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Apple rolls out iWork for iCloud beta, brings productivity suite to the Web [u]

Last updated

Apple on Wednesday began rolling out iWork for iCloud in beta form to existing users, bringing the suite of productivity software online to a wider audience, including some non-developers.

Update: It appears that Apple is expanding beta invites to free tier developers, previous reports of public access were likely erroneous as the company has confirmed to The Next Web that non-developers cannot sign in to the suite.

The company sent out emails to registered developers, inviting them to try out the latest version of the Web-based service, though AppleInsider has received unverified reports that non-developers are also allowed to sign in to beta.icloud.com so long as they have an active Apple ID.

Developers have had access to the beta since Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, where iWork for iCloud was first announced.

As previously outlined in June, iWork for iCloud offers access to Pages, Numbers and Keynote in an experience optimized for Web browsers. The service is compatible with Safari, Chrome or Internet Explorer.

A quick run through of the service shows all of the promised features to be intact, including Microsoft Word document imports.

Apple's iWork for iCloud is still missing some major features that competitors like Google Docs have long provided to users, such as dynamic collaboration tools, but overall the suite is one of the more robust Web productivity suites available.



48 Comments

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mjtomlin 20 Years · 2690 comments

Played around with Pages and Keynote. Seems fairly stable and fast... a lot of features still need to be added, even got a dialog saying that the Keynote document was created on a Mac and the current iCloud beta didn't support them. Asked if I wanted to open a copy or open original. Nice. Can't wait to see the finished apps though... they look really good so far.

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mhikl 13 Years · 471 comments

I'm confused. I thought Pages already synced with all devices, and Mac. Just read the beta link but as I am already on iCloud, didn't go further.

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cgj 13 Years · 268 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by mjtomlin 

Played around with Pages and Keynote. Seems fairly stable and fast... a lot of features still need to be added, even got a dialog saying that the Keynote document was created on a Mac and the current iCloud beta didn't support them. Asked if I wanted to open a copy or open original. Nice.

Can't wait to see the finished apps though... they look really good so far.

Have they added slide animations or builds?

 

I can't find them :(

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mjtomlin 20 Years · 2690 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by CGJ 

Have they added slide animations or builds?

 

I can't find them :(

 

Yes... Click on a slide on the left... the tool pane on the right changes to "Slide Transition"

 

By the way, press escape to get out of play mode.

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auxio 19 Years · 2766 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by mhikl 

I'm confused. I thought Pages already synced with all devices, and Mac. Just read the beta link but as I am already on iCloud, didn't go further.

 

The big deal here isn't iCloud.  It's that you can now use the iWork apps via the browser on all platforms (and have documents sync via iCloud as usual).  Which, once all the features are in, makes iWork a viable alternative to MS Office in mixed platform environments.