iWork for iCloud Updated With Retina Support and Design Improvements, iOS and Mac Updates to Follow

[maflynn]

The competition right now is between Pages versus WordPad.

Pages is definitely a great app. Lots of features and flexibility. I use Excel a heck of a lot more then Word. So for me, iWork's Numbers app is the alternative and unlike Pages it lacks a lot of features that I'm used to in Excel.

That's nice if you wanted to buy cloud storage for the whole family anyway. But since 5GB of free iCloud storage is enough for most people, they will feel differently. And if you need more, you can buy it from Apple. But if you need less, you can't reduce your bill with Microsoft.

5GB is pretty small compared to all the other cloud providers. DropBox is meager too but its fairly easy to grow that. I get 20GB free from OneDrive and as an office 365 subscriber I get 25 more GB for 45GB. If I want to sync my phone's pictures I OneDrive I get another 3GB. True I cannot "shrink" it and reduce my usage to save money but to me that's a non issue.

If you cancel your payment with Microsoft, you will lose everything. Where is the benefit?

No you won't. you get a free 20GB of storage with OneDrive, and as long as your documents are not over that threshold you don't lose anything. Plus OneDrive won't delete your local files if you wish to cancel OneDrive, just detach the computer from the account and your files are there.

Just because its free also doesn't make it worse. And free software is important, because it justifies higher hardware prices. Once you bought their hardware, you start using more of their services, think iTunes.

I agree free doesnt equate to worse, but technically iWork is not free. If you already owned an iPhone or Mac, you had to buy iWork. Its only free to new hardware owners. Aside from that, they still have a lot of work to match what other apps s are able to do. Apple removed features in their rewrite and that made my work harder. Now with office, my work is even more efficient and easier (both professionally and personally)

 

[BaldiMac]

5GB is pretty small compared to all the other cloud providers. DropBox is meager too but its fairly easy to grow that. I get 20GB free from OneDrive and as an office 365 subscriber I get 25 more GB for 45GB. If I want to sync my phone's pictures I OneDrive I get another 3GB. True I cannot "shrink" it and reduce my usage to save money but to me that's a non issue.

iCloud's Shared Photo Streams add over a terabyte of photo storage. 100 streams of 5,000 photos.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4858

When you consider all the stuff that doesn't count towards your 5 GB limit, iCloud is offers a heck of a lot of storage.

 

[HenryDJP]

For new users, maybe. It's a little different situation for people who've been using iWork since the beginning and have learned to take advantage of its features. I use templates and section inserts constantly. Once you've designed a set of templates with the sections you need, the benefit to workflow is huge. I also use linked text boxes quite a bit. Both are gone in Pages 5.0, so the new version is complete a non-starter for me. So no, I'm not sitting on my butt. Far from it. Maybe it's the people who never tried iWork until it was free who are butt sitting, eh?

I should've been more clear. First, I've been a Mac user for 16 years. I've been using Apple products since Appleworks, iTools and the rest. I'm a avid user of iWork. I use it to create brochures and banners for my business office so I take advantage of a lot of it's functionality. And yes, I agree with you that the new version is missing some functionality against the old version. My point was people are not looking at the new iWork for what it is, NEW. It's painfully obvious that Apple scrapped the whole code and started over from scratch, which can be a great thing. Give them a chance to build it. I would rather see it builded up rather than work off the old one into a bloated mess.

For the seasoned users of iWork 09, we can still use it until the new version does everything we need, but the complaining needs to seriously calm down. It's not like Apple said "This is it and it won't get any better". In fact they said they would continue to build it. Nobody has to pay for the new iWork like we did with the old one, so give it a chance.

The sitting on the butt comment, wasn't necessarily directed at you but as a whole that all people want to do is complain even when the company is making progress. People tend to forget that Apple is made up of humans.

Like I said, if you need something more up to date with more seasoned features then Microsoft's Office is available to you. You don't have to necessarily use Apple's software just because you're using a Mac.

 

[jrswizzle]

Office's dominance has become less about features and more about status quo.

Just difficult to get people to change. I did it forever ago, and so don't have an issue. However, I am strapped to Office at work.....and most of the time, I don't find anything better about it.

