The History of iWork
iWork is Apple's office suite for the Mac. In many ways it is similar to Microsoft Office, and in fact replaces the Microsoft Office for Mac software used by many Mac users needing a spreadsheet, word processing and desktop publishing package. The iWork has updated regularly since its launch and is now available for the iPhone and iPod, as well as computers.
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Launch
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Apple launched iWork in 2005 as the successor to AppleWorks, and the package was appropriately called iWorks '05. The suite of office applications was specifically designed for the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. The OS X operating system has been included in all Mac computers since 2002, and each release is of the OS X system is named after big cats, such as Panther and Tiger. iOS was originally the iPhone's operating system, but its use extends to the iPad and iTouch.
iWork 2005
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The original office suite contained Keynote, a presentation program developed by Steve Jobs to deliver presentations at Apple events. At the launch of iWorks, Apple bundled Keynote 2.0 with Pages, a word processing and page layout application. Keynote 1.0 had been sold as a standalone application since 2003. It is similar to Powerpoint, which is its main competitor. Keynote users were able to use the graphic themes and templates available on iLife '05. Importantly, users could also import and export Microsoft Word and Powerpoint files, as well as supported other standard file formats such as PDF.
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2006 to 2008
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In January 2006, Apple produced an updated version of iWork which ran on the processors in the new iMacs and Macbook Pro notebooks, and in 2007 iWork '08 appeared. It contained Keynote 4.0 and Pages 3.0, but now a spreadsheet application called Numbers was added. Although Numbers performed a similar function to Microsoft's Excel software, it claimed to provide users with "intelligent tables on a flexible canvas." This essentially meant that information could be rearranged or added without breaking work into several spreadsheets.
Latest Editions
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In 2009, Apple introduced iWorks '09. The applications were updated, but one major change to this edition was that users could share documents online using the iWork.com service. A user can upload a document to the service and invite people to look at it without having to email copies of it to individuals. Viewers can add comments in the document, and they can download it into Microsoft Office if they don't use iWork. In 2010, Apple announced iWork for the iPad, and users can buy it from the App Store. In 2011, iWork became available for the iPhone and and iPod Touch.
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