It’s true confession time. I’ve been a Mac owner for so long that I remember when iWork came on a DVD installer.
That’s right, boys and girls, guys and gals, iWork is officially old. Apple’s once vaunted Microsoft Office killer suite hasn’t received a substantial update in about three years. It’s still called iWork and it still contains Pages ’09, Keynote ’09, and Numbers ’09? ’09? What’s Apple been doing since 2009?
Apple, Show iWork Some Love
Head over to the Mac App Store and check in on Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Mac users give the Office-killing suite mostly four and five stars, so iWork remains popular among the masses.
It’s been so long since Apple displayed any public affection for iWork that I’ve had another child.
At least, I think I did. Maybe it was a few glasses of wine and a Hallmark movie. Anyway, it’s been awhile. What has Apple been doing?
Here’s my theory and it revolves around iPhone, iPad, and iCloud.
iWork hasn’t received much attention from Apple because the company has devoted time and money and late night pizza runs on iCloud document management and iOS versions, rather than a humiliating public display of attention to the office suite Mac users love best.
Hello? Apple? iWork needs some love, dude. I use Calendar to time how long it takes for Pages to load up on my Mac. It’s slow.
Then, there’s Numbers. Yes, it’s a spreadsheet, but it sure ain’t Excel is it? That’s because Numbers has beautiful templates, and multiple paste options, and an easier way to sum data, and a Menubar you can actually understand, and a single inspector dialog box.
Maybe Apple is leaving Numbers alone for now because they hope that future Excel versions will improve. You know, to bring some parity to Office vs. iWork.
Finally, there’s PowerPoint vs. Keynote. Dear Apple, don’t do anything different to Keynote.
The year is yet young, but I have my insider sources and those Apple-inspired little birdies tell me that future iWork versions will be more integrated, have more feature parity, and work well with documents stored in iCloud. Apple wants to ween Mac users away from using the Finder to store files, but that scares me. I like to know where I put my own files.
Or, maybe Apple is just afraid of Microsoft. If iWork’s apps became too popular, who would buy Microsoft Office for Mac? And if Microsoft decided to scrap Office, Apple would be doomed. Again.
About Alexis Kayhill
Thanks Alexis. You are so “right on” with your comments. Every time I see that “09″ behind one of the iWork apps it infuriates me that the company I love has neglected them for so long. Hopefully enough people will make similar noise on the App Store reviews that Apple pays attention.
Oh please just because thy haven’t done a UI change just to do one doesn’t men they hve been neglecting it. The iWork apps have been updated several times since 09.
You remind me of the folks that insist that Apple has to put out a totally designed iPhone every year or it’s a fail
I truly enjoy using iWork. No Microsoft Office on my Mac for two years. Microsoft free. But Apple needs to figure out a way to invigorate iWork so it works more seamlessly, has more compatibility, and works better between devices.
Beg to disagree here. Frankly, it’s the availability of MS Office for Mac that enables me to function effectively in business while remaining a loyal Apple customer Whether one likes it or not MS Office file formats (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx etc.) are the standards used worldwide. The fact that i can exchange such files seamlessly from my Mac to someone’s PC is critical.
It seems to me this whole “MS = darkside” fixation that some in the Apple universe continue to bemoan is simply over-played, out-dated and just downright silly. It’s kind of hard for Apple to still play the underdog role when it’s now the largest company in the world on a market capitalization basis.
Have you ever used iWork. Because it can read and export to those office formats just fine for 99% of folks.
We dropped Microsoft Office from our home Macs over two years ago and have never looked back. No need. Maybe big companies have a requirement for compatibility issues (even Microsoft’s own documents are not compatible with their own Office versions), but the average Mac user can get by just fine with Pages and Numbers and Excel.
Our office was once a full on Microsoft Office shop. Now, all the Macs run iWork.
Earlier this year, I got Numbers with the intent of converting from Excel. All was fine until the spreadsheets started getting larger (thousands of rows). Numbers would bog down on recalculations where in excel, it wasn’t even noticeable. I tried multiple large spreadsheets with the same results. I had both apps on the same machine, a mac pro. I do prefer Keynote to PP, though.
I have been around long enough now in the Apple world. I have two different versions of I-Work on disc’s. I don’t have much to comment on why they have not updated because I don’t use it that much. The word processor is about it for me. My wife uses it more than I do.
A bit off topic and short. Why are they making us buy everything from the App store now? No more disc’s has turn out to be a hassle for me. I am a victim of The famous Mac-book Pro issues along with the other people suffering with Mac-book air’s!!!
I love using the Mac app store. What I don’t like is crippled apps. Many of the apps today have multiple versions. One for the app store and one from the app developer. That’s nuts. Already I have half a dozen orphaned app store apps that cannot be upgraded.