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Apple's iWork, iMovie and iPhoto will now be available for free on new iOS devices
Today at Apple's next-generation iPhone event, Tim Cook revealed on stage that the iWork suite of applications -- Keynote, Pages and Numbers -- will be available for free on all new iOS devices. That's not it, however, as the Apple CEO also announced that iPhoto and iMovie will follow suit and be up for grabs at no cost. Apple only mentioned that this will apply to "new" devices and the 5th-gen iPod touch -- we're looking into which other iPhone and iPad models can also take advantage of the company's now-free productivity apps, so stay tuned to this post as we'll be updating it as soon we find out. Update: As some you, our dear readers, have pointed out, below is the official footnote displayed on Apple's website. iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers are free on the App Store for qualifying iOS 7 compatible devices activated after September 1, 2013. See www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/for iOS 7 compatible devices. Downloading apps requires an Apple ID. Check out all the coverage at our iPhone 'Special Event' 2013 event hub!
Apple limiting access to iWork for iCloud beta because it's too popular
Apple appears to now be limiting access to the iWork for iCloud beta for select users. It was just last week that the company opened the beta to everyone, but now an "overwhelming response" is forcing the company to pull back. The message in the image above is appearing for some users when they try to access the iWork for iCloud beta (whether it's Pages, Number or Keynote). There's no word on when the limited access will be lifted, but Apple tells users to "check back soon." It's also important to note that restricted access to the beta does not affect a user's ability to store iWork documents in iCloud.
iWork for iCloud beta now open to everyone (with an Apple ID)
Apple has opened the iWork for iCloud beta to everyone with an Apple ID. Previously, the beta was only open to developers and select users, but today's release means everyone get access, even those without iWork for iOS or OS X. There are indications that iWork might go free for iOS and OS X later this year, and the fact that the iWork for iCloud beta is open to all lends support to that. However, Apple could have just chosen to open the iWork for iCloud beta to all for a limited time to test for bugs on a large scale. Apple has not issued any statement regarding the iWork for iCloud beta availability. To access the iWork for iCloud beta, simply go to www.icloud.com and log in. You'll then see the three icons for Pages, Keynote and Numbers appear.
iWork for iCloud beta now open to anyone with an Apple ID
First it was available to developers, then a select few who received invitations, and now the beta of iWork for iCloud is available for all. Apple's made no official announcement, but point your browser to icloud.com, punch in your Apple ID details, and there you have it: Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Seeming as you normally have to pay for the iWork software suite, this could be a time-sensitive public beta that'll be pulled once you've found all the bugs (this editor has full access without owning any of the iWork programs). So, you might as well have a go at being productive in the cloud before it's too late.
Kanex meDrive: A pocket-sized file server for iOS and OS X
Imagine having a way to access shared files from your Mac, PC, or iOS devices without needing to tie up a computer to act as a file server. That's the idea behind the Kanex meDrive (US$79), a tiny box that connects to your Wi-Fi router and any USB flash or hard drive, and then works with a free companion app to give you your own "personal file server" at home or office. Read the review, and then enter for a chance to win a meDrive courtesy of Kanex and TUAW. Design The meDrive is tiny and lightweight, measuring in at only about 2.25" x 3.5" x .88" and weighing just 5.4 ounces. On the meDrive are three ports -- a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port for connecting to a Wi-Fi router, a USB 2.0 port for connecting storage, and a mini-USB port for power. You'll need to supply your own USB power adapter and your own storage, the meDrive's firmware does the rest. %Gallery-194942% Functionality Setup is incredibly easy and takes just a few seconds to accomplish. Run the included Ethernet cable between your router and the meDrive, plug in your drive (I tested the meDrive with a tiny 8 GB Apotop USB flash drive, but you could plug in a multi-terabyte hard drive just as easily), and then plug the included USB to mini-USB cable into the meDrive on one end and a USB power adapter on the other. A white LED glows to tell you that the meDrive is online, and you're ready to go. From a Mac, connecting to the meDrive is easy -- in the Finder, select Go > Connect to Server and then type in "smb://medrive". When prompted, enter the user ID and password and then start loading the drive with files. Windows users just mount a drive to "\\medrive\usb01" for access. iOS devices get their own free meDrive app, which allows attachment to any meDrives that are found on the same Wi-Fi network. Once again, a user ID and password must be entered for access to the storage connected to the meDrive. The setup isn't exactly speedy, seeing that it's dependent on the speed of whatever drive you have attached. In my tests I tried both that little Apotop flash drive -- which was really slow -- and a USB 2.0 external HD that wasn't as bad. The iOS app provided a quick way to both save and open documents that were stored on the meDrive; I also used the WebDAV capabilities to save iWork documents using the "Copy to WebDAV" function built into the iWork apps. Conclusion For $79 plus the cost of whatever storage you want to add to it, the meDrive is an inexpensive and simple to use home file server. Sure, it's not going to be as fast or have as much storage as a Mac mini running OS X Server, but it's certainly a lot easier to set up and maintain. Pros Truly plug-and-play setup Free universal app works well to access meDrive from iOS devices Compatible with both OS X and Windows through SMB protocol Cons User must provide own USB power brick Slow compared to dedicated file servers costing much more Who is it for? Anyone who wants an easy-to-use shared file server that can be accessed from virtually any device Giveaway Now it's your turn to set up your household file server for sharing content to all the family members. Here are the rules for the giveaway: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. To enter, fill out the form below completely and click or tap the Submit button. The entry must be made before August 1, 2013 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. One winner will be selected and will receive a Kanex meDrive valued at US$79 Click Here for complete Official Rules. Loading...
