Change Tracking

The chief problem for me was that Pages did not show any sort of change tracking, making the app useless if your workflow relies on this feature. The good news is version 1.7 adds change tracking. The bad news: it’s so poorly implemented that it’s still almost useless.

While you now have the ability to review and accept changes on your iOS device, you still cannot use comments. For me, that is the most important part of the review process. Usually, that’s where a reviewer or editor asks questions and there’s a sidebar discussion in-line about the change. So, while I can accept the change someone made, I can’t see the commentary. I pretty much tend to usually “accept all changes” anyway. (I’m not in the legal profession, so your usage may vary).

The current state of change tracking, where comments aren’t handled, isn’t even something I can give Apple partial credit on.

Editing on the iPhone 5

Before the iPhone 5, editing in Pages on an iPhone was a complete mess. The screen was too small to display a lot of text and the keyboard covered up too much of the page. With the iPhone 5, well, it’s better, but sadly not by much. The chief advantage now is that I can fudge the margins a little bit and have my rows of text span the width of the screen in landscape so I’m not scrolling from side to side to see the text. While I can adjust the zoom level when reading with double-taps, once I edit the text, it zooms in.

Life would be so much easier if I could edit text in the zoomed-out view. So, for the most part I use Pages to refer to documents — meeting agendas, notes, etc. Performing more detailed tasks on a screen smaller than my iPad is something I might need to look at an iPad mini for.

iOS version still lags behind OS X

Styles still remain partially implemented. While you can choose from a list of styles, you can’t create your own. You also cannot update a style if you want the font to be different, though you can change the font manually.

Tables of contents also remain elusive, which can be a problem if you’ve made significant edits to a document and need to update the TOC.

Final thoughts

Pages for iOS still lags far behind the OS X version of the app.  Since we’re clearly past the myth of iPads existing only as consumption devices, and more professionals are eschewing laptops for iPads, I think Apple needs to seriously step up its game with its iOS iWork offerings. While I can accept that OS X Pages does not have feature parity with Microsoft Word, the lack of parity between iOS and OS X iWork apps is beginning to become tough to handle.

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As a forewarning, I’m not going to go too far into the various bookstore formats, other than to say that at the least you’ll need to start with a Microsoft Word or ePub file. While Amazon and the like will accept a Word file to publish, to ensure your book converts to the various proprietary formats, I recommend creating an ePub file as your base. EPub is the most common ebook file standard, and I think you’ll have fewer problems starting with that. Fortunately, the ebook creation apps I’m going to tell you about all export an ePub natively. While there are Automator scripts to convert text to ePub, by using these packages you’re pretty much guaranteed to keep your document formatting.

One quick note up front: I’m not going to include Apple’s own iBooks Author tool. That’s because my goals for this piece were simple: talk about ebook-making programs that can be used in multiple bookstores and create files that aren’t just static images of a page. iBooks Author creates static pages that can only be used in the iBookstore. That’s great for getting an interactive textbook into the iBookstore, but not so good for other kinds of books.

Pages

Apple’s Pages app ($19) is probably the most straightforward and easiest way to create an ePub file. You will need to use a Word Processing template, not a Page Layout template. Other than that, you pretty much just type, type, type until your Great American Novel is done. You’re going to want to use consistent formatting, taking care to use document styles while typing away, or you’re going to have to go back and reformat the thing. Document styles are important because an ePub file is basically an HTML file with some CSS formatting applied. Therefore, using the Body style for your body text, and the heading styles for your headings will make your life a lot easier come file export time, especially if you need to create a Table of Contents. This support article by Apple has some handy tips for using Pages to create ePub files.

Scrivener

If you’re a serious writer, odds are you’re already using the wonderful Scrivener ($44.99) by Literature and Latte. Scrivener is a sort of Swiss Army knife of writing programs. It’s very flexible, and allows you to essentially merge and move around text files to create a piece of finished work (be it a printed manuscript, file, or ePub file). I’ve used it for some screenwriting, where I want to change the position of a scene. Rather than cut and paste, I could just drag that text file to the place I wanted it. While you could just use one text file for your entire body of work, laying out your file similar to the screenshot below will allow you to take full advantage of the program’s offerings. It’s a fantastic way to work on bits of chapters at a time without worrying about mucking the whole file up.

