Apple release software updates for iWork '08

[AppleInsider]

Apple on Tuesday afternoon released software updates for all three components of its iWork '08 productivity suite -- Keynote, Pages and Numbers.

Per usual, the Cupertino-based company offered frustratingly few details on the three individual updates, details of which follow:

Keynote 4.0.2

Keynote 4.0.2 [32MB] primarily addresses performance issues while playing or exporting presentations.

Pages 3.0.2

Pages 3.0.2 [27.8MB] addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.

Numbers 1.0.2

Numbers 1.0.2 [26.2MB] addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Wally]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

Apple on Tuesday afternoon released software updates for all three components of its iWork '08 productivity suite -- Keynote, Pages and Numbers...

Where's the aTV update!? It's 2 weeks already!!!

[ascii]

I guess no Leopard.2 today then...

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by Wally

Where's the aTV update!? It's 2 weeks already!!!

Hear Hear!!! No "Take Two" no buy Apple!

[herrdoktor]

Well, I'm glad they're fixing compatibility issues ... with the only operating system it actually runs on.

[bdkennedy1]

What are ya'll getting so upset about? It's only 2:30 on the west coast. There's about 3-5 hours left to release more updates. Around 9pm Central, then I'll be mad if there's no ATV update

[suhail]

I agree the details are pathetic! What's next? "This upgrade addresses issues" or "This upgrade makes your application happier"

As for ATV, yeah where the heck is that update? This is so typical of SJ, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't make it this week.

I'll be frustrated, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[internetworld7]

When I saw the word "update" I almost leapt out of my chair. I just knew it was 10.5.2 but I guess I'll have to just keep waiting.

[MacBookBoy]

Ok, so it takes time to get things just right, but come on! If you don't have an update ready to ship, please don't announce it your Steveness.

And another thing... Where is 10.5.2?

[Delfoniq]

Originally Posted by internetworld7

When I saw the word "update" I almost leapt out of my chair. I just knew it was 10.5.2 but I guess I'll have to just keep waiting.

That easily qualifies as coercion on behalf of Apple . I'm guessing 10.5.2 update is scheduled for later this week, then, or even worse next week. Don't care how quickly it comes out, as long as it comes out before I receive my Apple TV! "No gadget buying in the end of the month, need money for food instead"

[internetworld7]

Originally Posted by Delfoniq

That easily qualifies as coercion on behalf of Apple . I'm guessing 10.5.2 update is scheduled for later this week, then, or even worse next week. Don't care how quickly it comes out, as long as it comes out before I receive my Apple TV! "No gadget buying in the end of the month, need money for food instead"

Yeah, I know what you mean. Hopefully by Friday we'll all have 10.5.2

[FullGaz]

I'm eagerly awaiting the day that iWork will support right to left properly. I use hebrew quite a lot and it's a real pain to guess where the cursor is when you edit text. For instance, Keynote doesn't put the bullets to the right (no pun intended) side and the cursor is erratic at best in Pages. I don't use Numbers but I suspect that tabbing from cell to cell goes the wrong way round for a right to left table.
Maybe that's the way Apple found to not sell to arabic speaking people?
It's a problem that has been discussed for years and neither Apple nor MS seem willing to properly support right to left languages (on Apple's products). Weird...

[captmacguy]

When did SJ promise to have ATV and .2 updates out on the 29th? I don't recall that.

[Delfoniq]

When on Janury 15, he said updates in 2 weeks.

[MacBookBoy]

Originally Posted by Delfoniq

When on Janury 15, he said updates in 2 weeks.

Yep!!

[anantksundaram]

Keynote needs some basic fixes, and I doubt that this update addresses any of these more obvious issues that I am having: (1) Plain b&w printing without backgrounds is a pain; (2) The "redo" function always seems grayed-out (and command-y never seems to work); (3) The "Inspector" is clumsy, esp. when it comes to some types of text management (e.g., shrinking space between lines of text) and managing bullets; (4) The "Shapes" menu is woefully inadequate; (5) Hitting the "back" button in presentation mode takes one to the top of the current or prior slide, rather than take transitions back step-by-step.

