In response to the outrage over the missing features in the latest round of iWork for Mac app refreshes, Apple has taken an unusual step of confirming that much of the removed functionality will be gradually added back over the course of six months.
Before the haters jump with joy, saying Apple always backpedals on everything, let me remind you that the company similarly faced criticism over the supposed dumbifying of the Final Cut Pro X video editing suite. A few updates later, most of the missing features pro video editors were crying for – and then some – were fully restored…
Apple made the surprising announcement in a support document issued this morning (thanks, Matthew!).
The company has updated iWork and iLife suite of apps on both Mac and iOS side on October 22. All apps have been re-written from the ground up for 64-bit computing, introducing a much reworked user interface and full file compatibility between the web, Mac and iOS platforms.
Casual users welcomed the refreshed suite, but people whose daily productivity depends on these apps slammed Apple for sacrificing functionality over cross-platform file compatibility. Blogger Pierre Igot, for example, called the new release of Pages an“unmitigated disaster”.
Features making a comeback in upcoming iWork releases in the next 6 months:
Pages
- Customize toolbar
- Vertical ruler
- Improved alignment guides
- Improved object placement
- Import of cells with images
- Improved word counts
- Keyboard shortcuts for styles
- Manage pages and sections from the thumbnail view
Numbers
- Customize toolbar
- Improvements to zoom and window placement
- Multi-column and range sort
- Auto-complete text in cells
- Page headers and footers
- Improvements to AppleScript support
Keynote
- Customize toolbar
- Restoring old transitions and builds
- Improvements to presenter display
- Improvements to AppleScript support
If a massive thread on the Apple Support forums is an indication, there are still other missing features Apple’s support doc doesn’t mention at all.
Even if you’ve updated your iWork suite, the installer hasn’t wiped out the previous versions of apps from your system – you can still find old iWork apps in your Applications > iWork ’09 folder.
This speaks volume about Apple’s realization that the new iWork suite may not be suited to power users.
Apple argues it rewrote iWork apps for 64-bit and to support a unified file format between OS X and iOS 7 versions, as well as iWork for iCloud beta.
These apps feature an all-new design with an intelligent format panel and many new features such as easy ways to share documents, Apple-designed styles for objects, interactive charts, new templates, and new animations in Keynote.In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release. We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis.
While existing users are required to fork out $20 for each of the iWork apps, Apple since October 22 has switched to offering iWork and iLife apps free of charge with every new Mac and iOS device purchase, confirming that future releases of these apps – as well as OS X updates – will continue to be free downloads.
Also, Apple’s Up-To-Date program offers to upgrade your iWork suite to the latest version free of charge for new Mac purchases made between October 1-22, 2013. Purchases made after October 22 will have 30 days to qualify and Apple warns customers have to apply to the program by November 21.
That initiative is only available to those living in Canada or in one of the 50 United States states, including the District of Columbia.
You can also get the latest iWork apps free of charge on your older Macs by first installing afree trial of iWork ’09 from Softpedia. After running each app at least once, go to the Mac App Store and hit the Purchased tab. There, you should find your free Pages 3.0, Keynote 6.0 and Numbers 3.0 downloads.
A company spokesperson told MacTrast that even though the company is aware that this enables piracy for unethical users, “Apple has never taken a strong stance or action against piracy in the past. We like to believe that our users are honest, even if that belief is in vain”.
Screenshot top of post: Pages for Mac.
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