Once you’re done, just go to the file menu and choose Compile and then choose whether you want to create ePub, .Mobi, or .iBook chapters.

Adobe InDesign

Yes, that’s right: I’m recommending a $699 page layout program to create ebooks. No one is more surprised about this than I am. When I was offered a briefing from Adobe on using Indesign for this purpose, I tried to put it off due to my preconceived notion that using Indesign to create ebooks would yield a result similar to a Zinio magazine: a big honking static PDF-type file.

I was wrong.

Indesign, as it turns out, is a pretty powerful ebook creation program. In short, you can take a file you’ve created a smashing page layout of and turn it into an ebook. You can adjust the typography and create an ebook that looks almost exactly like a printed book. It’ll even fairly easily convert your initial drop caps into something the ePub file can understand. If you really need your ebook to look its very best, Indesign may be the best option.

But Lordy it’s not cheap. InDesign is a full-featured page layout program that designers use to create all sorts of material (ads, books, flyers, etc.). At $699 if your books are just text you’re probably better served with Pages or Scrivener because Indesign’s strengths are in layouts combining images and text.

If you’re working on an ebook that’s, say, a technical reference book with a ton of images and you want it to look damn good, InDesign is worth the expense. I was thinking of working on such a project a while back; had I gone through with it, I likely would have reached for my credit card quite happily.

InDesign also has a serious learning curve. It’s not a program you master in a weekend, or, say, a week before a deadline. In my case, I used to run a pre-press shop so my InDesign knowledge was pretty good, albeit rusty.

The app I use

Right now I’m using Pages, for the simple reason that it also runs on my iPad, meaning I can use my lunch breaks at work to write. Literature and Latte is working on an iPad version of Scrivener, but it doesn’t sound like it’ll see the light of day for quite some time. So, an app that I can use on multiple platforms and sync via Documents in the Cloud wins. It also helps that right now I’m working on short stories and novellas, which are well within Pages’ means to handle.

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There were three main goals to moving most of my data into Documents in the Cloud: ease of finding it, and ease of recovery if my hard drive fails; and the ability to work on a file on both my iPad and MacBook. A secondary goal is to have my research materials, notes, calendar and reading material available across my devices. It’s also important to note that the type of work I do on these devices is very portable. For the most part, I deal in text files that are easy to fling between devices. These are also the files I need access to for editing on the iPad. It’s not uncommon for me to do some writing when all I have is my iPad.

That said, my corporate job is very Windows-centric, and our security policy is very anti-Cloud. So, it’s easy for me to define realistic goals for cloud computing and find tools that work for me. In this case, “work” for me defines my writing business; not my day job. That said, depending on your job, you might be able to integrate some of my findings in your work life.

Productivity apps

As I  mentioned, my main activity on my MacBook is writing. The one requirement I have for an editor is it has to work with Documents in the Cloud and have an iOS partner. I’ve been floating between Pages ($19.99 Mac/$9.99 iOS) and Byword ($4.99 Mac/$2.99 iOS), but have settled on Pages. While overall I liked the interface better on Byword (especially on the iPhone), I’ve found it’s slightly fewer taps to send a file from Pages. As you’d expect from the thesis of this post, I solely use the cloud storage options in Pages (and, while not used as often, the rest of the iWork suite). There are three main reasons I use Documents in the Cloud: ease of finding files; the ability to access files on both OS X and iOS; and quickly get up and running on a new piece of gear.

I’ve accumulated a ton of files over the years. Some of them are half-finished projects. Some are archived old writings. I’m at the point where remembering where I put a new file, and drilling down to get it, was becoming a bother. I set up Smart Folders to find Pages documents, came up with different folder naming schemes, but, in the end, the simple fact remained: I hated the Finder. So, I declared writing bankruptcy and started saving all my iWork documents in the cloud.

This had the secondary bonus of letting me edit files on my iPad. The iPad has become my primary mobile device. Fortunately, the work I do doesn’t really require the full might and power of my MacBook Pro. I’ve got an Incase Origami that I throw in my “it’s a satchel, Indiana Jones had one” bag if I need to work on something hefty. The main advantages to this setup are that I can quickly send a copy of a file to someone on a moment’s notice, and I can write wherever I am. So far, I haven’t really experienced any major downsides. Once, the iPad was having trouble downloading the latest versions of a file, but restarting iCloud fixed that.

