MacRecon > Quickly - iWork ‘09: Mac app. Web app.

It wasn’t the announcement of the new 17-inch MacBook Pro (that now looks like the rest of the MacBook family). Nor it was the announcement of how the music on the iTunes Store is going all DRM-free. It was the software aspect of the keynote that excited me the most: the new versions of iLife and iWork. But to be more specific, it was iWork ‘09 and its iWork.com beta.

Google Docs for the rest of us? Not really. It’s just for sharing the documents already created with iWork ‘09. But what it does allow is for anyone viewing it to add comments or download the file in a format that’s friendly to them. Don’t think of it as Google Docs for the rest of us… but as document sharing for the rest of us.

Beta? This is not the final version. Wishful thinking can probably put a real competitor for Google Documents further down the line — if not when the beta ends, maybe in iWork ‘10?

So? The iWork suite just got better, and the way to share your documents also got a big boost. The single license version of iWork ‘09 still goes for $79, and the family pack still goes for $99. Look for it in your local Apple Store soon, as they have started shipping it today.