Apple's iWork suites for iOS, Mac get minor updates for stability, bug fixes

AppleInsider · May 10, 2016 6:09PM

Apple's trio of iWork apps for both iOS and Mac were given simultaneous updates on Tuesday, squashing bugs and improving stability for the productivity suites.

The new Pages for Mac has been updated to version 5.6.2, while Keynote for Mac is 6.6.2, and Numbers for Mac is updated to version 3.6.2.

On the iOS side, the iPhone and iPad versions of Pages, Keynote and Numbers are all now at version 2.6.2.

According to Apple, all six updates contain "stability improvements and bug fixes."

The iWork suite is available for free with any new Mac, iPhone, or iPad hardware purchase. For those with older hardware or who purchased a used device, each iWork is available for $19.99 on OS X, while the individual apps costap $9.99 on iOS.

iWork files can also be accessed through iWork for iCloud, which is available for free with a registered iCloud account.

debusoh · May 10, 2016 6:25PM

I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office. Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.

nmazmanian · May 10, 2016 6:30PM

I noticed a bug in the new version of Numbers. If you have an existing worksheet you cannot insert new rows. I hope they fix that soon.

volcan · May 10, 2016 6:32PM

debusoh said:

I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office. Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm too busy to learn new software that essentially does the same thing as software that I'm already an expert at.

afrodri · May 10, 2016 6:36PM

nmazmanian said:

I noticed a bug in the new version of Numbers. If you have an existing worksheet you cannot insert new rows. I hope they fix that soon.

Have you reported the bug?

applesauce007 · May 10, 2016 6:38PM

nmazmanian said:

I noticed a bug in the new version of Numbers. If you have an existing worksheet you cannot insert new rows. I hope they fix that soon.

Sure you can. Select the row and then click on the down arrow next to the row number and then "Add Row Above or Below". Works fine.

Still waiting for integrated mail merge.

afrodri · May 10, 2016 6:39PM

debusoh said:

I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office. Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.

I mainly used Keynote and really liked it, but I'm slowly switching over to PowerPoint. Keynote keeps dropping features and – unforgivably – dropping compatibility with older versions. This means I can't open older presentations anymore! I have a hard time taking 'business' software seriously when every upgrade might mean I lose data. So, as annoying as Power Point is, it is all I'm left with.

*grumble*

dysamoria · May 10, 2016 6:50PM

Hey Apple: How about giving us back all the features you removed from iWork (most notably Pages) when you back ported the inferior version from iOS to OS X?

gadgetcanadav2 · May 10, 2016 6:53PM

volcan said:

debusoh said:

I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office. Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm too busy to learn new software that essentially does the same thing as software that I'm already an expert at.

"Essentially the same". LOL! As Darth Vader said, "You have no idea of the power of the dark side". In this case the "Dark side" is Excel because it is infinitely more powerful than Numbers. If you disagree than you simply don't know Excel ...cough...VBA....cough

cropr · May 10, 2016 7:00PM

debusoh said:

I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office. Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.

Numbers is just crapware. Never understood Apple had the guts to publish such a horrible program. Despite its name, it cannot even display numbers correct if they are too big to fit in a cell. Just put the formula =fact(50) in a cell and compare the result with Excel (or Libreoffice Calc).

cobra101 · May 10, 2016 7:30PM

Oooh.

Big Apple announcement today.

Who says they aren't doing anything!

edited May 2016

techprod1gy · May 10, 2016 7:36PM

I really like Numbers and Pages. For the average user they are very adequate. I do not think they are close to replacing the office stuff for business. While I am at it. Apple Insider should start banning users in the comment section who keep voting down comments just because they make a negative comment about Apple. Even if it is a valid fact. Pretty immature and annoying if you ask me.

genovelle · May 10, 2016 7:39PM

cropr said:

debusoh said:

I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office. Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.

Numbers is just crapware. Never understood Apple had the guts to publish such a horrible program. Despite its name, it cannot even display numbers correct if they are too big to fit in a cell. Just put the formula =fact(50) in a cell and compare the result with Excel (or Libreoffice Calc).