As an aside, while it doesn’t have an iOS equivalent, I’ve been using the Documents in the Cloud feature of Pixelmator ($14.99) to easily find my graphics files and to access from a second Mac if necessary.

PDFs

The second major Documents in the Cloud feature I use often is storing PDFs. For that I use PDFPen for Mac ($59) and iOS. I don’t have to edit or markup PDFs, but I do need access to my library of PDFs. All the legal documents from my divorce are stored in PDFPen, as well as author agreements to publishers, the documents to a pen-and-paper game I’m beta testing, some photography magazines that are in PDF form, and a standard model release.

I haven’t run into too many problems. Every now and then PDFPen for iOS gets a little fussy on large files, but the increased memory of the new iPad has reduced the frequency of that. Being able to quickly look something up in my divorce agreement when my ex-wife called with a question was a win for the system.

An iOS version of Preview is one area I’m very surprised isn’t available yet. Maybe it’ll be a feature announced next week, but I’m not holding my breath.

Things to watch out for

Backups

The biggest concern I have is backups. Unlike Dropbox, I can’t go back in time and restore a deleted file. If you delete something from Documents in the Cloud, it’s gone. The good news is, if you are running Time Machine, your ~\Library\Mobile Documents folder is backed up as part of Time Machine. You will need to enable the Finder to show hidden files to easily see them in Time Machine. If the file only resides in iOS and it’s deleted, it’s pretty much toast. Periodically, I’ll copy the entire Mobile Documents folder to a second drive just to have a secondary backup.

Security

Mat Honan’s epic hack was a good wakeup call about the pitfalls of a digital lifestyle. It’s important to remember that anything you have stored in the cloud could end up being accessed without your blessing. Hacks happen. Therefore, it’s important that any information that you consider to be sensitive, or would be embarrassing if shown to the world, never, ever, get stored in the cloud. If your work prohibits files being stored in the cloud, don’t try and work around it and store them up there anyway.

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My frustration with this had grown over the last year. The iPad has become a frequently used writing platform for me because it’s always with me. Byword was fine for a lot of my writing, but I wanted the greater control over my text that Pages gave me. And getting spreadsheets and Keynote files to and from my iPad was a hassle with Byword. Having to go to iCloud on the web to share files wasn’t an ideal solution: I just wanted to see my edits across all my devices.

Now, with the release of OS X Mountain Lion on Tuesday, and updated versions of the iWork apps (which also now have Retina display support) I can finally sync and edit files across all my Apple devices.

The obvious points before we get started

To fully take advantage of sharing between iOS and OS X you will need the following: the updates to the OS X and iOS iWork apps released July 25 or later, and Mountain Lion. If you haven’t upgraded yet, go ahead.

iOS:

Once you’ve got them installed, on iOS go to the Settings app, choose one of the iWork apps and make sure “Use iCloud” is set to On. Underneath that is a slider that asks you if you want to open copies of iWork ’09 files. Due to discrepancies in the file structure, this allows you to keep the original file structure preserved by opening a copy. I don’t like having copies floating around and I don’t tend to have complicated files, so I’ve unchecked this.

Note: You will need to repeat this step for all three iWork apps.

Also, in the Settings app, go to iCloud and make sure that Documents & Data is also turned on.

OS X:

Setting up Documents in the Cloud for OS X is a little easier. Go into System Preferences, choose iCloud, and make sure Documents in the Cloud is enabled. You do not need to do anything in the individual application preferences.

Sharing down the dream

To save a newly created document in iCloud, from the Save menu, choose iCloud. You can also choose the folder to save it in, if you’ve already created one up there.

To open a file from iCloud, from the Open dialog box, choose the iCloud tab and then the file you want to open.

To move a file to iCloud, from the File menu choose Move To, and then select the iCloud tab and follow the same process as saving.

When I originally wrote about Documents in the Cloud last year, I was disappointed with how often I lost data. Since then, the service has improved significantly. My initial tests with Mountain Lion and the iOS versions did not have any glaring issues. Full disclosure: I’m also running iOS 6, but an informal poll amongst a few friends also yielded no glaring issues, save some initial slowness.

There are a few caveats, though. The biggest one is the iOS versions of the iWork apps still do not have all of the features of their OS X brethren. It’s getting better though, for example, in Pages version 1.5 you can now add footnotes and endnotes. This makes the iPad version of Pages a more viable option for students, even though the OS X version of Pages still requires a third-party tool for citations.

