I am starting to see reports from developers who have early access to Apple’s next-generation office software, iWork for iCloud, saying the product is very, very cool.

I did a search on Twitter to see what people were saying, and I discovered that Apple had opened the beta. I was able to log in and use the apps.

Here’s Pages:

I was able to upload documents and edit them, but many of the most important features are not implemented in this beta. For example, tables are displayed but can’t be edited. Comments are not shown at all.

Apple has posted a description of what’s missing:

However, the apps work — in their limited fashion — and are amazingly fast.

I didn’t try anything sophisticated in Keynote — again, no tables, no printing — and you can show slideshows, albeit without the two monitor presenter view that you get on the desktop app.

We have to recall that iWork’s head, Roger Rosen, promised at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in early June that Apple would be rolling out “awesome” updates for iOS and iWork this fall. I am hoping for a short list of things for iWork in the cloud:

1. Support for comments, which is essential for the editorial review cycle
2. Support for real-time co-editing of documents
3. Versioning
4. Printing, especially printing to PDF
5. Some way to have a second synced screen for the presenter’s view in Keynote

And I am especially eager to see the end of stitched leather: