14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has released the $30 iWork suite of office apps for the iPad, which includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers, each app being priced at $9.99. Apple touts the three pieces of software as being quite powerful work tools. The apps are stripped-down versions of their desktop counterparts.
“The iWork productivity applications that you know and love on the Mac - Keynote, Pages and Numbers - have been completely redesigned for the iPad and Multi-Touch technology,” Apple states, describing its powerful new iWork suite of apps for the iPad. “Now you can create incredible presentations, work processing documents, and spreadsheets with just a tap of your finger. While they’re easy to use, they’re also the most powerful productivity apps ever built for a mobile device.”
Talking about each application in particular, Apple reveals that Keynote is aimed at making world-class presentations, complete with animated charts and transitions, all with just a few taps. Based on what we’ve seen in the new iPad guided tours, Apple’s description is actually quite modest. The Mac maker does continue its description by enumerating the key strong points of the app, which include 12 Apple-designed themes, the ability to instantly create sophisticated animations via the Magic Move feature, great methods to stay organized with tables and charts, as well as functions like auto-save with every change made to the document, undo, several exporting options and tons more.
What’s an office suite of apps without a powerful word processing tool like Pages, the equivalent of Microsoft’s Word on a Mac, and now on the iPad. Apple’s Pages for iPad is also a scaled-down version of its desktop counterpart, but it offers pretty much everything you need for creating and sharing documents, including Apple-designed templates, formatting options, and advanced layout tools. You get 16 Apple-designed themes to choose from, widescreen editing of documents, the ability to quickly add photos and videos from the Photos app, etc.
Finally, the iPad version of Numbers enables users to organize data, perform calculations and manage lists, all by performing a few taps on the iPad’s Multi-Touch screen. “Start with one of the beautiful Apple-designed templates and add your own tables and charts,” Apple explains. “Use predefined styles for tables, charts, images and text to customize the look of your spreadsheet. Intelligent keyboards make data entry easy - they’re designed specifically for working with dates, formulas, text or numbers,” the Mac maker further outlines.