As part of their Mountain Lion launch day, Apple yesterday released an update today to iWork applications for both OS X and iOS devices in light of the release of Mountain Lion to the public. The company released updates for the iWork apps for iOS devices which added compatibility with the iCloud ‘Documents in the Cloud’ functionality, allowing automatic syncing between iWork on both Mac and iOS devices.
Together with the iOS app updates, the company released an iWork 9.2 update which updated the individual iWork apps to Pages 4.2, Numbers 2.2 and Keynote 5.2. This update also brought with it full iCloud syncing compatibility as well as voice dictation to complement the new feature in Mountain Lion. In addition, compatibility with the Retina Display of the new MacBook Pro was also included. While these updates are significant in the context of external factors, like the new MacBook Pro, iCloud and Mountain Lion, Apple itself notes that iWork is still in 2009 mode.
Interestingly, Apple has not made any effort to eliminate the legacy features of iWork applications in the most recent update. As highlighted previously, the iWork software gives multiple options for sharing but the options are still ridiculously dated. For example, iWork.com is due to shut down permanently on July 31st, and yet the sharing options in iWork still only offer the ability to share or upload a document on the iWork.com beta site.
In addition, under the Sharing menu item, users are invited to publish their document to iWeb (and iWork.com), despite the fact that Apple is no apparently longer supporting iWeb with software updates and new features. These oversights, in combination with a aging user interface, leave iWork apps neglected and dated.
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