Apple introduces real time, cross-platform iWork collaboration
Apple on Wednesday announced a new iWork feature that allows both Mac and iOS users to collaborate on a variety of Pages, Numbers and Keynote documents in real time.
Announced and demonstrated onstage at today's special event by Apple VP of Product Marketing Susan Prescott, the iWork collaboration feature is available for iPhones, iPads and Macs. Users running Windows can also work with colleagues via a web interface.
In practice, iWork syncs document changes across devices which, depending on whether collaboration mode is set to public or private, show up on another user's screen. Collaborators can easily distinguish who is modifying a spreadsheet, word processing file or presentation, as user input is displayed in different colors.
The addition arrives as a competitor to existing productivity software suites including the web-based Google Docs and Microsoft's Office 365, both of which have boasted collaboration features for years. Apple, late to the game, is pushing the education angle, touting use case scenarios like teacher-to-student and student-to-student collaboration.
Announced and demonstrated onstage at today's special event by Apple VP of Product Marketing Susan Prescott, the iWork collaboration feature is available for iPhones, iPads and Macs. Users running Windows can also work with colleagues via a web interface.
In practice, iWork syncs document changes across devices which, depending on whether collaboration mode is set to public or private, show up on another user's screen. Collaborators can easily distinguish who is modifying a spreadsheet, word processing file or presentation, as user input is displayed in different colors.
The addition arrives as a competitor to existing productivity software suites including the web-based Google Docs and Microsoft's Office 365, both of which have boasted collaboration features for years. Apple, late to the game, is pushing the education angle, touting use case scenarios like teacher-to-student and student-to-student collaboration.
Comments
No need to work separately and then merge. You can do it all live and in real time.
With excellent web support, this can be done using any platform with a modern web browser. (Windows, Linux, AIX, Solaris, Chrome book, Mac OS, iOS, Android etc...)
This greatly raises the bar for free iWorks in the corporate world and schools on most platforms and in most languages.
and I still cannot get side by side working with two pages documents (split view not available)
I understand that content consumption is more important to Apple's revenue, but it's not cool to scrimp. For you doubters, as if it matters much, I produce 4K video, record music (album at iTunes), write books (book at iBooks) and produce about 2000 pages of detailed documentation for my medical practice each year. I've tried to use iWork and FCP and they just don't measure up to the competition.
I'd love to see strides in this area.
Another suite to support doesn't have me too excited. And speaking frankly, Apple totally botched their file formats for iWork in '13. Maybe though it will be nice to collaborate on a full-featured Keynote.
I distinctly remember a keynote where someone was working on a document (Pages maybe?) and the updates appeared on a second screen. How is this different from what was shown then?
All this time and this is the only update?
Let's be clear: Pages, Numbers and Keynote already support collaborative editing. The difference announced today is the word "real time".
Previous collaborative modes, while functional, weren't ideal: Apple's own help pages advised methods to get the best performance and refreshes (such as the document owner using the app while the others used the web interface.)
What has changed now is that anyone can use either the web or the app, on any of their preferred devices and still maintain a real time editing environment - it is a big deal, and anyone who has used Office 365 or Google Apps for Work know that "real time" is often over sold and rarely, truly delivered.
The proof will be in the performance, I'm not willing to believe that Apple would falsely claim "real time", especially when they've had collaborative features for years.
My normal working day is a very collaboriative team effort, and part of that is producing documents upon documents, but this kind of direct stepping on people's toes just seems ripe for annoyance and frustration. Even if it works, it's easier to silo things off for better productivity, and collaborate to review outputs.
If you want actual real-time collaboration, get everyone in the same room.