iWork for iCloud beta invites expand the pool of access
As work continues on Apple's newest cloud application suite, iWork for iCloud, the circle of access for non-developers appears to be widening. We reported back on July 3 that some iCloud users were already seeing the beta versions of the web productivity apps in their iCloud dashboards, although Apple hadn't made any noticeable announcements about expanding the beta pool. Yesterday, however, MacRumors noted that some readers were getting actual email invitations to join the iWork for iCloud beta. The email encourages users to log into iCloud and try the apps, and to provide Apple with feedback on them. Given that there are still a few key features yet to be implemented (printing, for instance) you won't want to turn to the beta web versions for day-to-day use, but it's certainly nice to see the early editions getting some expanded exposure. I was surprised to see the beta versions showing up in my own iCloud dashboard this morning, but it's possible they've been there for a while. Sure enough, all my iPad-based Keynote presentations are present and editable -- and since most of those are long out of date, I might as well delete them and free up some storage space. Thanks for the reminder, iCloud!
Apple sends iWork for iCloud beta invitations to everyday users
Apple was quick to invite developers to the iWork for iCloud beta in the aftermath of WWDC, but us commoners have had to settle for watching from afar. The company is quickly opening things up, however -- it just started sending out beta invitations to ordinary iCloud users, including some Engadget readers. While this isn't likely to represent Apple's promised public beta, it's clear that we're now much closer to the day when everyone can give the web-based iWork a try. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Web versions of iWork available on iCloud beta site for some users
Apple launched the developer beta for the new online iCloud-based iWork tools this past June, including Numbers, Pages and Keynote. Today, we've noticed that some users have been able to login to the system and try out the new features. Access seems to be randomly available with some people, such as myself, still being told they need a developer ID to gain access. The new iCloud versions of these apps take aim at other cloud-based office tools like Google Docs and Microsoft's new Office 365, and can be used on a Mac or PC. Even if you're not a developer, it might be worth trying your luck. You might be pleasantly surprised to find yourself with access -- but do keep in mind it is a beta.
Daily Update for June 14, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Apple opens iWork for iCloud beta to registered developers
One part of Monday's WWDC 2013 keynote that seems to have received short shrift in the discussions of updated products is iWork. During the keynote, iWork for iCloud -- a browser-based version of Apple's office suite -- was discussed along with comments about the iOS versions of the suite. Now Apple has followed up the announcement by opening a beta of iWork for iCloud to registered developers. While the browser-based iWork for iCloud is meant to work on Mac or PC in just about any browser, developers opening the beta web apps in Chrome are greeted with a message saying "Your browser isn't fully supported. For the best Pages/Keynote/Numbers for iCloud experience, use the latest version of Safari." For those who have been using the current version of iWork and saving documents to iCloud, all of the saved documents are immediately available for test. The web suite will be released to the world later this year; at the present time, developers can try out the apps by logging in at beta.icloud.com.
