Apple Unveils iWork ‘09

[hugh]

Apple today introduced iWork ’09, the latest version of Apple’s popular office productivity suite.

• Keynote ’09 introduces advanced object transitions, which automatically animate objects with a choice of effects and Magic Move, an innovative way to create sophisticated animations just by applying a simple transition.
• Pages ’09 features a new Full Screen view that helps you focus on your writing and an outline mode to organize your thoughts.
• Numbers ’09 introduces a quick way to group and summarize data and a dramatically simplified way to create complex formulas.
• Apple also announced iWork.com public beta, a new service Apple is developing to share iWork ’09 documents online.

iWork ’09 is now available for $79 US for for $49 (US) with the purchase of any Mac through the Apple Store.

[hugh]

more info

Keynote ’09 introduces Magic Move, which allows you to apply a simple transition to automatically animate the position, scale, rotation and opacity of any image, graphic or text that is repeated on consecutive slides. New text transitions morph text from one slide to the next. New advanced object transitions animate objects off one slide while simultaneously animating objects onto the next slide with a choice of effects. 3D charts now include cylinder shapes, beveled-edge pie charts, new textures and four new 3D build effects. The Keynote Remote application, sold separately in the App Store, lets you view slides and presenter notes and control your presentation with your iPhone™ or iPod touch.

Pages ’09 Full Screen view lets you focus on your document without any distractions and reveals the menus, format bar and page navigator only when needed. Outline mode includes templates that help to quickly build the framework for your document and allow you to collapse, expand and rearrange elements, even inline graphics, with ease. MathType 6 support lets engineers, mathematicians and students easily add sophisticated equations to their documents and EndNote X2 integration lets users add and edit comprehensive bibliographic references. Pages ’09 also includes 40 new Apple-designed templates, including newsletters, posters, certificates and coordinated stationery.

Numbers ’09 provides a great way to quickly categorize data by column, which you can then collapse, expand and summarize to easily make sense of large sets of data. Numbers ’09 makes formula writing dramatically easier with an enhanced function browser which includes built-in help for over 250 functions, and visual placeholders with tool tips that explain each variable in a formula. Use the new Formula List to view all formulas in your entire spreadsheet and jump directly to any formula cell with a single click. Expanded chart options include mixed chart types, two-axis charts, and the ability to apply trend lines and error bars. Numbers charts pasted into Pages or Keynote are linked, and can be updated with a single click.

Apple also introduced iWork.com public beta, a new service Apple is developing to share iWork ’09 documents online. Using your Apple ID, just click the iWork.com icon in the Keynote, Pages or Numbers toolbar to upload your document and invite others to view it online. Viewers can provide comments and notes, and download a copy of your document in iWork, Microsoft Office or PDF formats. A consolidated online list of all your shared documents indicates when your viewers have posted comments.

[outinthornhill]

A 30-day free demo of iWork '09 is available for download.

The installation was flawless, as was using an existing Apple ID to register on iWork.com to share documents.

So far I have only used Pages, but the full-screen-view option is one I know I want to have. I work on a 13" MacBook and gaining so much screen space is very helpful.

As for iWork.com as a paid subscription, I hope users can convince Apple to include it in MobileMe (which for those who haven't heard,is working very much as promised). Is it coincidental that iWork.com is billed as a beta after the initial mess that was MobileMe? Someone, I think, learned something about making sure it works before charging a fee for the service. Maybe Aplle is waiting to make it a fee-based service when iWork becomes becomes a web app and not just a file sharing site as has been rumoured.

[57]

Just purchased a Macbook Pro and wanted to use my existing Office 2004 from my desktop, but I was told it would not work on the new laptop, so I purchased iWork. Price was not too high and I didn't mind trying it. One problem that I ran into right away is that I have password protected some of my Excel files and "Numbers" won't open them - says it's encrypted. I can open non-PW protected files just fine. I'll do some more research but if anyone else has run into this issue and has a solution (other than going to the original file in Excel and un-protecting), please advise. Thanks.

[notsure]

I love iWork. My only gripe with it is the fact the files it creates are not compatible with the Open Document Format and cannot be used directly in OpenOffice.

Don't know if this makes a difference to you or not 57.

With MS Office was able to open everything (with the sometimes loss of formatting) in OpenOffice.

Cheers.

[Gino Cerullo]

Office 2004 will work on any system running 10.6.x Snow Leopard. The problem is that Office 2004 is a PowerPC app and requires that you install Rosetta, an optional install, for it to work. Rosetta is on the system disk that came with your computer.

Rosetta, and therefore PowerPC apps, will no longer work in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion so if you want to continue working with those old protected Excel files you need an newer version of Office that runs on Intel or you'll have to remove the passwords.