Several clues surfacing in recent days have hinted that Apple's iWork and iLife suites may be undergoing substantial redevelopment.
Late last week, Apple Bitch noticed two new job listings for senior software engineers for the company's iLife team, with the descriptions emphasizing a desire to "re-imagine how user interfaces should be built and work". MacNN followed up with its own reporting pointing to a number of other job postings for both the iLife and iWork teams suggesting that Apple is making significant additions to its teams.
Apple has recently added several job postings that explicitly reference the iLife team or the suite itself, including requests for an engineer in the iLife Frameworks QA department; a QA engineer to help test new features in iPhoto (that requires a "passion" for digital photography); a Senior User Interface Designer for iWork, and two Senior Software Engineer positions that explicitly reference working on the user interface of iLife.
Apple's iWork productivity suite, which includes Pages, Numbers and Keynote, last received minor updates in December, while the last major update came over four years ago. iLife represents Apple's consumer apps (iPhoto, GarageBand and iMovie) and saw its last major update in October 2010.
Apple has also been active in the area of document management and the cloud, acquiring 18 patents addressing information management from Maya-Systems.
a file sorting system that can reorganize according to time, category, or a common theme -- such as a work project -- and sync with cloud servers and other users
New senior hires and patent acquisition may point to a major redevelopment of the software, but as new hires are typically done early in the development cycle, it may be some time before the fruits of such work are released to the public.
It is also likely that the new versions of iLife and iWork would lose the skeuomorphisms - emulation of real-life objects and materials like desk calendars, leather and wood. There have long been tensions within Apple over this approach, but with skeuomorphism proponent Scott Forstall being forced out of Apple and Jonathan Ive having now assumed responsibility for Human Interface aspects of software as well as hardware design, a new design direction for Apple's software may be in progress.
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models.
In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB.
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Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips.
The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip.
Gurman...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by Juli Clover
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below.
MacBook Pro
M5...
Tuesday October 14, 2025 11:59 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak today teased the launch of an upcoming product, saying "something powerful is coming" on social media.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
A short animation accompanying Joswiak's teaser reveals a brief glimpse of a MacBook Pro along with the words "coming soon." The shape of the MacBook Pro is a V, which is the Roman numeral...
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version?
According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band.
The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM.
With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac.
M5 Chip
The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip.
The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store.
In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
Skeuomorphism or not, visual variety is useful: shape, texture and color cues that tell you instantly where you are and what you're doing, and trigger your habits for that particular app. Much more productive and easier to use than having everything look alike, as pleasingly minimalist as that can be on an artistic level. I'm happy to have GarageBand feel unique in one way and Calendar feel unique in another. Same reason the folders of papers in my cabinet are color-coded!
(Example: OS X's Finder sidebar icon like Home and Desktop that used to have colored sidebar icons. Now they're all the same blue-gray and you've lost a visual cue that made them quicker to find and click. Compare to the Go menu which still has the colors. "Like" them or not, those colors were useful!)
I don't think skeuomorphism is a problem... bad or useless skeuomorphism is! But so is bad or useless interface design of any kind. (Like relying on unique swipe commands with no visual cue to remind you how this app works.)
And one long-time classic skeuomorphic element makes good sense even with minimalist design: making buttons stand forward. In print, nothing is clickable and flat 2D design is great. On a device, some things are tappable/clickable/draggable--exactly like real-world controls--and giving them a little depth is a logical and useful convention. (Sorry, Windows Metro: I like the look and I'd hang it on my wall, but it has usability issues.)
So here's hoping for minimalist UIs... with clean, simple skeuomorphic elements where they're useful.
It's getting embarrassing loading up a brand new laptop and having to put er, iLife 2011 on it. Or even iWork 2009.
'Why are you putting that old stuff on it?'
'It's Apple's newest stuff! I swear!'
The basic functionality of the apps is OK but they need some tweaking and be a bit more collaboration / internet aware. iPhoto especially starts like a dog.
