Apple Makes iMovie, GarageBand, and iWork Apps for Mac and iOS Free for All Users

Tuesday April 18, 2017 11:55 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today updated several of its Mac and iOS apps, making them available for all Mac and iOS users for free.

iMovie, Numbers, Keynote, Pages, and GarageBand for both Mac and iOS devices have been updated and are now listed in the App Store for free.


Previously, all of these apps were provided for free to customers who purchased a new Mac or iOS device, but now that purchase is not required to get the software. Many Apple customers were already likely eligible to download the software at no cost if they had made a device purchase in the last few years.

Apple's iWork page has not yet been updated and continues to say that customers will only be able to download Pages, Keynote, and Numbers after purchasing an eligible Mac or iOS device, but new wording may be added shortly following the price drop. Apple's apps have also been removed from the Top Free app charts in the App Store.

Apple has been offering these apps for free to new Mac and iOS device owners since 2013, but dropping the price to free for all users makes it less confusing and opens up downloads for those who have not recently made a new device purchase.

- Pages for macOS [Direct Link]
- Keynote for macOS [Direct Link]
- Numbers for macOS [Direct Link]
- GarageBand for macOS - [Direct Link]
- iMovie for macOS - [Direct Link]

- Pages for iOS - [Direct Link]
- Keynote for iOS - [Direct Link]
- Numbers for iOS - [Direct Link]
- GarageBand for iOS - [Direct Link]
- iMovie for iOS - [Direct Link]

Update: According to a support document, today's app changes will make it easier for business and educational institutions to download Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, and iMovie through the Volume Purchase Program store.

Tags: iWork, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie, GarageBand
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/V\acpower
36 months ago
Finally.

So much more simple this way.
Rating: 28 Votes
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/V\acpower
36 months ago

They made them free to any new owner since 2013... surely everyone has met that criteria by now right? Who will this appeal to?

Genuinely curious, not bashing!


Well anyone with an older Mac, or anyone who bought an used one.
Rating: 25 Votes
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scottish
36 months ago
Good. Should have just been free to everyone since 2013.
Rating: 13 Votes
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Sirious
36 months ago
They made them free to any new owner since 2013... surely everyone has met that criteria by now right? Who will this appeal to?

Genuinely curious, not bashing!

(Edit:Thanks for all the answers and I got another answer from the update in the post).
Rating: 12 Votes
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/V\acpower
36 months ago

Eh....

I recently got a Pages document and I couldn't open it with MS Word. There needs to be better compatibility between the two apps.


The problem is Microsoft not willing to add Pages documents support to Office, obviously because they are the dominant platform.

Apple did what they had to do : support for opening and exporting to .doc and .docx.
Rating: 9 Votes
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keysofanxiety
36 months ago
This is great news! Should stop any confusion down the line – you download it for free, or don't download it at all. So much more simple.
Rating: 9 Votes
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maflynn
36 months ago

A very strong move against Microsoft Office

Not really MS Office is a more robust suite of applications.

As for the move, I think its a good move and I think was curious that they were charging for this when they were giving it away for new owners.
Rating: 9 Votes
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iToph
36 months ago
iWork is not worth a cent. So, it should have been free since 2013
Rating: 8 Votes
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tubular
36 months ago

The real question is who uses iWorks?

I do. All the time.
Rating: 7 Votes
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sracer
36 months ago

I tried using Pages and Numbers, but they were not very intuitive so I went back to Microsoft Office. Since Apple has a reputation of not continually improving its apps, I suspect they're still inferior products.

"intuitive" is relative.... relative to what you are comfortable with and familiar with. The document creation workflow in iWork is quite a bit different than for MS Office. Back-in-the-day, I used ClarisWorks (the great-grandfather of iWork) for Windows instead of MS Office even though I have extensive experience with MS Office. The workflow was just so much more streamlined.

That tradition was carried on from ClarisWorks to AppleWorks to iWork '09 to iWork (Dumb Dora Edition).

This is not true for all document creation scenarios but, for me using the iWork mindset to create docs in iWork is superior to using the MS Office mindset to create docs in MS Office. But there are still documents that are easier to create using MS Office and in those scenarios, I use MS Office.

It is a bit sad to see many quick to dismiss iWork as being nothing more advanced than Google Docs or the web version of MS Office. It is far more than those... even in the latest dumbed-down incarnation.
Rating: 7 Votes

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