Apple expands Keynote support, online storage options in iWork.com beta
Apple on Monday announced to users of its iWork.com public beta that new features have been added to the Web-based service, including the ability to play Keynote presentations online, as well as new options for public sharing and private online storage.
The details came in an "important service message" sent to users by Apple on Monday. The changes require users run the latest version of iWork, 9.0.5, released last week.
With the update, users can play back Keynote '09 presentations on the Web, complete with animations, video, hyperlinks and audio. A Keynote presentation can be played using the latest version of Safari on a Mac or PC, as well as the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
Users can also upload documents for private online storage and easy access from anywhere, or share documents on social networks with a public link. Presentations can also be embedded on a website or blog using an embed code provided by iWork.com
The iWork.com service launched in early 2009, offering a Web-based way to use Apple's productivity suite. And last year, Apple further expanded the iWork suite to the iPad.
Apple was expected to release an updated version of the software, iWork '11, along with the launch of the new Mac App Store earlier this month. Though a new version did not materialize, promotional material in the digital download store refers to the "amazing new iWork," even though the last update arrived two years ago.
The details came in an "important service message" sent to users by Apple on Monday. The changes require users run the latest version of iWork, 9.0.5, released last week.
With the update, users can play back Keynote '09 presentations on the Web, complete with animations, video, hyperlinks and audio. A Keynote presentation can be played using the latest version of Safari on a Mac or PC, as well as the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
Users can also upload documents for private online storage and easy access from anywhere, or share documents on social networks with a public link. Presentations can also be embedded on a website or blog using an embed code provided by iWork.com
The iWork.com service launched in early 2009, offering a Web-based way to use Apple's productivity suite. And last year, Apple further expanded the iWork suite to the iPad.
Apple was expected to release an updated version of the software, iWork '11, along with the launch of the new Mac App Store earlier this month. Though a new version did not materialize, promotional material in the digital download store refers to the "amazing new iWork," even though the last update arrived two years ago.
Comments
Apple on Monday announced to users of its iWork.com ...
Not to be too negative, but I'm so tired of these lame mini-updates to the service.
- make iDisk fast enough to be useable
- make it so I can edit my documents online.
- hell, try (just try), to make the email accounts sync with all the devices properly.
I'm happy to pay for MobileMe just for the link syncing and the iOS integration, but it's really a sad, broken service for the most part and doesn't do hardly anything right.
I would like to use ODF as my default file format if I could keep using Pages, Numbers and Keynote as the creative apps. I have OO.org installed but it's not quite as pretty as the Apple apps.
FL
Not to be too negative, but I'm so tired of these lame mini-updates to the service.
- make iDisk fast enough to be useable
- make it so I can edit my documents online.
- hell, try (just try), to make the email accounts sync with all the devices properly.
I'm happy to pay for MobileMe just for the link syncing and the iOS integration, but it's really a sad, broken service for the most part and doesn't do hardly anything right.
Sorry to be a little off topic -- Keynote on web could be awesome -- but I have to agree with this post. I love the ability to synch contacts, web bookmarks, and Keychain across my 3 Macs and iPhone. But I'm getting about a "fatal" error per week, requiring one device with "good" data be used to refresh all others. Besides being a pain, this means the inevetability some contacts, bookmarks, logins or appointments are lost. This is really not acceptable level of reliabiliy for a paid subscription service. If Apple can't maintain this software and service so it is reliable, they should contract it out.
Not to be too negative, but I'm so tired of these lame mini-updates to the service.
- make iDisk fast enough to be useable
- make it so I can edit my documents online.
- hell, try (just try), to make the email accounts sync with all the devices properly.
I'm happy to pay for MobileMe just for the link syncing and the iOS integration, but it's really a sad, broken service for the most part and doesn't do hardly anything right.
Since iWork.com isn't part of MobileMe I'm not sure I see the connection. My concern is with the seemingly endless beta period for this service. Apple is starting to look a little like Google. Finish it already!
When this will happen is still unknown but it will be within this quarter for sure so I can wait at least that long, and none longer.
Not to be too negative, but I'm so tired of these lame mini-updates to the service.
- make iDisk fast enough to be useable
- make it so I can edit my documents online.
- hell, try (just try), to make the email accounts sync with all the devices properly.
I'm happy to pay for MobileMe just for the link syncing and the iOS integration, but it's really a sad, broken service for the most part and doesn't do hardly anything right.
issues with iDisk speed & sync issues can often be traced back to poor network connections. I have many devices syncing to my MobileMe and it is working just fine. As for speed of iDisk, it has been fine for me but this is a feature that is really only going to be useful across a very fast connection. I have 10MB cable so it works great but if you have DSL or satellite it will struggle.
Sorry to be a little off topic -- Keynote on web could be awesome -- but I have to agree with this post. I love the ability to synch contacts, web bookmarks, and Keychain across my 3 Macs and iPhone. But I'm getting about a "fatal" error per week, requiring one device with "good" data be used to refresh all others. Besides being a pain, this means the inevetability some contacts, bookmarks, logins or appointments are lost. This is really not acceptable level of reliabiliy for a paid subscription service. If Apple can't maintain this software and service so it is reliable, they should contract it out.
I'm having none these problems. Never had one fatal error and iDisk is as fast or faster than any sites I FTP to. I don't even understand why you'd be asked to sync to one "good device" when your data is in the cloud. But not being a techie, I guess I'm missing something there. Needless to say, I am quite pleased with MobileMe.
I almost forgot about the online sharing of iWork. It just never seemed to be ironed out. It always seemed like more trouble keeping straight which version was the correct one and each party always ended up with 6-7 variations.
Me too Techno. I almost forgot about it too. The only thing is the need for Safari...I certainly understand Apple doing this...just to make sure things go smoothly. I have bad memories of trying to make things work on IE.
But If I want to send a Keynote to a client or prospective client...if they have to download Safari first, probably won't be practical.
Best
Me too Techno. I almost forgot about it too. The only thing is the need for Safari...I certainly understand Apple doing this...just to make sure things go smoothly. I have bad memories of trying to make things work on IE.
But If I want to send a Keynote to a client or prospective client...if they have to download Safari first, probably won't be practical.
I tried the sample slide show using Firefox. It displays the slides just fine, just without any animations. I assume it works this way in other browsers.
So basically anyone using any browser can view the slides, but only Safari users can see the slick animations.
Do we think it's about time that iWork was able to read/write to OpenDocument? It is an ISO/IEC standard. Especially since Oracle bought Sun and Larry and Steve are such good mates.
I would like to use ODF as my default file format if I could keep using Pages, Numbers and Keynote as the creative apps. I have OO.org installed but it's not quite as pretty as the Apple apps.
FL
Your problem is that ODF is essentially the format for Open Office, which in turn was based on a product designed to be compatible with Office 97.
I couldn't answer the question definitely, but I suspect that ODF can't support all the features of iWork without extension (although of course the nice thing about an XML-based format is that it is easy to extend it - to say support path based animation in presentations in applications that support it. After all, iWork does work that way when playing back presentations on earlier versions).