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Apple responds to new iWork complaints, says several features returning within 6 months

Last month, Apple introduced new iWork suites for both OS X and iOS. The new applications feature entirely new designs and are built-up a new 64-bit architecture for increased speed. However, as we previously noted, many long-time iWork users have found that the new versions lack several features that have existed in previous releases. Today, Apple has responded to these complaints and has said that it will be restoring several of the missing features over the course of the next 6 months.

The new iWork applications—Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—were released for Mac on October 22nd. These applications were rewritten from the ground up to be fully 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.

These features will return in software updates. Here are the features that are coming back:

Apple lists several features that will returning, and breaks down the enhancements by the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote applications. Additionally, Apple says that iWork ’09, which has all of these features, is still accessible in the Applications folder on the Mac.

In the meanwhile, you can continue to use these features by accessing the previous versions of the iWork applications which remain installed on your Mac. The previous versions can be found in Applications > iWork ’09.

That is if you updated from that version.

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

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Comments

  1. Xavier Poirot (@dalaen) - 10 years ago

    Note that you only have iWord ’09 on your Mac if you had them installed previously.

    At least, I only have the new version on my new MBP.

  2. Vincent Bell - 10 years ago

    My wife has complained since the update. She was unable to access many documents she had store online. A window would pop up and say, this was created with an older version. Most of the documents were school related, she using for teaching. She had to spend time recreating them in the new format.

    • Vincent Bell - 10 years ago

      My wife will no chew me out for not proof reading, before posting. Sorry. store=stored
      …she WAS using..

      • 311sie - 10 years ago

        and “no”=now?

    • Buck Virga-Hyatt - 10 years ago

      Has she tried going to iCloud.com and access them there through the appropriate app? That should cause them to be converted to the new version so that they work with the new apps on the computer.

  3. Krzysiek Troszczyński - 10 years ago

    It means that Apple still offer to us beta versions as official release – Final Cut Pro X, iOS 7, iWork. Pity..

    • Tim Jr. - 10 years ago

      In cases such as a re-write like this, it’s actually beneficial to do ti this way. Developers get to see whats in demand and focus on that first.

    • tallestskil - 10 years ago

      Shut up, troll.

      • borntofeel - 10 years ago

        How rude.

      • tallestskil - 10 years ago

        He’s a troll. There’s no such thing as rude.

    • One. It was free. 2. Two, new products will have bugs. 3. I don’t remember iOs 7 being released in beta mode. I don’t remember final cut X being beta actually.

  4. weakguy - 10 years ago

    I guess our massive emails to Apple do work. Anyway, I hope I can see those features back very soon. Hopefully by the end of the year I can see most of the features find their ways back.

  5. bloggerblogg - 10 years ago

    I was always skeptical about iWork because Apple would build it, then marginalize it, then re-write it, then ignore it, and so on. The suite never felt like it was here to stay, and my documents were always on the line, not to mention its limited ability to share with MS Office.

    However, now that Apple has invested great efforts into re-writing it for the web, iOS, and OSX, it feels like it’s here to stay. I hope Apple will continue to improve iWork and eventually give Office a run for its dinero.

  6. Chris Cooper (@clcooper) - 10 years ago

    I do hope the customize toolbar option has something to do with the right side of the screen being dominated by that huge inspector window. That is one of the hardest adjustments for me, that helper window uses up so much screen space. I like the ability to move the inspector window in ’09.

    Also, I hope the decide to bring back mail merge to Pages.

  7. James Erwin Batul Estoque - 10 years ago

    Yep… I was one of the first complainers for Keynote… the “Perspective” Transition was taken out and it’s my favorite transition and the “Scale Big” animation build. I’m glad they are listening to the consumers.

    • thejuanald - 10 years ago

      Using animated transitions in presentations is so frowned upon in scientific presentations. It looks so unprofessional and childish.

