Storage space is essential and I have a lot of space on both my Mac and iCloud being taking up by Keynote, Pages, Number documents only to find that version history is kept of every document I create. As someone who uses the apps every day and doesn't need to return to earlier versions of my works, I'd like to see a quick, smooth, and easy to understand way to permanently delete all the old versions of my documents (almost like how you can set the Mail App on Mac to auto clear e-mails sent or received in the selected timeframes). A user could set the number of versions they want to save and with every new save, the oldest version gets deleted. I'd like to have an app default, that way I don't have to go through each of my many documents individually to permanently delete old versions.

I’ve been using Apple computers since I bought my first Mac in 1984. A huge feature for a very long time has been these few apps like Keynote, Pages, Numbers, etc that you could rely on always being there. When I bought the M2 MacBook Pro I’m writing this on I paid about $500 more to have all the “professional” apps such as Final Cut Pro. So just now a student submitted their presentation in Keynote format. I downloaded the file, opened it in Keynote for grading and immediately got a popup saying my Keynote wouldn’t be supported anymore and I should download the new version, only to find out it is a subscription when I got here. I see that Apple now has a “Suite” available and it includes all the professional apps I spent $500 on already. I haven’t tried it yet, but I suspect I will get the “no longer supported” so I need to get the new version with a subscription on the app store. This is disappointing and, in my opinion, highway robbery that will also cost Apple more than it makes for them in lost computer sales. Do they not realize how many people bought Macs for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote so they wouldn’t have to pay Microsofts software subscriptions? What you’ve done here Apple, is shoot yourself in the foot. It’s not the first time, but you can fix this. Make the basic apps free again and for those of us who made one-time payments for the professional apps, keep us updated without requiring subscriptions.

Long ago, there were these apps—Pages, Numbers, and Keynote—that fulfilled the roles of the Office suite without having to spring for the Office suite. They were for sale for a while, but as newer Macs came out, they were bundled in, and they were great. They didn’t nag you, they didn’t try to upsell you on premium service at every turn, they were just there and they just worked. (Remember when that sounded nice as a slogan?)Yeah, NOW look where we are.I used Pages, Numbers, and even Keynote quite a bit. I even bought into Final Cut Pro and Motion, and I’d bought Pixelmator Pro even before Apple had absorbed it. I tested with Keynote and found that the experience, while still POSSIBLE without subscribing, was made much harder for the way That! Premium! Service! That! Will! Make! Things! So! Much! Nicer! kept Hitting! Me! In! The! Face! With! Marketing! Urst!And as time approaches infinity, the difference between bugged UI and one that tries to cajole you to buy into something you’ve decided you don’t need approaches zero. If there was a way to hide all the Premium Content so you don’t trip over it while trying to WORK with the software, I’d probably give it a better rating. But, like I said, this is where we are now.

As soon as the right Apple engineer knows about this, I’ll bet they could fix it in an hour. Go into any Apple Store, to any Mac mini on display, and create a simple keynote. Two or three slides will do. (One slide might do.) Click Play/record slideshow, click on the red “record” button, and record a bit of audio, a little for each slide. Exit keynote and reopen. Select play/record slideshow, and move the slider to some location in the middle, and re-record starting from that point. (This is something you must be able to do to record a presentation, unless you can do it perfectly the first time!) Exit, reopen, and select Play/play slideshow. One of two things will happen when it reaches the re-record point. Either it will go silent, or it will blast static that startles everybody around you. One Mac mini will do one of those, another another. Keynote recording can work on other types of Mac, but will fail spectacularly on every Mac mini in the store. I need a new Mac mini, but not until this is fixed.