A number of Mac sites are reporting the obvious: that the URL for AppleWorks at Apple.com now redirects to iWork, and that AppleWorks is no longer being sold at the AppleStore online. AppleWorks is dead. Or rather, the zombie that Apple had allowed the late, great office suite to become has finally been decapitated and unceremoniously set aflame and turned to ash. AppleWorks deserved better, and therein lay a lesson for iWork.

Originally developed by Robert Lissner, AppleWorks was released in 1984. This was the same year as the Macintosh debuted, which not coincidentally was the time when Apple Computer began abandoning its namesake (at least in the opinion of this former, yet still bitter, Apple IIGS user). The sordid tale of AppleWorkGS can be found here, while a short history of AppleWorks can be found here. Although the latter article ends around 1999, it's still interesting. Consider how much has changed since 1984.

Up to 12 files could be held in memory ("on the desktop"). Information could be shared between its files, of whatever type. It could run on an Apple with just 64K of RAM. On a 128K computer, it had a generous 55K of RAM free for files.

However, the best story of AppleWorks is probably A Brief History of ClarisWorks written by Robert Hearn, one of the original developers of ClarisWorks, and later of the Gobe Productive suite. The perspective is as interesting as the history, like this moment when a former Apple evangelist became involved after discussions with Claris bogged down.