      • tellowkrinkle - 10 years ago

        Then I’ll use them in my non-scientific presentations! :)
        It actually really annoys me when people have no builds and all their bullets come on at once. I don’t know why.
        Anyway, all of Apple’s keynotes use animated builds (including the ones for developers), although they usually use the more subtle ones.

  8. Saoir (@Saoir) - 10 years ago

    Jeez you can’t please all of the people all fo the time. I am happy with the new version and have no problems, like most people. I am delighted that Apple is doing such intensive development work on the app, which will pay off in the long run. So a few people get get irked … it’s the price of progress.

    • James Erwin Batul Estoque - 10 years ago

      How often do you use iWork or any of its Apps?

    • silas681 - 10 years ago

      Progress? Let’s remove key features for people who actually earn a living from writing and call it progress! Ok you can still use Iwork 09 but Macs are supposed to be for the kind of people who want their computer to ‘just work’. It is these kinds of less tech savvy people that losing legacy files in iWork that included the old features. If this happens Apple have done a piss poor job. Simple. Having said that iWork is obviously being dumbed down, you only have to look at the sample templates to notice that. Microsoft word is the tool for pro’s (unfortunately)

      • tellowkrinkle - 10 years ago

        Relax and give apple some slack. They rewrote all three apps. Do you expect them to have every feature from the previous apps from day one? This is very similar to the launch of FCPX. They rewrote the app, released it with most of the features, and slowly added the rest in through updates.

      • Bernie O'Mahony - 10 years ago

        tellowkrinkle – “do you expect them to have every feature from the previous apps from day one?” – YES!! It’s not rocket science!!

  9. I wish Apple would say something – anything – about the status of Aperture. OS compatibility upgrades just won’t cut it. It is dramatically falling behind Lightroom. Apple needs to upgrade some core features to make Aperture competitive – or it needs to put it, and its users, out of their misery.

    Great to see their plans for iWork but Aperture seems to be abandon ware.

  10. Imagine they come back as in-App Purchases! I kid, I kid!

  11. William - 10 years ago

    Reblogged this on William's iBlog and commented:
    I’m glad Apple’s willing to admit that they’re wrong. Better late than never.

  12. RM (@Subtle_Errors) - 10 years ago

    I don’t hold out much hope but I would like “customise toolbar” to include being able to move the inspector back to a utility window, or at least something like it. You really appreciate a utility window while working with several apps on a big monitor – it means that the app only uses the screen space to display your document when you aren’t working on it, because the utility windows are hidden, as opposed to having a big sidebar in the window sitting idle.

  13. tpetaccia - 10 years ago

    I also hope the “Paste and Match Style” is also reinstated in Numbers. I use that all the time.

  14. Please add the option to use the hotkeys for styles!! Ty!

  15. Luke Towers - 10 years ago

    WHAT ABOUT MERGING DATA FROM NUMBERS INTO PAGES? THAT’S NOT ON THE LIST!! A BASIC FUNCTION THAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED AS IT WAS PRE-MAVERSICKS!!

  16. Bernie O'Mahony - 10 years ago

    Yeah, nice going Apple. Deleted all my images on documents that took over a year to build, for a publication early next year. Not only are the images gone from the documents, they don’t exist in my hard drive anymore! Building software has long been Apple’s downfall – try hiring people who actually know what the f%;# they are doing!!

  17. Tyler Smith - 10 years ago

    Any idea if toolbar orientation will be restored to the top of the page? The side menu is maddening!

  18. cleemckenzie - 10 years ago

    I’m going nuts with the new Pages Find. Where is the Search that I dearly loved. It showed at the side. It gave me the location of each item, so it was an easy scroll down to where I knew I wanted to be in the document. Yuck to Find. It’s cumbersome and time-consuming.

  19. cleemckenzie - 10 years ago

    And while I’m here and taking a break because I’m going mad with FIND! I would love to have the word count come up out of the text. It’s very annoying to 1) have to choose view with word count 2) have the word count get in the way of my text.

  20. Victor Torres - 10 years ago

    Why do we have to choose only one option on the pool? If I’d like to choose both?