With iWork, Apple Walks It Back Before Moving Forward

Over the last few days there has been a lot of talk about Apple?s new direction for iWork, especially when it comes to the OS X versions of its productivity suite. At an event on Tuesday, the company announced that they would be making iWork free with purchase of a new device ? but it also announced a redesign that many are seeing as a regression of the product. Specifically, many who use Pages, Numbers and Keynote heavily are remarking on the loss of what they characterize as “pro” features. These power users are lamenting the changes, many of which mimic the look and feel of the suite on Apple?s iOS platform. The thing is, they?re right. Apple did “walk back” the features and feel of iWork slightly across the board — and significantly in some niche cases. But it?s far too early in this new era of a free iWork to begin panicking about its future. From what I understand, the fact that this new version of OS X iWork looks and feels a lot like the iOS version is no coincidence. It?s actually a rewrite that?s founded on the code base of the (now 64-bit) iOS apps. And a decision was made to unify the visual look and interactive feel of the apps across all platforms ? with the far more prolific iOS used as inspiration. iWork is handled under the supervision of Apple?s Eddy Cue, not the OS X chief Craig Federighi, but it?s boggling to think that this kind of decision wouldn?t have been very carefully considered by the senior staff at Apple. There are easy parallels to draw here to Apple?s “back to the Mac” initiative, which brought features and feel from its enormously popular iPhone and iPad to the Mac ? largely in order to make them more familiar to “halo” adopters who may have started their Apple experiences with a portable device, not a traditional desktop or laptop. Lots of folks are getting all worked up about iWork being “dumbed down,” but it feels like a reset to me. I can see this playing out pretty much like Apple?s recent Final Cut Pro X re-thinking. That app was introduced in a radically simplified and streamlined form that caused immediate outcry. Over time, Apple has steadily added back features that were missing from the early dramatic redesign of the pro video-editing suite. A handful

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