How it will affect my workflow

I am a simple guy, with simple needs. I’m also a guy who does very little work on his Mac that requires the full might and power of the Microsoft Office suite. What does, however, occur frequently is being asked to email the latest version of a file to a client. Naturally, this never happens when I’m in the same ZIP code as my Mac.

Starting today, all of my Pages (and other iWork) documents are getting moved to iCloud. When my free iCloud storage runs out, I’ll be paying for the additional space. While my corporate work keeps me chained to a (Windows) laptop, it’ll be nice to be able to work on my freelance work from the beach on the weekends and have my files sync. Where I can see iCloud being very useful is for people who do presentations on their iPads. After you’re done with Keynote on your Mac, just save it to iCloud and you’ll be able to easily access it from your iPad.

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Documents in the Cloud is a way to sync documents and data across your devices. While it may seem like it takes the place of iDisk, it doesn’t replace it. There is no Finder-like access to a file structure. Each app has its data sandboxed, so it’s app-specific. If you open the same file in Pages and GoodReader, and tell each to upload that file to iCloud, you will have two copies of the file up there.

Setting up Documents in the Cloud

The initial setup of Documents in the Cloud is very easy. On your iOS device go into Settings, then iCloud, and make sure Documents and Data is set to “On.” You can also tell it to not sync when only on cellular networks.

To use the iWork apps with Documents in the Cloud, you’ll need to be running the latest versions of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. The first time you launch each of these apps, you’ll be asked if you want to use iCloud. If you choose to use iCloud, any local iWork documents you have will be uploaded to iCloud, so don’t worry about losing them. However, once you enable iCloud, you will no longer be able to use iTunes to add a document to an iWork app. Using “Open With” from an e-mail still works just fine.

Syncing between iOS devices

Right now, syncing between iOS devices is Documents in the Cloud’s strong suit. Changes made to a Pages document on my iPad show up within seconds on my iPhone. As a control, I performed a worst-case scenario for syncing: I deleted Pages from all my iOS devices and reinstalled it on my iPad. All my files were still there.

This service isn’t limited to just iWork, as games like Scribblenauts Remix will let you use iCloud to sync your saved games between devices. GoodReader for iPad also supports iCloud. The GoodReader for iPhone update is still in Apple’s review queue as of this writing.

Syncing between Windows and OS X

This is where Documents in the Cloud starts to fall down. While there is a Documents and Data checkbox in the iCloud Preference Pane in Lion, I can’t tell where the data is saved to. I also doubt it’s user-accessible.

The only way to get data from my Mac to iCloud right now is via the iCloud.com website. Unfortunately, the only apps that show up on the website are the three iWork apps. The good news is, you can upload and download either iWork or Microsoft Office files from here. The bad news is, if you have PDFs on your Mac you want to get into GoodReader and iCloud, there isn’t an easy option outside of iTunes syncing (that still works for GoodReader).

There are APIs available for developers to use on Windows and OS X that hook into iCloud. My bet is in the long run developers that want to make it easy for users to put data into their apps. Omni Group has said the next version of OmniGraffle for iPad will support storing documents in iCloud, but I don’t see any mention of OmniGraffle for OS X and iCloud. Omni Group tends to be on the leading edge of development, so I’m curious how they will handle this.

Final thoughts

Buyer Beware

I had little faith in iCloud retaining my data during yesterday’s craziness. My tests on seeing if a changed document was properly updated on the web and iOS were successful. However, at least three times when I went back to look at something on the web interface, my documents were gone. I would either have a web page empty of documents or one prompting me to get iWork for iOS. The first time this happened was during the afternoon and I was having trouble updating the apps. I thought maybe one of the apps got rolled back and threw iCloud off. The second time I had noticed my iPhone wanted to download the update again (I think I had deleted it) and I thought maybe something had gotten wonky again. The third time I didn’t do anything. I went to the web page, saw no documents and opened up Pages for iPad and watched three documents delete themselves.

Problems are ongoing. When I create a new document in Pages on iOS, it prompts me to either create a document, or import one even though iCloud is specified in Pages’ settings. This is how Pages worked pre-iCloud, and turning iCloud on and off doesn’t fix the problem.. When this happens, both the iPhone and the iPad can’t see iCloud. At which point I thought to myself: Yep, these are the guys that brought me MobileMe. It’s possible it’s related to all the iCloud launch issues, but I’m very scared to trust it with my data.

