When measured against giants, it's hard to stand tall. Apple recently released a free, online version of its office suite programs—Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets, and Keynote for presentations—collectively known as iWork via iCloud.com. Had these online-accessible document creation and editing capabilities now known as iWork for iCloud rolled out to users six or seven years ago, it might have had potential to be a smash hit. But it's coming so late to a space where much better free online office suites already exist that it's largely unimpressive.

What are these better tools? Why, Google Drive, of course, and Microsoft's soon-to-be-renamed SkyDrive, which has free though slightly limited versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Both are Editors' Choices, and much better options than iWork for iCloud.

Design and Ease of Use

For a product that's ostensibly new—still technically in beta as of this writing, in fact—the interface looks very dated. In fact, iWork in general could use a facelift right about now, and judging by the iCloud beta (at beta.icloud.com), we could be in store for a refresh on the old app-y design quite soon.  The current iCloud interface sags compared with the new flat and pastel-ish look of iOS 7, and even Google Drive, with its expansive use of whitespace looks modern and appealing.

To get iWork for iCloud, all you have to do is go to icloud.com and sign in with an iCloud account with an Apple ID. The iCloud homescreen now shows icons for the three new apps, which formerly only gave you access to see or download files that you created on other devices, like a Mac or an iPad. Now, however, you can create documents and edit existing ones right from the Web interface.

Start a new file, be it with Pages, Numbers, or Keynote, and you'll have the option of selecting a starting point from a small collection of templates, which are cleanly designed. You can also opt for a blank template.

Files open in new browser window rather than primary window, which bothered me and seemed unnecessary. Neither Google Drive nor SkyDrive makes you work in a separate window, though Google likes to open new tabs for all your documents. Still, everything is right within one window.

You'll find a sensibly pared down selection of tools for formatting and editing your files, all within easy reach. But you won't get any real-time collaboration with other users, something I've long valued highly in Google Drive. Just yesterday, I was putting together some travel notes on a Google spreadsheet, which I sent to my travel companions. They were able to not only see the spreadsheets on their screens, but we could all discuss the itinerary in a comments box alongside the document. Each user's movements from cell to cell appears highlighted in a certain color, identified by a key at the top right. Apple's iWork for iCloud has nothing of the sort. It doesn't have a track changes features either, though that's also missing from SkyDrive, much to my personal disappointment. Google Drive does have a "show changes" feature and revision history list.

To Save or Not To Save?

The issue of where and how to save documents has long been either a pleasure or a pain for Apple users, depending on your point of view. Some people like that they don't have to think about where to save the file, as Apple handles that decision-making for you, putting everything in iCloud. Other people (myself included) prefer having some control over their folder structures, nesting, and such. The online version of iWorks has no surprises here. It doesn't give you any agency over where files are stored, just as anyone familiar with iCloud would expect. Everything gets dumped into iCloud, associated with the app used to create the document. It's a major annoyance, however, for large swathes of users.

Downloading options were equally limited. You can grab a copy of a Pages document in the Pages format, as a PDF, or as a Word doc, but you can't choose what kind of Word doc or select more versatile formats like .txt and .rtf.

Back of the Pack

Considering just how far ahead Google Drive is, with support for real-time collaborative editing and much more, Apple iWork for iCloud simply cannot compare. Even Microsoft's SkyDrive outshines iWork in the cloud at this stage. iWork has pretty much always been an underdog against office suite giant Microsoft, and, while I'm happy to finally see a free online version, it feels like it's come too late. Anyone who uses Apple hardware and operating systems already has access to office suite software that's simply better than iWork, and there's just not enough in the cloud version to sway anyone to switch—yet. Keep in mind, however, that this is a beta.