 

[Belmont31R]

But office apps aren't enterprise computing anymore. Word processing is the most basic stuff of all. And the industry is moving towards free software with paid hardware and services, at least in the consumer space. Nowadays every OS platform has to provide the ability to share and create documents out of the box, just as it needs to have a free browser bundled with it. The competition right now is between Pages versus WordPad.

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That's nice if you wanted to buy cloud storage for the whole family anyway. But since 5GB of free iCloud storage is enough for most people, they will feel differently. And if you need more, you can buy it from Apple. But if you need less, you can't reduce your bill with Microsoft.
iWork updates are also free and the price doesn't suck. If you cancel your payment with Microsoft, you will lose everything. Where is the benefit?
Just because its free also doesn't make it worse. And free software is important, because it justifies higher hardware prices. Once you bought their hardware, you start using more of their services, think iTunes.

iCloud has limited syncing/storage ability compared to OneDrive. While they share some features, iCloud isn't really designed to be direct competitor to OneDrive or other services like Dropbox.

Apple also has subscription services like iTunes Match.

People do get a free amount of OneDrive storage. I prefer to use that because of the greater freedom while using iCloud for things like phone and iPad backups.

As mentioned before Office 365 is one way to get Office. People can still buy just the software package as a one time cost. Office 365 includes other services that people may or may not use/need. Up to each individual to decide if the cost is worth what's being offered. MS has been great for our email hosting and I don't find the cost unreasonable. There are lower cost plans than even what we are on and put into perspective I'm not sure why people get so offended by $5-10 a month for using what would otherwise be hundreds of dollars of software if paid for outright. The student version is a couple dollars a month.

 

[maflynn]

When you consider all the stuff that doesn't count towards your 5 GB limit, iCloud is offers a heck of a lot of storage.

I don't use photo streaming and while it is impressive to offer such a high level of photo streaming, the 5GB limit is still meager no matter how you slice it. My wife cannot back up her phone onto her iCloud account, email eats away at the storage too.

the iCloud offering from apple is quite low compared to others. Remember when Apple had given us more iCloud storage for the various roll out issues, then when they removed it, the hue and cry about bringing it down to such a small value especially compared to their competitors.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Sad to say but the rendering won't always be exact. What you see in Pages may not be what is seen in Word and vice versa. Its great that Pages has an export to Word but it may not always render exactly the same.

If collaboration is an important function, having one team member use a different product will produce more headaches then its worth.

My team uses templates and requires our documents (generally Standard Operating Procedures) to setup the same way, Pages isn't going to fit for me, when the entire team uses Word

In some cases the issue is forced, but in far fewer instances than most seem to believe. Somewhere, possibly in this thread, a poster made the claim that 90% of Word documents couldn't be opened in Pages. This claim is utterly false, but I've seen lots of instances of this belief, and it seems to drive a lot of decisions.

What I find is, no matter how many people collaborate on a document, one person has to be in charge of final document production. That person had better know how to format because the team members are undoubtably going to introduce a lot of junk formatting into the document. So this is another point where the perfect fidelity of rendering while the document is being shared is not critically important. That point is reached when the document is completed, and once completed, should in most cases be locked down to PDF.

The ubiquity of Word has distorted this process. A lot more people could go this route than is generally believed.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I should've been more clear. First, I've been a Mac user for 16 years. I've been using Apple products since Appleworks, iTools and the rest. I'm a avid user of iWork. I use it to create brochures and banners for my business office so I take advantage of a lot of it's functionality. And yes, I agree with you that the new version is missing some functionality against the old version. My point was people are not looking at the new iWork for what it is, NEW. It's painfully obvious that Apple scrapped the whole code and started over from scratch, which can be a great thing. Give them a chance to build it. I would rather see it builded up rather than work off the old one into a bloated mess.

For the seasoned users of iWork 09, we can still use it until the new version does everything we need, but the complaining needs to seriously calm down. It's not like Apple said "This is it and it won't get any better". In fact they said they would continue to build it. Nobody has to pay for the new iWork like we did with the old one, so give it a chance.