Apple announces iWork for iCloud
Apple's Roger Rosner announced iWork for iCloud today at WWDC. With this new iCloud tool, users will be able to fully edit Numbers, Pages and Keynote documents via their web browser regardless of the operating system they're working on. Yes, since iWork for iCloud is accessed via a browser you can even edit documents on a Windows 8 machine. The most impressive feature showcased during the WWDC keynote was how powerful the programs editing capabilities were, despite them being available in a web browser. Users can drag and drop images from their desktop into their documents and have them seamlessly integrate into the document. Text editing includes powerful tools like context-sensitive formatting. In addition, iCloud can now add, convert and edit Word and Office documents directly from the web interface. For commuters who have to jump from computer to computer while traveling, this is going to be a big deal. You can read more about iWork for iCloud on Apple's website.
Apple unveils iWork for iCloud
iWork has been a traditional software suite ever since it first launched (the brief availability of iWork.com notwithstanding), but Apple is bringing it to the web in earnest today by revealing iWork for iCloud. The suite includes Keynote, Numbers and Pages, and each of the web apps preserves many of the same real-time editing features as its iOS and Mac counterparts. The collection officially supports Chrome, Internet Explorer and (logically) Safari, although you'll likely be waiting awhile to try them: only developers get an iWork beta today, and a public beta is due later this year. Follow all of our WWDC 2013 coverage at our event hub. %Gallery-190881%
Apple job postings suggest iWork team is growing
Just when you think that Apple has decided to totally ignore iWork, along comes news that the company has added job postings for a number of positions on the iWork team. The last official release of the iWork suite -- Pages, Numbers and Keynote -- is telling: the name of the suite is still iWork '09. About the only major changes to any of the apps over the past few years has been to make them available on the Mac App Store and to add compatibility with iCloud. Apple Bitch covered the latest job listing for a software QA engineer to "work on the next generation of Desktop, Mobile and Web application/services," focusing on bug detection, isolation and reporting in the iWork suite. MacRumors notes that a number of other jobs are open on the team, including three positions for other QA engineers, a Production Specialist, a "Technical Production Ninja," a Verification Engineer, a Visual Motion Designer and a HiDPI Image Specialist to work on making the apps "the best they can be" on Retina displays.
Consumer alternatives to Adobe Creative Cloud: practical software choices
Yesterday, Adobe introduced Creative Cloud, an on-line subscription based suite with $49.99 monthly charges that moves into the Creative Suite subscription space first started back in 2011. Existing customers of CS 3 to CS 5.5 and academics will pay $29.99 per month. Both Adobe and Microsoft are exploring subscription models in place of buy-once-then-use purchases. This has a number of us here at TUAW looking around to see what apps we might want to jump to as we move away from our premium products into the current marketplace. Although I am fond of Adobe Photoshop Elements, the consumer-priced version of Adobe's flagship photo editor, it's an app with walls. I accomplish far more using Photoshop and the other Creative Suite products, items I have spent years upgrading at considerable expense. Like many other Adobe customers, I live in the hazy world that stretches between Pro apps at one and and Consumer grade at the other. I've purchased CS because the consumer products aren't powerful enough for my needs, but I'm certainly not a full time "creative" who thinks of the suite as merely an incidental purchase. As a rule, I have upgraded as infrequently as possible, stretching out my purchases over as many years and operating systems as possible. I live very low on the Adobe consumer hierarchy, trying to eke out whatever time I have left with my CS 4 suite. It's time now to seriously look at alternatives. On the photo editing side of things, we propose three candidates. Acorn ($29.99) is on sale throughout May. Called the "Image Editor for Humans", it comes with great word of mouth and growing buzz. At just $14.99, Pixelmator's price point can't be beat. This "inspiring, easy-to-use, beautifully designed image editor" has somewhat mixed reviews on the Mac App Stores, but those who love it seem to do so passionately. GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, has a lock on price. For years, this free app has been a stepping-stone app for people who didn't yet have the cash for Photoshop but who wanted access to powerful image editing. As for the rest of the suite, we TUAWians mostly use Acrobat, Illustrator, and InDesign: With Acrobat, you need look no further than Preview for an app that offers many similar features. Power users, however, may want to consider PDFPen Pro, a product we've covered in the past, which offers extensive PDF editing features. Illustrator users will find a variety vector drawing solutions for OS X including Vector Designer, Intaglio, Sketch, and EazyDraw. TUAW recently looked at EazyDraw. For page layout, Apple offers both Pages and iBooks Author. Swift Publisher from Belight seems to offer good word of mouth as well. Speaking of pages, both iWork and Apache's OpenOffice provide promising alternatives to Microsoft Office. GigaOM recently posted an excellent list of their take on Adobe Creative Suite alternatives. Got another alternative vendor to suggest for Creative Suite or Office products? Drop a note in the comments with your suggestion. TUAW will be reviewing many of these alternative apps over the coming weeks.
