MWSF 09: iWork '09

Last January 6, 2009, Apple held its Macworld San Francisco keynote with Phil Schiller, Apple's senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, taking the stage.

During Apple's final Macworld keynote, the company introduced new versions of their multimedia suite, iLife, and office suite, iWork. Apple also released the new 17-inch MacBook Pro, which completes the lineup of Apple's portable into the unibody design. Last but not the least, Apple announced DRM-free songs at the iTunes store.

This post will discuss new features in iWork '09.

Apple released their office suite for the Mac on 2005 with Keynote version 2 and the first release of Pages. In 2007, Apple announced the release of iWork '08 updating both Keynote and Pages as well as adding in the spreadsheet application, Numbers. This year, iWork '09 brings more improvements to the office suite as well as introduction of a new service, iWork.com.

Keynote
Keynote was first released on 2003, competing against Microsoft's own presentation software, Powerpoint. Version 2 of the software was sold together with Pages in iWork '05 office suite.

Keynote '09 shows these new features and improvements:

Magic Move lets you move an image from one part of a slide to another part of the next slide using a quick, easy to use process. The change in location, scale, rotation, and opacity are done automatically.

Enchanced theme chooser lets you view the included fonts, colors, and textures more clearly. Eight new themes have also been added

Text- and object-based transition morphs text from one slide to the next slide

New 3D charts and chart animations

Keynote Remote lets iPhone or iPod touch users control their presentation using Wi-Fi. The Keynote Remote app is a $0.99 download from the App Store

Pages
The first version of Pages was bundled together with Keynote version 2 on January 11, 2005 in what was known as iWork '05, Apple's own office suite for Mac OS X. Version 1 was more of a page layout application but later versions saw the word processing aspect of the software improved upon.

Pages '09 lays down the following:

Full-screen view lets the user to see the document full screen allowing the user to focus on what he's working on and hide the distractions from the desktop or from the rest of the opened applications

New Outline mode

Mail merge with Numbers or with Address Book

Enhanced Template Chooser lets previewing and choosing templates easier and more convenient

Ability to insert complex equations into documents via a third-party software, MathType

Numbers
Numbers came late into the game. It became part of iWork three years after the release of the office suite. Numbers is a spreadsheet application that's easy to use and breaks away from the conventional look and feel of other spreadsheet programs.

Numbers '09 new additions are:

Over 250 functions and new 2D chart options added

Formula List view lets you see every calculation in your spreadsheet at one time

With large sets of data, rows can now be grouped according to any data in a column

Linked Charts lets charts created in Numbers and then copied to either Pages or Keynote to stay linked to the original data. Any changes made to the data in Numbers, updating Pages or Keynote requires just one click.

Enhanced Template Chooser lets previewing and choosing templates easier and more convenient

iWork.com
iWork.com was launched as a free beta during Macworld San Franciso '09. It brings iWork documents to the web and allowing for multiple collaborators. The service can be accessed using any web browser running under Mac OS X or Windows. Collaborators can only add notes or comments, not directly edit the document. Apple will eventually shift to a fee-based model once iWork.com is out of beta.

Pricing and availability
iWork '09 is selling for $79 at the US Apple Online Store and Php4,590.00 at the Philippine Apple Online Store. iWork '09 is also available for only $49 with every purchase of a Mac from the Apple Store or from Authorized Apple Resellers.

If you want to save some money, you can get the combo pack of iWork '09, iLife '09, and Mac OS 10.5 Leopard for only $169. Called the Mac Box Set, it bundles all these three together and a very good option for those who haven't upgraded to the Leopard operating system yet. The Mac Box Set is available at the Philippine Apple Online Store for Php9880.

Product pages:

Keynote

Pages

Numbers

iWork.com

Mac Box Set