The sitting on the butt comment, wasn't necessarily directed at you but as a whole that all people want to do is complain even when the company is making progress. People tend to forget that Apple is made up of humans.

Like I said, if you need something more up to date with more seasoned features then Microsoft's Office is available to you. You don't have to necessarily use Apple's software just because you're using a Mac.

I'm already heavily invested in iWork. It replaced our dependence on AppleWorks the moment it was released. We were then provided with upgrades that improved the functionality significantly. Then, this big step backwards. To make matters worse, Apple very poorly communicated what they were doing, and most seriously did not warn users that the mere opening of a document in the new version of Pages automatically made it inoperable with old version. Fortunately I caught wind of this and tested it on a copy of a document first, which incidentally was obliterated. Not good at all.

Apple is indeed adding back features to Pages that they deleted in 5.0, but only so gradually that it will seemingly take another five years to reconstruct what we were using in 2009. I think users who are heavily invested in iWork need to complain, and loudly. Otherwise, how is Apple to know that many of us are counting on them to improve this product so that we are not forced to move to tools we don't like?

 

[HenryDJP]

To make matters worse, Apple very poorly communicated what they were doing, and most seriously did not warn users that the mere opening of a document in the new version of Pages automatically made it inoperable with old version. Fortunately I caught wind of this and tested it on a copy of a document first, which incidentally was obliterated. Not good at all.

I don't know your workflow but I would say we most likely are equally invested in iWork. I have completely dropped everything Microsoft in my insurance office. I actually run two businesses and both are ran on Macs and iOS devices with no Microsoft software period.

I have to disagree with you because what you're saying simply isn't true, at least in my experience. I don't know what's going on with your system but when I open up a iWork 09 doc (Pages, Numbers or Keynote) a message pops up asking me if I want to upgrade this document to the new version. Depending on what it is I choose yes or no. If you're not getting a message like that then there's something wrong with your setup. It most certainly should not "automatically" upgrade your docs.

 

[sracer]

I don't know your workflow but I would say we most likely are equally invested in iWork. I have completely dropped everything Microsoft in my insurance office. I actually run two businesses and both are ran on Macs and iOS devices with no Microsoft software period.

I have to disagree with you because what you're saying simply isn't true, at least in my experience. I don't know what's going on with your system but when I open up a iWork 09 doc (Pages, Numbers or Keynote) a message pops up asking me if I want to upgrade this document to the new version. Depending on what it is I choose yes or no. If you're not getting a message like that then there's something wrong with your setup. It most certainly should not "automatically" upgrade your docs.

I don't believe that the initial release of the new version had that message pop-up. If I recall correctly, it DID produce a warning dialog upon saving though.

 

[unplugme71]

Why should they offer something for free when they've been incredibly successful at charging people. To put it another way, they're making a ton of money from charging people, what incentive or advantage would they gain from giving it away?

I see Office as a declining product. If they hadn't offered discounted Office products they'd lose quite a bit more sales.

 

[maflynn]

In some cases the issue is forced, but in far fewer instances than most seem to believe. Somewhere, possibly in this thread, a poster made the claim that 90% of Word documents couldn't be opened in Pages. This claim is utterly false, but I've seen lots of instances of this belief, and it seems to drive a lot of decisions.

What I find is, no matter how many people collaborate on a document, one person has to be in charge of final document production.

And that would be my boss So if she has to continually tweak the formats to bring them back into the standization she expects them to be in, well then that would be unfortunate for me (or who ever failed to do so). The bottom line is that collaboration works best if the team is on the same page, using the same tools. This though is getting a bit off topic to the thread's subject.

suffice it to say that when using a different app, that introduces possible issues with formatting.

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I see Office as a declining product. If they hadn't offered discounted Office products they'd lose quite a bit more sales.

Could be, I'll not quibble over what the future may or may not bring. What I care about it is a suite of tools that fits my needs. For some people that is iWork and that's great. For me, Office is a better fit. Many people do not find the value in the subscription, at the moment I do.

iWork, particularly Pages is a good suite of tools. The update that Apple releases is a good step in the right direction

 

[brinary001]

This is really surprising that they hadn't already optimized their iWork suite for Retina yet. Highly unusual for Apple. I don't use iWork personally, but would've liked Retina support for sure.