These issues aside, until there’s an easy way to always update documents on a Mac or a PC, Documents in the Cloud is of limited use to me. I’m not optimistic this is going to happen any time soon. All of Apple’s promo videos that show iWork on iOS being used with iCloud never show a Mac as part of the chain (the Mac does feature prominently when they demonstrate photo stream). I also don’t like that third-party iCloud-enabled iOS apps can’t register themselves on the website so you can drag files to them.

I was really hoping I would be able to round-trip files from OS X to iOS without doing the download/upload two-step. It didn’t seem like a fantasy to work on a document on OS X Pages, close it, and head to diner and have it magically appear on my iPad. Until Apple and other developers use those OS X and Windows APIs, that fantasy won’t come true.

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1. Full-screen apps. Especially on a notebook, the ability to quickly switch to full-screen mode and navigate between apps that are using it has absolutely changed how I use Macs for the better. It definitely helps you focus on one thing at a time, and it makes great use of Macs with limited screen real estate. It just feels like something we should have been doing all along.
2. Launchpad. Despite my complaints about aspects of it in my last post, Launchpad itself is a welcome addition to the Mac. I’m using it most on my iMac, where the large icons and full-screen navigation make it much easier to find that one seldom-used app I’m looking for. I also think Launchpad is the first stage of an evolutionary tale that will only see it improve dramatically with future iterations of Mac OS, with feature additions like greater control over app arrangement, and maybe even live icons that display dynamic info at-a-glance.
3. AirDrop. Before AirDrop, copying files from my Mac to a visiting friend’s machine was sometimes so much of a chore that we wouldn’t even bother. Now I never have to have that “Hey, you still haven’t given me that file” conversation again, at least so long as everyone involved is packing the right equipment.
4. Hold key for special characters. I’ve never been able to remember the character codes for Macs, and using the special character palette from the Menu bar still requires more steps than the classic Google, copy, paste method. Holding keys down to produce special characters, as you can do on iOS devices, actually makes my life a lot easier, even though I don’t use them all that often.
5. The price. I recently had to install Windows 7 on a Boot Camp partition for my sister’s Mac. Price of the OS (even after it’s been on the market for nearly two years)? $220. The price of OS X Lion (which I was able to install on all four of my Lion-compatible Macs)? $30. Pricing may be Lion’s most appealing asset.

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1. Dashboard as a Space. Dashboard is one of the most useless additions ever made to OS X in my opinion, and Apple didn’t make it any better by now making it a mandatory Space all its own. Swiping left from your primary desktop could do so many useful things (activate a better full-screen Spotlight search interface, for instance), but instead it presents you with a bunch of widgets that do things Menu bar apps can handle, but with far less efficiency.
2. No simple clean install option. Every six months or so, I like to completely wipe and reinstall OS X on my Macs. It’s great that Apple is doing away with physical media in many ways, but it’s also aggravating that there really isn’t an easy way to do a complete erase and reinstall of OS X. At least there are workaround options, like reinstalling from Apple’s servers or formatting a bootable Lion flash drive, but both require extra steps.
3. Managing Launchpad. Launchpad in Lion suffers from some of the same usability issues that home screens in iOS used to have. Specifically, it’s quite a chore to reorganize apps and folders in Launchpad. Just give us a utility that lets users make the same kind of macro-level changes you can make in iTunes and this problem goes away.
4. Multi-touch quirks. Apple introduced new multi-touch gestures in OS X Lion, which means a lot of the gestures third-party apps were using for basic navigation are now broken, like back and forward in Chrome. Also, I’ve had more trouble using gestures like two-finger back and forward in Safari than I ever had in Snow Leopard, because the gestures appear to be more sensitive.  I love swiping between full-screen apps, but why isn’t that a four-finger action by default, leaving three-finger gestures to manage back/forward actions system-wide (especially in Finder)?
5. App window restore everywhere. Restore and Resume features are useful in OS X — in some applications. In others, like Preview, they tend to be more annoying than helpful. I would have liked to see some more judicious decision-making about which native apps got window restore features and which didn’t, or at least a central Preference pane where you can manually pick and choose which apps make use of the behavior.

