The latest edition of Apple’s iWork productivity suite ruffled some feathers upon its release last month. The apps were rebuilt from the ground up to be fully compatible across Apple’s desktop, mobile, and online platforms but, like the Final Cut Pro X fiasco before it, the company cut many popular features along the way. Again similar to Final Cut Pro, however, Apple has started to slowly restore lost capabilities with the first round of iWork updates, released Thursday.
Both the iOS and OS X versions of the apps received updates, with possibly the most significant addition being the return of custom toolbars to the desktop versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Numbers fixes a bug that preserves the window size and placement when saving a document, while Pages turns object guides back on by default. This update wasn’t just about fixing things, however, as Keynote gained a slew of new transitions and build-in effects. There’s still a long way to go before the latest era of iWork software is as capable as its predecessor, but it’s good to see Apple get the process started.
All updates are available now from the Mac and iOS App Stores. Apple released the latest editions of the iWork apps alongside OS X Mavericks in October. All updates are free for customers who own any previous version of the apps, and for customers who purchase a new Mac or iOS device. Those who don’t fall into either of those categories can pick them up at $9.99 each for the iOS versions and $19.99 each for the OS X editions.