New features added to iWork.com public beta

Apple’s snuck a couple of updates into the iWork.com public beta this morning, and we thought we’d pass it along to you all.  I’ve yet to personally use the public beta, so if we’re missing anything, feel free to let us know in the comments.

Keynote ’09 playback complete with animations

Apple’s built Safari playback into their iWork.com public beta. From now on users will be able to watch animation videos, click hyperlinks, and hear audio all from within their browsers. You can now share your presentations with friends and colleagues in an easy manner, which leads me to the next major feature added to iWork.com.

New publishing options for public sharing and online storage

You can now also upload your documents and then share them in a private or public manner using public links that are now available in the iWork.com beta. But it doesn’t end there—Apple is now also letting users embed presentations directly on blogs and websites by using a provided embed code.

iWork.com is really starting to ramp up. It looks like Google Docs might have a real competitor on their hands once this thing gets out of beta.

Here’s some food for thought: What if Apple hasn’t released iWork ’11 because there isn’t an iWork ’11 in the pipeline? What if they’re just taking iWork directly online with iWork.com?

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.