There are more irritants, but these are my main ones.

Keynote still needs some work.

[solipsism]

I wonder if the AppleTV update will replace the Tiger version with a Leopard version.

[Shintocam]

Originally Posted by herrdoktor

Well, I'm glad they're fixing compatibility issues ... with the only operating system it actually runs on.

That is EXACTLY what I was thinking.

Uh so what OS was the old one compatible with?

[DoctorGonzo]

I'd love it if Pages handled bulleted and numbered lists better.

Try to create a numbered list with an empty line in between each item. You have manually check "Number continuously" in the inspector each and every time you create a new item to maintain the proper order (or else everything is designated '1'. OR write a huge monoparagraph, then insert line breaks, then manually uncheck the "Numbered List" in the inspector for each of the empty lines.

Microsoft Word will understand what you're trying to do after the first adjustment you make to a list, and perpetuate that until you tell it to stop.

Pages is more "Hey, I can't make that list work out for you, but here are 50 kerning options."

[Phlake]

Perhaps it was a preemptive update:

We are still expecting 10.5.2, which last time I checked is Mac OS X. Maybe the new update changes a couple of things, and the iWork updates got finished sooner.

[aplnub]

Originally Posted by Delfoniq

When on Janury 15, he said updates in 2 weeks.

Steve also got up and showed how they made that very cool vacation video with the new iMovie and Steve himself said the Panasonic HDC-SD1 was used to make it. Funny how when you imported the video you had only one sound channel in iMovie. It just got fixed in the past week and he said that crap last year sometime.

[Frank777]

So is iWork any Snappier™ now?

[nvidia2008]

Yes, obligatory "It's TehSnappier™" post here.

[mrjoec123]

Originally Posted by Delfoniq

When on Janury 15, he said updates in 2 weeks.

He never said anything about 10.5.2 in his Keynote. He did mention that the Apple TV software update would be coming "in two weeks." Technically, that was today, but he could easily have meant anywhere from this past Sunday until Friday. If you don't see the update by Friday afternoon, then you have a reason to complain.

They were demoing the update on the Macworld show floor, so it must have been pretty close to finished. But you never know. They may have encountered some last minute bug that needs to be worked out. I'd rather they got it right than let it out of the gate unfinished.

[mjtomlin]

Originally Posted by herrdoktor

Well, I'm glad they're fixing compatibility issues ... with the only operating system it actually runs on.

Obviously they are referring to compatibility issues with Leopard.

Originally Posted by Shintocam

h so what OS was the old one compatible with?

Tiger

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by mjtomlin

Obviously they are referring to compatibility issues with Leopard.

Even more specifically, perhaps they needed to make it compatible with the very large 10.5.2 update that is pending.

[captmacguy]

You guys would make great biblical literalists. SJ says "two weeks" (which is a rather vague reference, really) and you took that as a promise of exactly 14 days, probably to the hour?

Surely you know the industry well enough to know that "two weeks" is "in about two weeks, give or take a little." Patience. :-)

[Charel]

So I start up "Numbers" and Apple says there is an update available. I click on update and Apple informs me that my version 1.0.1 is the latest and no update is available. So forgive me, but I don't understand. What is this update, 1.0.2 supposed to be for?

[shippster]

Originally Posted by DoctorGonzo

I'd love it if Pages handled bulleted and numbered lists better.

Try to create a numbered list with an empty line in between each item. You have manually check "Number continuously" in the inspector each and every time you create a new item to maintain the proper order (or else everything is designated '1'. OR write a huge monoparagraph, then insert line breaks, then manually uncheck the "Numbered List" in the inspector for each of the empty lines.

Actually, you can turn off a bullet for one line much easier. Just hold down shift when you hit return and the bullet skips that line, hit return again and it is there. I don't know how you were expected to know this, but once you do it makes Pages bearable for lists.

