Apple’s iWork takes on Google Docs and Office 365 with real-time collaboration

Apple just announced that iWork will soon support real-time collaboration, allowing folks to work on different documents within the iWork suite together.

First released in 2005, Apple’s iWork includes the presentation program Keynote, word processing app Pages and spreadsheet app Numbers. Apple devices have increasingly making headway in corporations and iWork, positioned more as a play for the education play, could serve as some connective tissue. This cross-platform real-time collaboration will allow multiple people to edit a document over cloud at the same time. You can add images, graphics, videos or even animations via slides into iWork. It also introduces a public and private mode. Given the popularity of iOS, this might prove to be a robust competitor against Google and Microsoft’s similar products.

This will compete with Google Docs as well as Microsoft’s Office 365, both of which already offer real-time collaboration.

Interestingly, Apple had invited Microsoft onto its stage at its keynote event almost a year ago when the company introduced the iPhone 6S, the Apple Watch and the iPad Pro.