iWork.com Officially Going Offline Later Today

Apple’s online service, iWork.com, will be shut down later today, July 31st. iWork was a document storage and syncing experiment for Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. The service never really ‘exploded’ with popularity as Apple had hoped, but did last three-years in the beta phase.

The iWork.com discontinuation was announced to subscribers during the month of March. A reminder was then sent out in May to remind users to retrieve all uploaded files. If files aren’t copied back to your computer or another upload source, chances are they will be lost unless you act fast. Assuming the date August 1st is yet to arrive, follow these instructions on how to retrieve iWork.com files.

If you happened to be an active iWork.com user, not a problem. There is an alternative available if you own a Mac with Mountain Lion installed. Apple has integrated the file synchronization features from iWork, into iCloud. The one feature iCloud does lack though is the collaboration element.

So just a friendly reminder, you have a mere few hours to back up your data.

[via TUAW]