreadsheets.

Couldn't have said this better myself. I thought I could get through my Engineering Economics class this quarter using Numbers, but after 2 assignments I RAN to Office 365. Numbers isn't even worth it's free price tag. Pages and Keynote are excellent stock software though. Numbers feels like an Afterthought.

 

[parapup]

Apple on Thursday made Pages, Numbers and Keynote accessible to users without an Apple device through iCloud Beta.

Yeah Right.

 

[HenryDJP]

Why would anyone who doesn't own an Apple Device want to use iCloud? If you're an Android or Windows user, Google and Microsoft offer services that much better integrate with their devices.

I guess this is nice of Apple, but can't see any non-Apple users actually taking them up on their offer.

That's a very odd question. You do realize that Apple and Microsoft customers use Google docs, right? According to you, what is the point unless I'm a Google Android customer.