iWork
iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple for its macOS, iPadOS, and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website.
Original author(s)
iWork includes the presentation application Keynote, the word-processing and desktop-publishing application Pages,[1][4] and the spreadsheet application Numbers.[5] Apple's design goals in creating iWork have been to allow Mac users to easily create attractive documents and spreadsheets, making use of macOS's extensive font library, integrated spelling checker, sophisticated graphics APIs and its AppleScript automation framework.
The equivalent Microsoft Office applications to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, respectively.[6] Although Microsoft Office applications cannot open iWork documents, iWork applications can open Office documents for editing, and export documents from iWork’s native formats (.pages, .numbers, .key) to Microsoft Office formats (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc.) as well as to PDF files.
The oldest application in iWork is Keynote, first released as a standalone application in 2003 for use by Steve Jobs in his presentations. Steve Jobs announced Keynote saying "It's for when your presentation really matters".
Pages was released with the first iWork bundle in 2004; Numbers was added in 2007 with the release of iWork '08. The next release, iWork '09, also included beta access to iWork.com, an online service that allowed users to upload and share documents on the web,[5] now integrated into Apple's iCloud service. A version of iWork for iOS was released in 2010 with the first iPad, and the apps have been regularly updated since, including the addition of iPhone support. In 2013, Apple launched iWork web apps in iCloud; even years later, however, their functionality is somewhat limited compared to equivalents on the desktop.
iWork was initially sold as a suite for $79, then later at $19.99 per app on OS X and $9.99 per app on iOS. Apple announced in October 2013 that all iOS and OS X devices purchased onwards,[7] whether new or refurbished, would be eligible for a free download of all three iWork apps: after device setup, the user can “claim” the apps on the App Store, after which they’re permanently linked to the user’s Apple ID. iWork for iCloud, which also incorporates a document hosting service, is free to all iCloud users. iWork was released for free on macOS and iOS (including older or resold devices) in April 2017.
In September 2016, Apple announced that the real-time collaboration feature would be available for all iWork apps.[8]
History[edit]
The first version of iWork, iWork '05, was announced on January 11, 2005 at the Macworld Conference & Expo and made available on January 22 in the United States and worldwide on January 29. iWork '05 comprised two applications: Keynote 2, a presentation creation program, and Pages, a word processor. iWork '05 was sold for US$79. A 30-day trial was also made available for download on Apple's website.[1] Originally IGG Software held the rights to the name iWork.[9]
While iWork was billed by Apple as "a successor to AppleWorks",[1] it does not replicate AppleWorks's database and drawing tools.[10] However, iWork integrates with existing applications from Apple's iLife suite through the Media Browser, which allows users to drag and drop music from iTunes, movies from iMovie, and photos from iPhoto and Aperture directly into iWork documents.[1]
iWork '06 was released on January 10, 2006 and contained updated versions of both Keynote and Pages. Both programs were released as universal binaries for the first time, allowing them to run natively on both PowerPC processors and the Intel processors used in the new iMac desktop computers and MacBook Pro notebooks which had been announced on the same day as the new iWork suite.[11]
The next version of the suite, iWork '08, was announced and released on August 7, 2007 at a special media event at Apple's campus in Cupertino, California. iWork '08, like previous updates, contained updated versions of Keynote and Pages. A new spreadsheet application, Numbers, was also introduced. Numbers differed from other spreadsheet applications, including Microsoft Excel, in that it allowed users to create documents containing multiple spreadsheets on a flexible canvas using a number of built-in templates.[5]
iWork '09, was announced on January 6, 2009 and released the same day. It contains updated versions of all three applications in the suite. iWork '09 also included access to a beta version of the iWork.com service, which allowed users to share documents online until that service was decommissioned at the end of July 2012. Users of iWork '09 could upload a document directly from Pages, Keynote, or Numbers and invite others to view it online. Viewers could write notes and comments in the document, and download a copy in iWork, Microsoft Office, or PDF formats.[12] iWork '09 was also released with the Mac App Store on January 6, 2011 at $19.99 per application, and received regular updates after this point, including links to iCloud and a high-DPI version designed to match Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display.[13]
On January 27, 2010, Apple announced iWork for iPad, to be available as three separate $9.99 applications from the App Store.[14] This version has also received regular updates including a version for pocket iPhone and iPod Touch devices, and an update to take advantage of Retina Display devices and the larger screens of recent iPhones.
