As things stand today, the Mac iWork apps do not have every feature we had with the 2009 version. Apple has made good on that promise with a steady release of updates, each bringing back old features and adding a few new ones. Now that Apple had everything on the same code base, they would start building back features that were left behind. Out of character, Apple publicly explained. That’s exactly what they did with the 2013 updates. While the iWork suite then had a shared code base between the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, that parity required several feature sacrifices on the alter of compatibility.

In hindsight, I suspect it was not that they were ignoring the Mac apps so much as they were pedaling hard on the iPad and iPhone versions and they realized that in order to make them work best with the Mac, the Mac versions were also going to require major re-writes to bring them in line. It is now clear the Mac version was given a backseat while the iWork team developed the apps for the iPad, and then the iPhone. Nevertheless, I keep using the suite to get work done.Īs a little bit of history, the last major update to iWork on the Mac before 20. I’ve heard this from a lot of geek friends.

The general consensus since the 2013 update to the iWork suite for Mac (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) is that it’s useless, or nearly so. You can download the updates through the iOS and OS X app stores. I don’t believe Apple would be putting development time in to templates and AppleScript support for Pages if it had given up on the application. For instance, Pages for the Mac got some improved AppleScript tools and added several new Apple designed templates. Some of these updates are simple fixes for new features in the hardware and operating systems, like the ability to use split screen mode on the Mac or 3-D Touch on the new iPhone, but other bits show continuing development. Today Apple released updates for all of the iWork suite applications for both OS X and iOS. Moreover, Apple often uses the iWork suite as a demonstration of how they think productivity apps should look on the Mac and iOS. While the iWork applications certainly aren’t the most important applications being developed at Apple, I think the are key part of their business and having Apple’s own, homegrown productivity suite has benefits that justify its continued development. A few months ago there was this thing going around the Internet where everyone decided that Apple had given up on iWork.

Iwork suite download for mac