In a move to appease power users, Apple has issued a note promising that popular features removed from the latest versions of the iWork Mac productivity apps will return within the next six months.
The Cupertino, Calif., tech company released new versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote last month alongside the announcement of its latest iPads. The productivity programs were rewritten for 64-bit chips and optimized to work with the mobile versions of iWork as well as the iCloud beta versions, which are accessed through the Web.
But during its renovation of the apps, Apple said it removed “some features.” Now, the company is reassuring users that it plans “to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis,” the company said in a note posted online Wednesday.
Among the features coming back are the customized toolbar for all three programs, keyboard shortcuts for styles in Pages, multi-column and range sort in Numbers, and old transitions and builds in Keynote. Users can see a full list of the features Apple promises will return on the company’s website.
Apple offered a workaround so that users could continue to use those features. To do so, Apple said users could access the older version of iWork by going into the “Applications” folder and finding “iWork ’09,” which should still be installed in power users’ Mac computers.
The company said that users can also revert the files they are working on to versions that will work with iWork ’09 using two different methods.
For files that have not been edited in the new version of iWork, users can simply select “File” followed by “Revert To.” If a file has been edited, users can go to “File,” followed by “Export To” and choose from either Pages ’09, Numbers ’09 or Keynote ’09.
Apple’s note comes after complaints from power users saying Apple downgraded the usefulness of its productivity apps with the versions released last month.
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(c)2013 the Los Angeles Times