These are my gripes so far with Lion, but in another article to come shortly, I’ll talk about the things that keep me using Apple’s latest OS, despite these problems. What are your top five (or any number, really) problems with the king of the operating system jungle?

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Specs and stats

The Mac mini I’m reviewing here is the $799 model, which comes with 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and a dedicated AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics card with 256 MB of RAM. Connection options include 4 USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 800, a Thunderbolt connector, HDMI, Ethernet, digital/analog line in and line out ports and an SDXC card slot. It also has 802.11n Wi-Fi networking, and the new low-power Bluetooth 4.0 specification.

The new Core i5 series processor pushes a lot of weight compared to previous generations. Running it through Geekbench revealed scores of 6902 on average in my tests, compared to 3627 for the Mac mini released in 2010 (higher is better). Geekbench measures the maximum theoretical performance, but those higher scores should translate to noticeable speed improvements in overall performance.

While all the new Mac minis are much better at CPU-intensive tasks, the $799 model should really excel when it comes to graphics. Thanks to the dedicated AMD Radeon HD 6630M card, which marks the first time the Mac mini has had a dedicated card (maybe made possibly by dropping the optical disk), tasks like video editing and gaming go more smoothly on this mini than on any before it.

Performance

For me, the new Mac mini is replacing a much older model (2007, the first Intel Core 2 Duo version) that acted as the nerve center of my home theater setup. Compared to that machine, the new Mac mini offers many advantages: The larger stock 500 GB drive means I can depend less on external storage; HDMI out provides a single cable connection option that doesn’t require any adapters when used with an HDTV; SDXC support means I should have no problem viewing home movies or vacation slideshows from the cameras of visitors; and Thunderbolt promises to eventually make it possible to use huge, fast external storage media libraries a possibility, thanks to devices like the Pegasus RAID array.

On the other hand, the new Mac mini does away with the built-in optical disc drive, so users looking to play back their DVD movies either have to pony up an additional $79 for the MacBook Air SuperDrive, or set about converting their existing media library. Personally, the DVD drive removal is a welcome change; I long ago abandoned physical media for the convenience and reduced clutter of digital purchases and rentals. But if you have an extensive DVD movie collection you aren’t eager to part with, look at Apple’s deals on previous-generation refurbished Macs for a media center PC that will better suit your needs.

If you’re looking to use the new Mac mini as a workstation or traditional PC, this update has a lot to recommend it. I found that — like the MacBook Air I reviewed last week — it deals well with the load caused by using multiple open apps simultaneously, including demanding apps like Photoshop CS5 and iMovie. What it doesn’t do as well as the MacBook Air is load apps quite as fast, or handle shutdown and startup with the same lightning speed. That’s due mostly to the spinning disk drive which the Mac ships with by default, but Apple does offer a (fairly expensive) SSD customization option.

There’s one area where the new Mac mini has quite a bit of unique niche appeal: it’s road-readiness. With just a couple of input devices and the Mac mini itself, which has just a power cord with no heavy and unsightly brick, it actually gives Mac notebooks a run for their money in terms of physical footprint. Frequent travellers could easily pack one for use with the HDTVs now common in most business hotel rooms. And if they want a device that’s a desktop at home and offers more screen real estate than a laptop on the road, it’s quite a bit cheaper than a MacBook.

Verdict

Apple’s newest Mac mini is the best yet, thanks to a lower price tag and processor updates that deliver big CPU performance boosts with even lower power consumption. If you’re looking for a fairly future-proof home theater PC, or a low-cost, moderately powered workstation that can follow you wherever you need to go, this is the Mac for you.

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While this article uses iWork as an example, any app that supports Versions, like OmniGraffle, should work the same way.

What is Versions?

Every hour — if the program supports it — a Version will be created. If you’re at all familiar with Time Machine, the concept is the same: a version of a document you can revert back to is created within the “sandbox” of that app and data file. It’s like doing a save-as every hour, but all the versions are contained within a single data file. However, if you send the file to another person, that person won’t see the previous versions.

This is completely separate from the new Auto Save feature. Logic would dictate an auto-save would create a new version, but it doesn’t.

How do I view my Versions?