 

[CJM]

So my Cloud to Butt Chrome addon caught me off guard here.

 

[HenryDJP]

I don't believe that the initial release of the new version had that message pop-up. If I recall correctly, it DID produce a warning dialog upon saving though.

I've had that message pop up since day one and it still works today. There's some docs I don't want updated to the new version just yet so I leave them alone. You should check your system.

 

[Just sayin...]

I wish they made a substitute of the Excel' pivot table function

Pivot tables, vlookup, and the ability to pull stock quotes are my "Advanced List pre-requisites". Without *all* of these, any spreadsheet product is useless to me.

 

[subsonix]

On the other hand, a lot of the features in Excel is a double edged sword, push it too far and it's not the right tool for the job.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I don't know your workflow but I would say we most likely are equally invested in iWork. I have completely dropped everything Microsoft in my insurance office. I actually run two businesses and both are ran on Macs and iOS devices with no Microsoft software period.

I have to disagree with you because what you're saying simply isn't true, at least in my experience. I don't know what's going on with your system but when I open up a iWork 09 doc (Pages, Numbers or Keynote) a message pops up asking me if I want to upgrade this document to the new version. Depending on what it is I choose yes or no. If you're not getting a message like that then there's something wrong with your setup. It most certainly should not "automatically" upgrade your docs.

There's nothing wrong with my setup. The point is, the "warning" does not tell you what is actually happening if you click OK. What will happen is your document is totally hosed, and there's no going back, because the original version of the document is overwritten.

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And that would be my boss So if she has to continually tweak the formats to bring them back into the standization she expects them to be in, well then that would be unfortunate for me (or who ever failed to do so). The bottom line is that collaboration works best if the team is on the same page, using the same tools. This though is getting a bit off topic to the thread's subject.

suffice it to say that when using a different app, that introduces possible issues with formatting.

My addition to this discussion being, a formatting mess can also happen if everyone is using the same app, and I would say especially with Word given the badly formatted Word documents I see day in and day out. If your paragraph and character styles are set up properly (something I see very rarely in Word docs), fixing problems introduced by others isn't difficult. It's the responsibility of the final document creator in any case.

 

[HenryDJP]

There's nothing wrong with my setup. The point is, the "warning" does not tell you what is actually happening if you click OK. What will happen is your document is totally hosed, and there's no going back, because the original version of the document is overwritten.

Well either I'm lying or something is wrong with your setup. Take your pick. I'm telling you that since day one of the new iWork release when I click to open up a legacy iWork 09 app the warning dialog pops up asking me if I want to upgrade this doc to work on the new iWork, click OK to continue. Paraphrasing. If you're not getting that then either you don't have both versions of iWork on your system or something is not right with your setup.

I beg your pardon but you're sounding a bit in denial. Why would it work on my Mac and not yours?

 

[Freyqq]

Say what? Native apps are faster and more powerful than any Web app can be. Furthermore, web apps can't be integrated into the OS as well as native apps can with things like data detectors, Applescript, notifications, cross app functions, OS level functions like performance and power handling, Time Machine and backup support with other native backup apps, and etc.

The iCloud version is for cross platform compatibility but it will never be as good as a fully native app. Just like on mobile devices, the ultimate goal is to produce a great native app. A web based app is just an easy cheap way to get cross platform but it's not as goods native and never will be. Facebook learned that the hard way.

That's why Google's web apps are so far behind what Apple and Microsoft are doing. The major benefits Google Docs had was cross platform compatibility, sharing, and being free. They were never as good or as powerful as Microsoft Office or Apple's Pages and Keynote.

But now that Apple has iWork for free with native apps and cross platform web apps plus sharing (even shared real time editing between native apps and web), I can't see any benefit to being stuck just using a web app with Google Docs unless you are tied into Google's walled garden. iWork is so much better than Google Docs it's not even comparable.

That's my point. Web apps are not great for serious work.

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Pages needs to support ODF in lieu of their special standard that no other program can open.

