Apple Promises to Fix iWork Over Next 6 Months

OopsApple issued a rare mea culpa Wednesday, one in which it acknowledged the mess that is the recent iWork update and promised to fix it. The company said that during the next six months, it will be restoring features removed from Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, as well as compatibility with files created with previous versions.

In a document called "About the new iWork for Mac: Features and compatibility," Apple said that it released new versions of the apps with new features and blah blah blah.

The important part comes in the third paragraph, where the company wrote, "In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release. We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis." [Emphasis added]

Apple went further by providing a specific list of such features that will be (re)added to the apps during the next six months:

Pages

  • Customize toolbar
  • Vertical ruler
  • Improved alignment guides
  • Improved object placement
  • Import of cells with images
  • Improved word counts
  • Keyboard shortcuts for styles
  • Manage pages and sections from the thumbnail view

Numbers

  • Customize toolbar
  • Improvements to zoom and window placement
  • Multi-column and range sort
  • Auto-complete text in cells
  • Page headers and footers
  • Improvements to AppleScript support

Keynote

  • Customize toolbar
  • Restoring old transitions and builds
  • Improvements to presenter display
  • Improvements to AppleScript support

It's as if the Pages list was taken from Jeff Gamet's review, but criticism of these updates has been universal.

Apple also pointed out that when iWork was updated, the old versions of the app were removed to a folder called "iWork 09" in your Applications folder. With that came instructions for reverting documents back to previous versions' file format:

  1. Documents that you haven't edited can be reverted to the iWork ’09 version by selecting File > Revert To.
  2. If you have edited the document and want to preserve the edits, you can save it as an iWork ’09 document by selecting File > Export To, then choosing Pages ’09, Numbers ’09, or Keynote ’09.

This is a solid move by Apple.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.