








Pricing & Availability



Source: Apple Inc.



    1. Wall St. hates the fact that Apple makes money regardless of Wall St. They really really don’t like the idea that companies might actually make and sell products and concentrate on their customers, yet Apple can do that and still make more money than Wall St. could possibly lose in an afternoon.

    2. The fact that AAPL only dropped $2 after a $20 run-up is a POSITIVE reaction to the event. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. If there’s no big sell-off then Cook has hit a home run.

    3. Wall Street has been trying to put a ring in Apple’s nose for years now. Thankfully, Apple ignores them. Microsoft got in bed with them and look how pathetically their stock has performed. All the stuff from all the other players, looks like crap compared to Apple’s offerings. Really looking forward to getting an iPad Air, that is one sweet piece of technology. I can only imagine what’s going through Monkey Boy’s head today. I’m sure he’s not too happy sitting there twiddling with his kickstand.

  1. I guess it is time for Microsoft to re-evaluate where they stand both as a viable competitor and if they still think their subscription model will implode on them. Wonder what Google thinks seeing that their free Google apps don’t effectively integrate a user’s work as seamless as iWorks does. Slam dunk for Apple.

    1. Microsoft is not really an Apple competitor when it comes to applications. Apple can give their software away for free, because the profit comes from selling the hardware. Make the hardware more attractive with better built-in software, sell even more hardware, make even more profit…

      Microsoft must make profit from selling software. So Microsoft cannot match Apple’s “free with new hardware.” Microsoft is now trying to copy Apple by selling hardware, but that has so far been “unprofitable,” to say the least. Microsoft has LOST a billion dollars trying to profit from selling hardware.

      Google can match Apple’s “free,” but Google profits from advertising. Google is closer (than Microsoft) to being Apple’s competition in applications, because both Google and Apple use apps as a means of profiting from something else. But Apple creates great user experience to increase loyalty and drive future hardware sales. The motivations of Apple and its customers are aligned. Google just wants the user’s eyeballs and data, to improve revenue from advertising. Google’s motivation is aligned with advertisers (the REAL “customers”).

      The choice is to be Apple’s value customers, or Google’s valued “commodity.”

    2. Microsoft sells primarily to businesses. Large business need centralized deployment. They need to have centralized security policies, centralized deployment, and centralized control over updates. have to keep all their client machines in step. Microsoft is very good at that. Internal consistency is so important to large businesses that lousy software is tolerable.

        1. No, I’m serious, and it’s not about some sort of big brother style walled garden. It’s about a lack of corporate chaos. Right now I am working in an organization that has offices all over the globe, mainly in third world countries. For each location, we set up a rack with modems, routers, switches, servers, UPSs, and all that. We set up a half-dozen virtual servers for various functions. We install and configure server software, and they each have the same directory structure with the same names, capitalized the same way. We set it up so that updates are managed centrally. I’m one of the guys doing that.

          The local IT specialist can install software and user accounts., but the kind of IT talent you can get in places like Burundi is limited. Our international support is one guy. He can’t support people all over the world if every setup is unique.

          We joke about how lousy Microsoft software is, and most of the IT guys here have Macs at home, but Apple doesn’t have a solution for centrally managing a large organization scattered over a large area.

          1. ken, i understand what you are saying. you can’t paint the application of IT as a productivity tool with a broad brush. it depends on who pays for it and what they are paying for it for. very linear and specialized application of IT in a silo makes sense and you are right there is no alternative. apple does not and should not venture into this dark area. it has never been their DNA. the world is just about optimal here.

          2. Well, Apple has Remote Desktop, which pretty much does everything you just mentioned. I used to work for a major newspaper and supported Mac’s all over the country. Ran scheduled updates, installed software, managed the user accounts, did remote troubleshooting and configurations, etc. if you never used ARD, you would find it to be quite capable and very intuitive and easy to use. Much easier than working with Active Directory. Mac’s us Open Directory, which is quite capable. You can also add Mac’s to an Active Directory domain quite easily as well. Mac’s are more enterprise ready than most people realize.

  2. I’m in a bit of anxiety. I’m a Pages power user, and I have thousands of Pages documents. I depend on features in OSX Pages that are not in iOS Pages.