[revonamac]

Keynote update does seem to fix one thing for me that was a pain. Exporting a slideshow as h.264 constantly failed. The resultant movie file was forever sticking at random points. Very annoying. This seems to have fixed it - at least on the test I performed.

First Post!

[Galley]

Originally Posted by shippster

Actually, you can turn off a bullet for one line much easier. Just hold down shift when you hit return and the bullet skips that line, hit return again and it is there. I don't know how you were expected to know this, but once you do it makes Pages bearable for lists.

That's a great tip, thanks!

[macFanDave]

Originally Posted by herrdoktor

Well, I'm glad they're fixing compatibility issues ... with the only operating system it actually runs on.

I'm sure they meant Leopard-compatibility issues. A lot of developers have been late with their Leopard versions because they said that Apple wasn't giving them complete information in the pre-release days and that they made some last-minute changes.

That's probably what happened with the people that develop iWork. Who are they again? Oh, wait, . . . never mind

[jahaja]

and in Pages it is STILL impossible to search for ' or ’, like for example "hasn't" or "doesn't". That is terrible. What is apple thinking!???

[bigpics]

Originally Posted by Shintocam

That is EXACTLY what I was thinking.

Uh so what OS was the old one compatible with?

The language "improves comatability with OSX" is indeed amusing but may be referring to 10.5.2 in advance of its release. Otherwise based on past AppleSpeak, one might have expected "resolves performance issues" or somesuch......

[MsNly]

Originally Posted by Charel

So I start up "Numbers" and Apple says there is an update available. I click on update and Apple informs me that my version 1.0.1 is the latest and no update is available. So forgive me, but I don't understand. What is this update, 1.0.2 supposed to be for?

I had the same problem, make sure the application is in a folder named "iWork '08" in the applications folder.

[Shaggy]

Has anyone found a way to do text to columns in pages yet?

[Charel]

Originally Posted by MsNly

I had the same problem, make sure the application is in a folder named "iWork '08" in the applications folder.

Thanks. This works. I have a habit of taking individual apps out of their folders and moving the empty files to the thrash. Won't do it again.

[shippster]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Has anyone found a way to do text to columns in pages yet?

First of all, the help menu in pages has several entries on columns.

In iWork 08 there is a button on the formatting bar that sets columns; it appears right after the line spacing adjustment and before the list button.

In both iWork 06 and 08 you can also use the inspector. Click that blue circle with an "i" in the toolbar and the second tab is dedicated to columns. That is where you can change the spacing on them.

Also, if you are working with text boxes you will see little blue arrows on the right side near the bottom of the text box. Click it and it will allow you to connect to another text box so the text that is too long for the first one flows into the second text box. You can use this to create columns with different heights, just for more of a page layout style. (This one may be iWork 08 only - I can't remember).

[Shaggy]

Yeah I saw all that but what I am talking about is a specific feature that allows you to take a block of text, paste it in a spreadsheet and then have it separate the data into individual columns using delimiters. This is very useful for me and is something I use daily. I routinely have to copy a page worth of reporting data from a web page and send it out in a spreadsheet along with removing several of the columns which are confidential info.

I do thank you for your tip but from your reply it seems as if you are not actually familiar with the "text to columns" feature of Excel.

When iWork came out several months ago I was all over the Apple forums checking into it and there were many posts about this one feature not being included, I was hoping it might have been in a later release.

[shippster]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

. . . what I am talking about is a specific feature that allows you to take a block of text, paste it in a spreadsheet and then have it separate the data into individual columns using delimiters. This is very useful for me and is something I use daily. . . .

Oh, sorry I didn't get what you were asking. You are right that I have never used the Text to Column feature.

In your post you said it was a feature of Pages you were looking for. Is that because you activate it from Word and import it into excel, or do you just copy from the report into excel and start the conversion there?

I ask not because I think I can solve your problem, but because it does sound very useful and I would like to know for my own use.