Apple updates iWork for Mac, adding real-time collaboration beta to Pages, Numbers & Keyno...

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in Mac Software edited August 2020
Alongside Tuesday's release of macOS 10.12 Sierra, Apple also issued an update for its iWork trio of apps for Mac, adding real-time collaboration with users on iPhone, iPad, and iCloud.com.
Pages 6.0, Keynote 7.0 and Numbers 4.0 are all available to download from the Mac App Store. The updates deliver the real-time, cross-platform iWork collaboration that the company promised earlier this month. Apple's iWork suite for iOS was updated one week ago alongside the launch of iOS 10. And now, as of Tuesday, Mac users can get in on the mix with their own updates. Apple's real-time collaboration feature remains in beta. It allows users to edit presentations, documents or spreadsheets with others at the same time across iOS, macOS and web.
After updating, users can share their file publicly or with specific people, and also see who else is viewing or editing the document at that moment. The cloud-based editing tools also allow a user to see participants' cursors as they edit. The Pages update also allows users to open and edit Pages '05 documents. Version 6.0 also gives the ability to use tabs to work with multiple documents in one window, and it supports wide color gamut images. Keynote's update adds Keynote Live, allowing users to present a slideshow that viewers can follow on their Mac, iPad, iPhone and from iCloud.com. It also adds support for Keynote '05 presentations, adds tab support, and wide color gamut image support. Finally, Numbers also joins in with tabs to work on multiple spreadsheets in one window, and wide color gamut image support.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    buzdotsbuzdots Posts: 452member
    Pages: Mail Merge, Mail Merge, Mail Merge!

    Boy am I glad to see the other persons curser, I don't know how I lived without it so long!! /s
  • Reply 3 of 10
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,808member
    This is too little, too late. In my experience, most are already using either Office365, or Google Apps, both of which have this and many other features already in place. I really like this suite and use it whenever I can, but Apple really couldn't get any slower at developing this suite of apps and its eventually going to be all this work for not much return if they can't pick up the pace. 
    edited September 2016 anantksundaramdysamoria
  • Reply 4 of 10
    trydtryd Posts: 143member
    Personally I wouldn't touch anything Google does with a ten-foot pole, and I really (really, really) hate Office. So this is just what the doctor ordered.
    fastasleepthe3rdpartyai46watto_cobradysamoriaP-DogNCwilliamlondonjony0
  • Reply 5 of 10
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,362member
    I seem to recall that very early versions of OneNote had this feature. Tried it once or twice and while it was an interesting parlor trick it largely felt like a solution in search of a problem. For me, a more typical scenario for working on a single "document" with multiple concurrent contributors has always been to have one person "driving" the live edits and others contributing ideas or assessing the overall progress or checking for errors. Having multiple authors simultaneously injecting content seems rather chaotic and while it does good demo it still seems a bit contrived. Perhaps this type of collaboration would work for remote pair programming. I do applaud Apple for delving into the realm of collaboration tools and features because there are so few in existence - but the lightbulb isn't lighting up for me on what I'm seeing in the iWork suite, not yet at least.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    hittrj01hittrj01 Posts: 753member
    tryd said:
    Personally I wouldn't touch anything Google does with a ten-foot pole, and I really (really, really) hate Office. So this is just what the doctor ordered.
    I guess I just don't understand these comments. If it's a privacy thing, fine, I guess, but Google has never had any history of doing anything malicious with all this data it has on us. Plus, whether you avoid them or not, you're not avoiding Google trackers on web sites, people you email who have Gmail, people you text who use Android, businesses you work with/buy from who use Google Apps on their backend, etc. And hating Office (with the passion you apparently do) doesn't make sense either. It is by far the most powerful productivity suite that is out there, and has only gotten better, and at a faster pace, since they switched to a subscription model. Office, even on the Mac, is far superior to iWork, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, or anything OpenOffice or LibreOffice makes.

    Don't limit yourself to one company just because you like them a lot. I love my Apple stuff, but if there is a better solution elsewhere, it doesn't make sense to ignore it.
    singularityuraharajony0
  • Reply 7 of 10
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    Still waiting for the restoration of the features in Pages '09...
  • Reply 8 of 10
    trydtryd Posts: 143member
    With Google it is a privacy thing. I know that they have not been proven to do anything malicious wth the data, but on the other hand when I search for something, I want to find all the stuff related to what I search for, not just the things that the search engine thinks I want to find. I use Ghostery to list all the trackers on the web-sites I visit.
    As to Office, I just don't like it. It is filled with functionality I never use, and looks ugly. Office can do almost anything, which just masks the things I need and makes it difficult to use. Excel is extremely confusing compared to Numbers (of course it can do more, but this functionality I never use), and Powerpoint its laid out so that it is difficult to make really elegant and efficient presentations. The tools just makes it difficult to do what you want, even though everything is possible. I just like elegant tools, and Office really is not elegant. The tool just gets in the way.
    I know I went a bit overboard with my hate-comment. I don't hate any software out there - hate is such a strong word. Office just does not fit my needs, and the position it has in the marketplace makes it almost impossible for other solutions to compete. 
    I like that there are different solutions out there, so you can have real competition. If only Office survives, we are worse off than if there are alternative solutions, no matter how good Office is.
    edited September 2016 P-DogNCwilliamlondonTurboPGTjony0
  • Reply 9 of 10
    williamlondonwilliamlondon Posts: 1,324member
    tryd said:
    With Google it is a privacy thing. I know that they have not been proven to do anything malicious wth the data, but on the other hand when I search for something, I want to find all the stuff related to what I search for, not just the things that the search engine thinks I want to find. I use Ghostery to list all the trackers on the web-sites I visit.
    As to Office, I just don't like it. It is filled with functionality I never use, and looks ugly. Office can do almost anything, which just masks the things I need and makes it difficult to use. Excel is extremely confusing compared to Numbers (of course it can do more, but this functionality I never use), and Powerpoint its laid out so that it is difficult to make really elegant and efficient presentations. The tools just makes it difficult to do what you want, even though everything is possible. I just like elegant tools, and Office really is not elegant. The tool just gets in the way.
    I know I went a bit overboard with my hate-comment. I don't hate any software out there - hate is such a strong word. Office just does not fit my needs, and the position it has in the marketplace makes it almost impossible for other solutions to compete. 
    I like that there are different solutions out there, so you can have real competition. If only Office survives, we are worse off than if there are alternative solutions, no matter how good Office is.
    Office is like Windows, people use it because that's what comes on their machines at work, and the reason it's on their machines as work is because Microsoft locked their companies into ELAs and convinced the IT guys that they needed all the bells and whistles of a bloated suite of software with annual upgrades. The reality is that the vast (vast!) majority of people using Office use only the bare basic functions, all of which are included in every single other modern desktop office suite of products out there, paid and free, but mostly free these days. Inertia is what keeps people on Office, not love of it or need either. Finance people at some point will figure this out and the racket that is Microsoft and move their companies on to free shit that just works, there's no point in 80% or more of users staying on Office, except that's what they already have, but why pay for that bloated piece of crap if you use only the basic stuff it provides?
    TurboPGTjony0
  • Reply 10 of 10
    Gary41Gary41 Posts: 2member
    I am small business owner who depended on Pages '09 to mail merge letters to my contacts.  Since I updated to OS X El Capitan I can no longer mail merge.  Is there a solution since the new Pages does not support mail merging?
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