 

[Gudi]

No you won't. You get a free 20GB of storage with OneDrive, and as long as your documents are not over that threshold you don't lose anything. Plus OneDrive won't delete your local files if you wish to cancel OneDrive, just detach the computer from the account and your files are there.

You may not lose your files (literally), but you lose the ability to edit them. Excel might be superior to Numbers, but without an active Office 365 subscription, you can't use it anymore. All you can do is download the free Excel Viewer which allows you to open, view and print spreadsheets, but not to edit, save or create them. Even after paying $99 for years, you are falling back to zero functionality.

I agree free doesn't equate to worse, but technically iWork is not free. If you already owned an iPhone or Mac, you had to buy iWork. Its only free to new hardware owners.

In the past both Office and iWork have been on a pay per version licensing scheme. Now one is going free and the other one is going to subscription. Arguably free is the same license as paid, just with a lower price tag. But subscription adds a new additional constraint to your usage rights. Previously your usage was only limited by number of users and number of computers, now its also limited by time. Rather than getting free upgrades, it is more like having to buy the same software again and again, just to maintain the most basic usage rights, whether or not it improves over time.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Well either I'm lying or something is wrong with your setup. Take your pick. I'm telling you that since day one of the new iWork release when I click to open up a legacy iWork 09 app the warning dialog pops up asking me if I want to upgrade this doc to work on the new iWork, click OK to continue. Paraphrasing. If you're not getting that then either you don't have both versions of iWork on your system or something is not right with your setup.

I beg your pardon but you're sounding a bit in denial. Why would it work on my Mac and not yours?

We are not actually saying anything different, though I presume you mean "legacy iWork document." The point again is, the new apps should not be able to overwrite existing documents. I've been through any number of software upgrades that save documents into new formats, but this is always a "Save as..." operation, leaving the original untouched. This issue is compounded by the fact that iWork '09 documents will automatically open in the new version if you have both installed, and this cannot be changed. Consequently, you either click OK, or ask yourself why you installed the new version in the first place. This issue would not be so problematical all by itself if the new version of Pages didn't totally wreck documents created in the old version, but it most certainly does. If you don't understand that, then it is you who are in denial.

 

[Gudi]

I'm not sure why people get so offended by $5-10 a month for using what would otherwise be hundreds of dollars of software if paid for outright.

Because otherwise it would be free. If paying a couple dollars a month isn't an issue, than why don't you subscribe to a year of Internet Explorer? Browsers are way more complicated software, still everyone takes them for granted. I take a free word processor for granted in any computer. Don't make me pay for something that should have been included in the OS a long time ago.

 

[sracer]

You may not lose your files (literally), but you lose the ability to edit them. Excel might be superior to Numbers, but without an active Office 365 subscription, you can't use it anymore. All you can do is download the free Excel Viewer which allows you to open, view and print spreadsheets, but not to edit, save or create them. Even after paying $99 for years, you are falling back to zero functionality.
In the past both Office and iWork have been on a pay per version licensing scheme. Now one is going free and the other one is going to subscription. Arguably free is the same license as paid, just with a lower price tag. But subscription adds a new additional constraint to your usage rights. Previously your usage was only limited by number of users and number of computers, now its also limited by time. Rather than getting free upgrades, it is more like having to buy the same software again and again, just to maintain the most basic usage rights, whether or not it improves over time.

iWorks is not free. You paid for it when you purchased Apple hardware. It's part of the premium one pays for buying Apple. Many of us are fine with that.

If Apple was TRULY making iWorks free, they'd make a native version available for Windows for free. Because a person who owns non-Apple hardware and running Windows hasn't paid Apple for anything.

 

[HenryDJP]

iWorks is not free. You paid for it when you purchased Apple hardware. It's part of the premium one pays for buying Apple. Many of us are fine with that.

If Apple was TRULY making iWorks free, they'd make a native version available for Windows for free. Because a person who owns non-Apple hardware and running Windows hasn't paid Apple for anything.

There was a time when we had to pay for iWork and Macs weren't any cheaper then they are now. And while I totally don't support it and I'm completely against people who do this, a Hackintosh can get the entire iWork suite for free. The App store does not check the type of machine you're running, only the OS it's downloading to.