    Does the new OS X Pages retain all the features of Pages ’09? (If they are implemented differently, fine; if there are additional features, all the better; I’m only concerned with deleted features.) Have they just made a gussied-up iPad app and ported it to the Mac? If I “upgrade,” what am I in for, and will I regret it?

    1. I second this. The existing iOS and iCloud versions of Pages only support Word Processing mode, not Page Layout. If the compatibility with OSX Pages is achieved by dropping the ability to link text boxes, this is a non-starter for thousands of newsletter and brochure editors. So, can somebody answer our question?

        1. I was thinking of taking a trip to the Apple Store to ask, but I was hoping to get a quick answer here. I upgraded blindly to iOS 7 and regretted it. This time, thousands of documents are at stake, I don’t want to upgrade Pages until I’m sure, because if I do, I can’t go back.

          Apple’s web site shows how Pages can put pictures in documents, which is nice. Sometimes I do that. But most of the time, silly me, I use a word processor to process words.

    2. Here’s an example of a feature I absolutely need, which works very well in OS X Pages, but doesn’t exist in iOS Pages: search and replace styles and non-printing characters. I cannot use iOS Pages to edit documents. At all. Period. As an added bonus, saving Pages documents to iCloud puts them through a file converter that strips out things I need.

      So my question again. Can OS X Pages do everything that Pages ’09 could do?

      1. Invisible characters can be shown, and customizable paragraph styles exist. Someone else mentioned Text Box linking above and from what I can see it’s not in there. It’s definitely more powerful than the old mobile apps, but it is currently lacking a few things. Hoping for updates to add them back.

        1. I guess I didn’t say it clearly. I didn’t mean seeing the nonprinting characters, though it is reassuring that it is still possible. I meant searching and replacing them. In Pages for Grownups, you can put line breaks (control-return), paragraph marks (option-return), tabs (option-tab) and such in either the search or the replace fields. You can replace all tabs with spaces, or line breaks to paragraph marks, by themselves or in combination with other other characters. I need to do this at least once every week.

    3. WARNING! The new Pages does NOT support Page Layout. Opening an existing file will delete all the text box links. If you have to edit or create a newsletter or similar document, you will have to do it in Pages ’09. There may be similar omissions, so beware!

  3. Apple ramped up devices, ramped up OSs, took data storage/ubiquity to a level that gives home users the power that DoD folk wish they had. It was a very impressive presentation.

    Microsoft should be worried. Both Google and Apple are sharks in the water tearing apart the legs of Office. Free software, quality free software, is a game changer. Free OS software? Boom!

    I’ll buy an iPad Air just to check out the potential of the 64-bit platform as new apps roll out. Pity the WiFi radio is not the best.

  4. Upgrade with caution (or perhaps not at all). Those of you who were around for the iMovie and Final Cut Pro debacles will recall the danger of losing functionality when ‘upgrading’ to Apple’s “simplified” versions. Apple eventually let us keep 2 different versions of iMovie because of it, and the return to full use took months or years, especially with Final Cut Pro. Will that happen again? I have too much at stake – won’t be upgrading iPhoto until I know more about it.

    1. And the latest version of iMovie prior to today is essentially useless when using an AVCHD camcorder.

      It works, but output the file to DVD and the results are terrible.

      The most common answer I received was “upgrade to Final Cut Pro X”.

      No, the old iMovie worked fine with my old tape camcorders. Upgrading to HD camcorders which Apple said would work gave me poorer results.

  5. Is anyone else seeing the ios versions free… On an iPhone 5?

    The article says “new” devices.. I haven’t upgraded to a 5S yet.. And they just dropped to free for me. Only keynote remote is showing a price.

    I own pages for ios already, none of the others I need. (Until today 😉 )

    1. This is odd.
      My iPhone 5, all but Keynote remote shows free.
      My iPad still shows the old prices.
      iTunes App store on my mac, same as iPad.

      Under $4 in my account.. So no harm (charge) if it’s wrong.
      Get iPhoto for my iPhone, iPad starts downloading it.. 🙂

      And no, it’s not “always been free for me” because i run iOS7.
      Since the iOS7 rumors started with iWork going free.. I’ve been watching the apps closely. Even this morning they did not show free for me.

Reader Feedback