On October 22, 2013, Apple announced an overhaul of the iWork software for both the Mac and iOS. Both suites were made available via the respective App Stores. The update is free for current iWork owners[14] and was also made available free of charge for anyone purchasing an OS X or iOS device after October 1, 2013.[15] Any user activating the newly free iWork apps on a qualifying device can download the same apps on another iOS or OS X device logged into the same App Store account.
The new OS X versions have been criticized[16] for losing features such as multiple selection, linked text boxes, bookmarks, 2-up page views, mail merge, searchable comments, ability to read/export RTF files, default zoom and page count, integration with AppleScript. Apple has provided a road-map for feature re-introduction, stating that it hopes to reintroduce some missing features within the next six months. As of April 1, 2014 a few features—e.g., the ability to set the default zoom—had been reintroduced, though scores had not.[17]
Due to using a completely new file format that can work across macOS, Windows, and in most web browsers by using the online iCloud web apps, versions of iWork beginning with iWork 13 and later do not open or allow editing of documents created in versions prior to iWork '09, with users who attempt to open older iWork files being given a pop-up in the new iWork 13 app versions telling them to use the previous iWork '09 (which users may or may not have on their machine) in order to open and edit such files. Accordingly, the current version for OS X (which was initially only compatible with OS X Mavericks 10.9 onwards) moves any previously installed iWork '09 apps to an iWork '09 folder on the users machine (in /Applications/iWork '09/), as a work-around to allow users continued use of the earlier suite in order to open and edit older iWork documents locally on their machine.[18] In October 2015, Apple released an update to mitigate this issue, allowing users to open documents saved in iWork '06 and iWork '08 formats in the latest version of Pages.[19]
In 2016, Apple announced that the real-time collaboration feature would be available for all iWork apps, instead of being constrained to using iWork for iCloud.[20] The feature is comparable to Google Docs.[21][22]
Available in
Multilingual
July 31, 2012
iWork.com (archived at Wayback Machine)
Free while in beta; requires iWork '09[33]
Required (Apple ID)
January 6, 2009
Defunct
Components[edit]
Common components[edit]
Products in the iWork suite share a number of components, largely as a result of sharing underlying code from the Cocoa and similar shared application programming interfaces (APIs). Among these are the well known universal multilingual spell checker, which can also be found in products like Safari and Mail. Grammar checking, find and replace, style and color pickers are similar examples of design features found throughout the Apple application space.
Moreover, the applications in the iWork suite also share a new model of the document. In most document-based applications there is a particular data type which forms the basis of the application's view of the world, for instance, in word processors the text is the first-class citizen of the application, while in a spreadsheet it is the cells in the table. Other objects, images or charts for instance, are managed by being attached to, or referenced to, the underlying primary data type.
In iWork, all of the applications share a common underlying document format, the "canvas", a generic container type that provides layout and storage mechanisms. Each application then adds its own custom objects and places them on the canvas. Pages, for instance, conventionally opens with a single large text object on the canvas. To the user it appears to be a typical word processor, but they can grab the corner and re-size it as in a page layout application. In Numbers, one initially sees a grid of cells like any other spreadsheet, but the user is free to size it smaller than the canvas, and then add multiple grids, charts or even drawings to the same canvas.
The difference is subtle, as many of these features are also implemented in more traditional programs like Microsoft Excel. However, the difference in UI can be significant. In Excel, for instance, charts are stored as part of a sheet, and can be moved inadvertently through natural user actions. In Numbers, charts are, like everything else, part of the canvas, and changes to the sheet(s) are normally independent.
The iWork model bears some resemblance to the earlier Apple effort, OpenDoc. OpenDoc also used a single underlying document engine, along with a single on-disk format. Unlike iWork, however, OpenDoc also used a single application, in which various editors could be invoked. For instance, one could open a generic document, start a spreadsheet editor, then add a spreadsheet. iWork lacks this level of flexibility in editing terms, but maintains it in layout.