AWT News Update: October 7, 2015

Today’s news sounds more like Apple is a media company than a consumer electronics firm:

• Amazon is rumored to be in discussions to bring a competing live TV streaming service to its world, similar to the service that will be available for the 4th-generation Apple TV
• ABC News shows video of a “kinder, gentler” Steve Jobs prior to this Friday’s limited distribution kickoff of “Steve Jobs”
• The movie’s director thinks Apple and other tech companies are scary
• Synology is known for making network-attached storage, but they’ve just announced two new watchOS apps.

As for the iWork apps (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers), they need an upgrade. As Dan Moren pointed out in a Macworld editorial, none of the iOS versions have been upgraded to take advantage of the iPad productivity features (such as Split View and Slideover) in iOS 9. Neither have their OS X counterparts been revved to take advantage of any El Capitan features.

Moren worries that the iWork apps could be headed down the same path as Aperture, iWeb and other Apple-developed apps that have gone the way of the dodo bird. I think (hope!) he’s wrong, but some updating from Apple would be reassuring. 

In fact, I’d love to see Apple take Pages, Numbers and Keynote even more seriously. Release Windows versions of them and make the iWork tools true Office competitors.