Pages (Apple Inc. $9.99)
This is an iPad only app, I have not heard any word at present that they will be porting it over to the iPhone, nor do I really think they should. This caliber of app really needs the larger screen to function properly. Not to mention, who would want to write a document that would need an app like Pages (to write it in) on the iPhone?? I use to be an M$ Word user, of course that was moreover back in the days of me using windoze. But that did carry over slightly to my Mac days when I first got Office for Mac but for some reason I never could get it to function properly (I wonder why 
). It was always one of those apps that I hesitated to ever open for fear of the problems I’ll have because of it.
When I bought my iPad, this was one of the first apps I bought for it and I have loved having it ever since. I have also since then gotten the Mac version of Pages and now use that on all of my macs at home and work. It is definitely more lightweight than M$ Word, but that is, in my opinion, a benefit of Pages. For now I will restrain myself and talk specifically about the iPad app but it is important to note that a lot of this information applies to the desktop app as well and it is worth looking into.
The iPad app is pretty much fully functioning as far as features go, there are definitely a few limitations, but those come mostly from the limitations of the device itself and obviously less viewing space than on your laptop or desktop. But for the size and what it is capable of it does the job and well. When you first launch the app there is a document already there for you waiting for you to read which goes through a quick tutorial on how to use the app. It even has some tasks for you to do that will help you learn how to do that sort of thing on your own. In addition to the app, Apple provides a FREE (beta) service www.iwork.com. This is a great way to store your documents, moving them back and forth between your desktop and iPad versions or even send them to other people. Unfortunately that service is greatly limited. There is no way to “edit” a file once uploaded to iWork.com the best you can hope for is to delete it and then re-add it which defeats the purpose to some extent since the service allows you to share documents and allow those with whom you’ve shared your documents to comment. Nonetheless it is a great feature to have, you can both get and put with this service, when you send a document to someone (in the form of a link to this service) you are given the option of format for the document including M$ Word, PDF and Pages or you can have all formats available.
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