iTunes is more than earning its keep
As writer John Paczkowski notes in an AllThingsD article today, iTunes was originally "conceived as a low-margin 'break-even' operation intended to drive hardware sales" -- in particular sales of iPods. Now that the iTunes Store is used to sell more than just songs and videos, it's turning into a "significant profit center for the company". Paczkowski was commenting on numbers from Asymco analyst Horace Dediu, who notes that now that Apple has folded its in-house software group into iTunes, Apple software is having "significant implications for iTunes margins." The software, including items like iWork, iLife, Final Cut Pro, Aperture and more, has much higher profit margins than traditional iTunes items like music, books, video, and apps. Dediu deduced that Apple sold about US$3.6 billion worth of its software products in 2012, and that profit margins for software is usually about 50 percent. If that's the case for Apple -- and Dediu is usually correct in his assumptions -- then iTunes is generating operating margins of about 15 percent on gross revenue. That's about $2 billion in profit for 2012, or as Paczkowski so eloquently put it, one "hell of a way to break even."
Evernote premium adds document search, Deutsche Telekom customers get one year free subscription
Evernote's premium package adds a bunch of extra features to the online jotter if you're willing to pay the price. Now though, if you've got a mobile, fixed-line or broadband contract with Deutsche Telekom, a deal between the companies means you'll be able to skip that 40 euro annual charge (around $52) and enjoy the power-user suite free for a year. Don't get down if you've already forked out, though, as current premium subscribers can just tag that extra year onto the end of their cycle. In addition, Evernote has added another feature for premium users worldwide it calls "Document Search," which'll rifle through various note-attached files created in MS Office, iWork or OpenOffice. If you happen to be on Deutsche Telekom's books, you can sign up for your free premium account at the link below. Then again, you've got until the back end of September 2014 to claim, so you could always clip this and get to it later.
Apple issues minor updates to iWork for iOS apps
Apple has just released very minor updates to its iWork for iOS apps. Pages, Keynote and Numbers have all been updated with "stability improvements and bug fixes." Let us know in the comments if you notice anything different!
Holiday Poll: What Apple product rumor do you want to see go real?
It's a pretty slow news day due to today's holiday. A bunch of us were joking around in the TUAW back channels about fake and rumored products we'd love to see Apple actually bring to life. I'm rooting for a Pro refresh, while Randy N's holding out hope for a brand new generation of Newtons. Meg? She's got her eye on a complete iWork refresh. What about you? Vote in our poll and tell us what products we've missed in the comments. %Poll-80925%
5 things I want to see from Apple in 2013
2012 was a pretty good year for Apple. It released two versions of the iPad; a totally new iPad mini; a completely redesigned iPhone and iPod touch, as well as iPod nanos; super-thin MacBook Pros with Retina displays; and an incredibly designed new iMac. The company also had a few low-points, namely Maps and some major reshuffling of its executive leadership. However, the end of the year is always a time to look forward, so here are five things I hope we see from Apple in 2013. Admittedly, most of these are relatively minor -- and all are software-based -- but Apple pretty much refreshed every major hardware product in 2012, so I don't expect to see many new designs next year. 1. A redesigned Apple TV interface inspired by iTunes 11 I'm kind of cheating on this one, because I've been told by a trusted source that Apple is already working on an iTunes 11-ish overhaul of the Apple TV interface. Nevertheless, this is something I had been hoping for since I saw the new iTunes 11 UI. Currently the Apple TV has an iOS Springboard homepage interface -- big buttons represent various channels on the Apple TV. While that works fine for the main menu, I'd like to see an improved graphical elements in the submenus. Most submenus now look pretty much like the old Front Row interface: lines of text that lead to more lists. Apple really hit a strong navigation note with iTunes 11's expanded view album/TV series art interface. When/if this does come to the Apple TV it will make navigating your libraries much simpler -- plus it will bring unity between iTunes on your computer and iTunes on your Apple TV. That's all the Apple TV is, essentially -- just another version of iTunes, with a ten-foot UI. A few bonus features for the Apple TV I would like to see: a BBC iPlayer channel and the ability to display the iTunes visualizer while playing music through your Apple TV. The flipping album art display is getting old. Unlike the iTunes 11-esque redesign, I don't have any info about whether or not these are in development. As for why a real Apple television isn't on my list -- I don't think we'll be seeing one in 2013 at all. Maybe in 2014. Maybe. 