Apple Updates Existing iWork Suite for OS X Lion

Why was the iWork update pushed out through Software Update and not the Mac App Store? :rolleyes: iWork is purchased through the Mac App Store, so it would only make since to receive updates from it as well.

Because iWorks has other methods that people could have gotten it.

i was hoping for more of an iWork '11 =/

Hey guys,
I'm a new college student, and I was wondering, what'll be better for me? Microsoft Office 2011 or iWork 09 and WHY? Also, incase I end up buying iWork, are they coming out with new iWork soon or no?

So am I. I'm bringing both; each suite has its own pros and cons.

Does anyone use iWork these days?
I'm good with Ommwriter and Google Docs.

I do. I can't stand how slow Google Docs is. And, I have found it to be unreliable. More than once I have gotten a bunch of code instead of my document.

i was hoping for more of an iWork '11 =/

We all are but this update is also welcome.

Why was the iWork update pushed out through Software Update and not the Mac App Store? :rolleyes: iWork is purchased through the Mac App Store, so it would only make since to receive updates from it as well.

Numbers is way snappier with this update under Lion that it was on the same hardware under Snow Leopard...

Just saying...

I wonder if I should update from iWork '08 or wait a bit longer...if only it was obvious whether Apple planned on releasing a new paid version anytime soon...?!

That's not even a contest: Microsoft Office, for the simple reason that it is the de facto standard all around the globe. You will be receiving and submitting a lot of documents from and to people who probably have never heard of iWork before, and although iWork can theoretically open and save Microsoft Office documents, it's not very good at it and will lose or screw up text formattings, doesn't know what to do with Office makros and will have a lot of other incompatibilities.

iWork is a nice solution for pure home users and people who do not need real Microsoft Office compatibility at all.

Anyway. If you're looking for a serious writing tool that helps you work on complex and long manuscripts, I recommend that you take a good look at Scrivener, either on www.literatureandlatte.com or in the Mac App Store.

Hogwash wtr to the formatting. My wife has been using it for medical presentations and everyone has been asking how she gets her slides so nice. Only very complex formatting is likely to be lost (and it was probably a stupid way to do it, such as nesting ridiculous numbers of tables to get a few columns lined up.) I could also regale you with other anecdotes but life marches on --- and I'm slacking off. Office macros are a given, but what other incompatibilities are you claiming?

1. Compare the price, if it is important to you
2. MS Office can do more - it is a more complex bunch of programs. However, what iWork doesn't do, I generally find I don't need (and I am a lawyer, so WP layout is very important as is spreadsheet functionality)
3. Having said that, there are some things that iWork handles far far better. Examples:
(a) Keynote is far better than Powerpoint - all round
(b) Pages handles 'wrap around' text when diagrams or pictures are placed in a document in a far superior way to MS Word, which is close to impossible to use for this. If you do this, Pages makes the whole thing so easy (place the picture on the page and Pages manages the wrap around in a visually pleasing way - that is all there is to it)
(c) MS Excel does not like multiple tables on one sheet, which limits the output of any reasonably complex analytical tool
4. For some time, the 'share' function from iWork means that the iWork documents are automatically converted to pdfs or MS Office documents. The process from within Pages, for example, to send an email with the document as an attachment makes this easy, streamlined and requires no additional steps. For me, this was a breakthrough.
5. I found MS Office (particularly Word, but this might be because 95%+ of my work is word processing) was unstable on a Mac and would sometimes 'crash'. Usually at 2 in the morning before an important case. I have found iWork to be far more stable (although I have had an issue with the Duplicate/Revert function in the current build)

Updates: the way in which iWork (on a Mac) links with iCloud needs reviewing and bringing closer to the ease with which iWork on iOS works. The interface between iCloud on the web and iWork could be simplified and managing documents saved on iCloud is frankly far easier from an iDevice than from my Mac.

The change from Save As to Duplicate/Revert suits me fine.

There is a small instability within the Pages program involving the Duplicate/Revert function but it has not yet caused me to lose any work due to Autosave.