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Some Power Users Are Unhappy With Lost Features in the New iWork

Friday October 25, 2013 1:12 pm PDT by Jordan Golson
IworkA number of power users of Apple's Pages application have expressed concern over what they see as a step backward in the just-released upgrade of iWork. One blogger, Pierre Igot, called the new release of Pages an "unmitigated disaster", and there is a 26-page thread on the Apple Support forums and several threads on the MacRumors forums examining features that have been removed from the various iWork applications.

From Igot's post:
Apple’s engineers appear to have chosen to keep the emphasis on "simplicity" at the expense of "power". They have not just neglected to add features to bring the feature set of the application closer to that of a word processor like Microsoft Word. They have actually removed many features for no apparent reason other than to bring the application in line with its iOS counterpart, which is, inevitably, much less powerful.
It appears Apple's intention was to increase both usability and cross-platform compatibility of Pages across the OS X, iOS, and iWork in iCloud, at the expense of some more powerful features.

Amongst the missing features, Pages has lost a number of templates, the ability to export to .rtf file formats, keyboard shortcuts to paragraph and character styes, and AppleScript support is not working properly.

This isn't the first time that Apple has seen criticisms from power users over an updated product release. The company was hammered by power users of Final Cut Pro X when it was released in 2011, because a number of essential features were completely missing from the software. Apple offered refunds to unhappy customers and launched a new marketing campaign to win back skeptical users after adding many of the features that were requested.

Of course, the new release is a free update to a consumer-focused software product where many of the missing features were likely never used by the majority of Apple's customers, so the concerns of power users may fall on deaf ears. Igot does note that the company -- perhaps intentionally -- set aside iWork '09 applications in a folder on computers that upgraded to the new versions, so users who prefer the older Pages app can continue to use it, albeit without the iCloud and cross-platform features in the new release.

John Gruber believes Apple may be willing to sacrifice overall functionality to create parity across the iOS, OS X and web versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote over the short-term. However, Apple has not yet given any indication as to what future versions of iWork could look like -- or if they will eventually gain some of the features missing in the new version.

Upset Pages users would be well-served to give Apple feedback on its website.

[ 598 comments ]


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Hastings101
69 months ago
I use Microsoft Office.

muhahahaha
Rating: 52 Votes
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840quadra
69 months ago
The inability to export to RTF is kinda big. I wouldn't consider it a power user feature, it is a nice option when working with cross platform applications.
Rating: 41 Votes
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AustinIllini
69 months ago

can't please everyone


Make it simple and powerful. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Rating: 34 Votes
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Parasprite
69 months ago
Today I learned that preinstalled templates are a power user feature.
Rating: 32 Votes
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Mr-Stabby
69 months ago
Remember that, like Final Cut Pro X, this was a 'from the ground up' rewrite of the software. It is never going to have all the features of the original in the first version. But (and i'm no Apple fanboy believe me) you have to say that Apple did a great job at getting Final Cut Pro X up to speed in a very short time, and I went from a FCPX hater to using it as my primary NLE. I imagine iWork will get its features back eventually. But unlike FCPX, they haven't shut out the previous version of the software for people who still need it. So callllm down everyone, everything will be ok :D
Rating: 25 Votes
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9947273
69 months ago
Power Users? That use iWork?
Something must be wrong here!
Rating: 24 Votes
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Lancer09
69 months ago
Microsoft's Office 365 is better. Sorry Apple but your software is great when its free but only because it's free.
Rating: 23 Votes
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xNYMetsx
69 months ago
It actually is pretty bad
Rating: 20 Votes
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email68
69 months ago
Add Garageband to the list

They messed up Garageband too. You can't even export MP3 anymore or set the parameters you want. :mad:

Funny what they call an upgrade. Making the desktop less powerful to be parity with a weaker (IOS) platform is a mistake. Lowest common denominator.
Rating: 20 Votes
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jlgolson
69 months ago

going backward. I miss SJ! Apple will disappear in 10 years

I wouldn't consider Steve to be your savior here.

Steve Jobs Once Considered Killing Apple's Pro Products (https://www.macrumors.com/2013/08/09/steve-jobs-once-considered-killing-apples-pro-products/)
Rating: 20 Votes

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