2. A new iWork for OS X and iOS The last major version of iWork for OS X came out on January 6, 2009. Yeah, in just about a week that will be four years ago. Sure, it's received some minor updates since then like iCloud support and Retina display support, but besides that Apple's office productivity suite has not been updated in four years. Most of us don't have computers that old. iWork for OS X needs improvements. Pages alone has fallen well behind the capabilities of what the latest version of Microsoft Word can do. In the four years since its last release I get more and more errors when importing Word documents into Pages. Pages doesn't even offer Document Map support yet -- a basic feature for anyone who deals with large manuscripts. Numbers and Keynote have fallen behind as well. The iOS version of iWork has received more love, but still its pretty useless if you use it with iCloud. Currently any time I open a more than basic Numbers, Pages, or Keynote document created in OS X on my iOS version of iWork the iOS version tells me it wants to remove any number of important elements. It then gives me a choice to remove these elements and open up the current document or remove the elements and open up a copy of the current document. Choosing either option makes the iCloud sync support useless. I may end up with a crippled original document; otherwise I get multiple copies of that document, where some instances have the elements I want and some are scaled down and have new edits, but lack all the elements of the original. Neither is optimal, and that's why iWork for iOS is virtually useless in most cases. Hopefully 2013 will see an updated iWork for OS X and a functioning version for iOS. 3. A new iLife for OS X There was a time not five years ago when iLife was a major selling point of Apple's. Now, however, as iOS devices are the most important component of Apple's business, it's not as important for the company to keep adding features to its flagship media suite to lure more switchers to the Mac. After all, iPhone and iPads are now the primary driving force behind luring switchers. The last version of iLife came out on October 20, 2010. That's more than two years ago. I'd love to see some of the advances from Final Cut Pro and Aperture (and other digital video and photo editing apps) make it into a new iLife. 4. The fall of skeuomophism in iOS 7 and OS X 10.9 After the Maps debacle, Tim Cook booted Scott Forstall, who was primarily responsible for leading the charge in Apple's mapping solution. With Forstall's exit the primary proponent of skeuomophism in iOS and OS X was gone. Now that Jony Ive is in charge of the look of both operating systems -- and it's rumored he hated the skeuomophic design of some of the apps -- here's hoping iOS 7 and OS X 10.9 see the skeuomophic design jettisoned from Calendar, Address Book, Reminders, Notes, and more. Apple's devices are elegant, and the software on them should look elegant too. 5. The Movie Trailers app for the rest of the world This isn't going to appeal to readers in the US, but for the rest of the world its baffling that Apple has yet to release the Movie Trailers iOS app outside of America. It's Apple's only app -- on any platform -- that is a US-only app. And there's no logic to this. Using Siri I can get movie showtimes on my iPhone and iPad in the UK, so I know Apple is capable of culling that information. Apple also offers its movie trailers website in multiple countries. So why limit its awesome Movie Trailer app to only America? It makes absolutely no sense and here's hoping I can check UK show-times on my app soon (I have the app through my US iTunes account) and that my fellow Brits and Apple users in other countries can soon download the app. Well, that's my hopes for what Apple brings in 2013. Let me know yours in the comments!
iWork updated for iOS and OS X
Apple has just dropped updates to its iWork apps for iOS and OS X. While the Mac updates offer no major features – rather they have been updated to support the iWork for iOS version 1.7 apps – the iOS updates bring some significant updates: Pages 1.7 ($9.99) Use Change Tracking to track changes to body text in a document Accept and reject individual changes as you review a document Import Pages and Microsoft Word documents with change tracking and continue to track changes to body text Preserve tracked changes in documents exported in Microsoft Word or Pages format Preserve calculations in tables when importing from and exporting to Pages for Mac Add reflections to shapes Lock and unlock objects Numbers 1.7 ($9.99) Hide and unhide rows and columns Import and export Numbers for Mac spreadsheets with filters, and turn filters on and off Preserve rich text in tables when importing and exporting Add reflections to shapes Lock and unlock objects Keynote 1.7 ($9.99) Import and export all Microsoft PowerPoint and Keynote for Mac slide sizes Import and export presentation themes, complete with master slides and preset styles Play back all Keynote action builds including Move, Rotate, Scale, and Opacity Add new slide transitions including Shimmer and Sparkle Preserve calculations in tables when importing from and exporting to Keynote for Mac Add reflections to shapes New print layouts include options to print with presenter notes, with builds, and without backgrounds Lock and unlock objects