First, a bit of warning: If you open a document created before you upgraded your app, you are likely to see it say “Locked” in the title bar. Don’t fret. Just click on the arrow next to the title and choose Unlock. A document unedited for two weeks will automatically become locked. You can change this timer in the Time Machine preferences. You can also force a lock if you don’t want to version a document.

To access your past history, from that same pop-down, choose “Browse All Versions.” This will bring you to a Time Machine-inspired view. On the left you’ll see the current document. On the right, you’ll see all the old versions.

The great thing is, you can go back in time and restore pieces of your document; not just the whole thing. If you’re working on a presentation and delete a section, then decide you did want to include that, you can just go pull those slides from a previous version. Same holds true for sections of text.

The “Save As…” command is gone from iWork now as well. You can duplicate the document from the File menu which does pretty much the same thing. It’ll be treated a virgin document until you save it, however, so you won’t be able to see past versions of the duplicate’s original source.

Recommendations

I think Auto Save is a fantastic, long-needed addition. Even documents with no save history at all still get restored. Relying on the one-hour versioning is a fool’s game, though. My recommendation is to manually save early, and save often. The reason for this is because I found it very easy to have a Version not be created. If I opened a Pages document, added some text, quit the app, re-opened it, added more text and then quit the app, the next time I opened the only version I saw was from a while ago. I’d like to see a version get created every time I quit a document, too. So, if you think you’ll be going back to previous versions a lot, save on your own.

In my limited testing, sending Pages documents to another user stripped the version history. That’s how it should work. You don’t want the sordid history of a project to follow it along. That said, if the document contains some sensitive material you’ve redacted, it’s worth duplicating or exporting the document to create a fresh copy just to ensure all the info is scrubbed.

So that’s Versions in a nutshell. Even if you aren’t using it yet, you likely will be soon as more apps add the feature. Feel free to let us know in the comments which ones you think will benefit most from the addition.

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1. Pages

Apple’s own apps will likely be among the first to bring significant changes that leverage the power of iOS 5. Pages will get support for iCloud’s document syncing services, which means that changes you make on one iOS device should automatically be available to on another (and eventually on the desktop too), without any arduous setup requirements. Numbers, Keynote and other third-party editing suites like Documents to Go should get similar improvements in addition to Pages, which will make working with productivity apps on iOS devices much, much easier. Slide presentation apps will also get more useful thanks to Apple’s AirPlay mirroring feature on the iPad 2 that outputs whatever is on the tablet’s screen to a display device attached to an Apple TV.

2. CNN

One thing I initially liked about CNN’s iPhone and iPad apps was that they would provide push notifications for breaking news. Unfortunately, because of the way Apple implemented its notification system, breaking news updates became just another part of the stream of notification alert windows I had to dismiss to get to the home screen. Now, with the new notification bar and Notification Center, CNN’s breaking news updates will act as an unobtrusive daily record of key developments around the world. The best part is, this one doesn’t even require any action on the developer’s part; it’ll just happen when the new notification system is implemented.

3. Instagram

IOS 5 introduces Core Image, a new API that lets developers have access to hardware-accelerated video and photo enhancement as well as editing features. Built-in filters, color correction and facial recognition should make any photo app more versatile, but I think that if properly integrated in Instagram, it could help the photo-sharing service reach the next level. Used alone, or in tandem with Instragram’s existing filter set, individual user photos will look even more distinct, reducing the similarity that photos shared on the network can sometimes suffer from.

4. Real Racing HD 2

This one’s also a sure thing, as Real Racing HD 2 developer Firemint has already said it plans to support wireless AirPlay two-screen gaming once iOS 5 arrives. If you haven’t seen what playing this game on the iPad 2 and your TV with a wired connection is like, check out my video of the process. Doing the same thing without having to worry about yanking the Apple Digital AV Adapter out of your iPod’s dock connector is an exciting prospect, and it should make even more adventurous two-screen gaming applications a reality.

5. iMockups

I really could’ve chose any design or idea notebook app for this one, but iMockups is a particularly good example, because it’s designed with sharing in mind. In iOS 5, developers will have access to iMessage, so that apps can launch iMessage conversations between individuals or groups directly. For teams which have all members using iOS devices, it should make sharing mockup images for feedback with collaborators and stakeholders that much easier, and that much cheaper, too, since iMessage provides the convenience of MMS without the cost.

Have any other suggestions for apps you think will get a major boost from iOS 5?

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