Crapware is all Microsoft garbage. I recently took a college course for Office that includes Excel. I laughed at the unnecessary complex layers designed to support a whole industry of trainer who pay for certification. The fact that there is a required college course "$900" to figure it out tell of its sorry programming. If you figure it out on your own you are a tech head. 90% of people using a computer for any reason will never use any of that extra crap. Everything of use I was able to do on in iWork and it was far more user friendly. The reason these features are not there is they know 5 or 10% are power users and need them. This is not their primary market and it makes no sense to complicate the software for the 90 percent of users to please people who already have an option they already like and have invested a tremendous amount of time and money in learning.

mdriftmeyer · May 10, 2016 8:04PM

Wake me when proper endnotes, footnotes, endmarks and cross-linking within the notes to other parts of the document or external documents are connected via iCloud and one can actually write a quality EPub novel with it. Then I'll be interested in Pages. The formatting is weak, the Inspector editing has the capabilities of products from 1990 on NeXTStep 2.0 instead of being something very powerful but still with a light foot print. I can do tenfold more with Scribus 1.6 than I can with Pages. Same with Writer on LibreOffice. I won't waste much ink on how pathetic it is to something like TeXLive: they could have hooked the XeTeX engine and extend the DTP to wrap around a tex document, but they clearly want this suite for refrigerator fliers and child presentations.

edited May 2016

fastasleep · May 10, 2016 8:05PM

applesauce007 said:

nmazmanian said:

I noticed a bug in the new version of Numbers. If you have an existing worksheet you cannot insert new rows. I hope they fix that soon.

Sure you can. Select the row and then click on the down arrow next to the row number and then "Add Row Above or Below". Works fine.

Still waiting for integrated mail merge.

Option-down arrow to add a new row below.

volcan · May 10, 2016 8:12PM

gadgetcanadav2 said:

volcan said:

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm too busy to learn new software that essentially does the same thing as software that I'm already an expert at.

"Essentially the same". LOL! As Darth Vader said, "You have no idea of the power of the dark side". In this case the "Dark side" is Excel because it is infinitely more powerful than Numbers. If you disagree than you simply don't know Excel ...cough...VBA....cough

Actually, I was being intentionally vague, but I had some other software in mind. I use Adobe CC but I do own all of the Affinity and Pixelmator software plus some other App Store drawing tools, however I've been using Photoshop, Illustrator, AutoCad, etc for so many years it is second nature for me, plus there is the ubiquitous compatibility with other professionals. I can't be bothered with second tier applications.

I wouldn't know because I don't use Office, but I thought I remember people saying that the Mac version of Excel was not even on par with the Windows version, but perhaps you can elaborate if that has changed.

edited May 2016

ewtheckman · May 10, 2016 8:27PM

Any word on when Apple will restore the features they've stripped?

For example, the removal of support for facing pages from Pages has forced me back to Word.

There is such a thing as too simple, and Apple keeps going there.

buzdots · May 10, 2016 8:31PM

applesauce007 said:
...Still waiting for integrated mail merge.

Until they get mail merge back I am sticking with Pages '09.
It's a friggin shame embarrassment this has gone so long.

Worry more about your software, Tim and not so much about getting your shorts in a wad.

paxman · May 10, 2016 8:36PM

cropr said:

debusoh said:

I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office. Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.

Numbers is just crapware. Never understood Apple had the guts to publish such a horrible program. Despite its name, it cannot even display numbers correct if they are too big to fit in a cell. Just put the formula =fact(50) in a cell and compare the result with Excel (or Libreoffice Calc).

Actually, Numbers is a great piece of software... for many. It is pretty light weight but it is great for the ones who only need to use a spreadsheet once in a while, for the once who's spreadsheets are very basic, and for the once who's basic spreadsheets need to look good. I am guessing that is a lot of people, if not most. I use Numbers for my business but I have no need for anything complex at all. I have Excel but I prefer to work with Numbers.

Having said that, I don't hate MS and I don't see the point in moving over to Numbers if you have Excel, love Excel, or are an expert at Excel. I am sure my accountant and bookkeeper would never use Numbers.

command_f · May 10, 2016 9:03PM

ewtheckman said:

Any word on when Apple will restore the features they've stripped?

For example, the removal of support for facing pages from Pages has forced me back to Word.

There is such a thing as too simple, and Apple keeps going there.

And flow between text boxes. Those two features, for me, put the 's' in Pages. Without them, it's OK for a quick single page design but runs out of steam so quickly. I've reverted to the 'old' version and I hope it lasts until something better comes along from a third party (but it won't be Word for me). Disappointing.

paolo t · May 10, 2016 9:05PM

I wonder how many top managers spend time discussing software on the web. They cannot live without the raw power of Excel, something that I've managed to do for decades. A few business plans for respectably sized projects, my own family's mortgage, the balance of my small business - all easily made with Numbers. But I'm not a top manager, and my numbers are not the same as their multi-billion companies.

Apple's iWork suites for iOS, Mac get minor updates for stability, bug fixes

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