Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

NewsPoster · Oct 23, 2013, 09:13 AM

Some users of iLife '11 and iWork '09 are having trouble upgrading to the new versions released yesterday, according to complaints. The difficulty is that when trying to download the new software through the Mac App Store, the store fails to recognize the earlier installations. Instead it responds with an error message: "[The app] is already installed and was not purchased from the Mac App Store. Do you want to buy [the app]?"

An Apple spokesperson states that the company is aware of the problem, and working on a solution. How and when it might arrive, though, has yet to be announced. iLife apps include iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand; the iWork apps are Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

jpellino · Oct 23, 2013, 09:23 AM

Is it a matter of having bought the retail boxed versions? If so they need to step up. If I need to re-buy Pages, Keynote & Numbers at $20 each and iPhoto, Garageband and iMovie at $15 each - it's going to get miserable.

azrich · Oct 23, 2013, 10:16 AM

If you have iOS devices and update them to the newest Numbers (and I'm assuming the other iWork APPs) anything you open will require the latest Numbers APP on your Mac. So this is important! However, after clicking on Numbers in the AppStore a couple times the $19.99 went away and 'UPDATE' replaced it. Don't remember if I had to quite the AppStore or not to get it to work. So keep trying. Somehow I now have all three updated, and I never bought Keynote before

I didn't have any time-outs, just loooong download times too. Which is a step up from stuff pooping out.

Hope this helps someone.

Jeff75 · Oct 23, 2013, 10:31 AM

I had no problems updating the iWork suite on my Mac.

DiabloConQueso · Oct 23, 2013, 10:57 AM

My MacBook Air updated just fine; my Mac mini has not yet found the updates.

Both are nearly identical in terms of installed software and OS version.

what-a-day · Oct 23, 2013, 10:58 AM

Also issues with ios7. Upgraded my pages documents, Apple removed some of the templates and now all my pages documents that used it are gone in ios7 iWork update.

dcolores · Oct 23, 2013, 11:21 AM

I found Apple has changed the iWork icons. Using the old icons in the dock opened the old versions. Opening the apps in finder opened the new versions. I deleted the old icons from the dock, and installed the new icons. Now the new versions open from the dock, thus all is well.

DaveinBurl · Oct 23, 2013, 12:51 PM

I had the same problem and thought it had something to do with the fact that I had installed the CD versions of iWork (and iLife). Initially, the only app that it would allow me to update for free was iPhoto. I kept opening the App Store (after updating my machines to OS 10.9) and at some point the Buy button turned into Update (not all of them turned to update at the same time). Within a few hours, I was able to update to all of the iWork and iLife applications for free.

DaveinBurl · Oct 23, 2013, 12:56 PM

I had the same problem and thought it had something to do with the fact that I had installed the CD versions of iWork (and iLife). Initially, the only app that it would allow me to update for free was iPhoto. I kept opening the App Store (after updating my machines to OS 10.9) and at some point the Buy button turned into Update (not all of them turned to update at the same time). Within a few hours, I was able to update to all of the iWork and iLife applications for free.

All my iWork apps were in an iWork folder within my Applications folder. The new apps were placed directly in the Applications folder. The old icons remained in the dock and actually opened the old apps (which because of their location, weren't replaced by the new apps - although the old apps did show the progress of the new app downloading). I removed the old app icons from the dock, deleted the iWork folder in the Applications folder and then dragged the new apps to the dock.

jpellino · Oct 23, 2013, 01:13 PM

They flipped whatever switch they needed to flip - checked about noon here and all my iLife and iWork Mac apps are now available for update. Nice work.

caveman664 · Oct 23, 2013, 02:03 PM

I got the same error message when I tried to download and then after several tries, it gave an error message that stated I needed to upgrade to OS X 10.9. I guess I got ahead of myself.

Spheric Harlot · Oct 24, 2013, 01:41 PM

Note that when I tried this, it only worked after I'd set the system language to English and restarted the Mac.