Has Apple ever documented it's formats for iWork? I really like Pages but being locked into on application makes me extremely wary. I would strongly prefer that other applications be able to read iWork formats without dependance on a Mac being present.
Has Apple ever documented it's formats for iWork? I really like Pages but being locked into on application makes me extremely wary. I would strongly prefer that other applications be able to read iWork formats without dependance on a Mac being present.
i also didnt bother to install Office last time I formatted my MacBook Pro.
I need two more pieces:
a replacement for Adobe Illustrator. I have never understood how to use 90% of Illustrator. I need apple to make a great, user friendly mac-like replacement that is more powerful than OmniGraffle Professional but less complicated than Illustrator.
Has Apple ever documented it's formats for iWork? I really like Pages but being locked into on application makes me extremely wary. I would strongly prefer that other applications be able to read iWork formats without dependance on a Mac being present.
You can export any Pages document as PDF, DOC, RTF or TXT. I don?t think anything can read a .PAGES file and decipher it. I assume iWork.com will give the export feature to any standards-based browser.
I upgrade iWorks every other year unless there's a killer feature I can't live without. I'll skip from iW 08 to iW 11 since the rumor is there will be no iW 10.
What I don't get is why so many people use a spreadsheet application to make a simple table. If I saw this only occasionally, I'd write it off -- but it happens constantly.
I've been using Excel since version 3.0, and 1-2-3 before that. Anything that requires numbers or lists or a matrix of whatever goes into a spreadsheet, regardless of whether I need to do any math with the numbers, because it requires zero effort. I don't need to configure a group of cells or a table, the spreadsheet already has that built-in.
I could do most of this in a table in a word processor document, but I'd have to futz with it the next time I needed to add a column or do any sort of calculation or concatenation anyway, so why not do it in a spreadsheet to begin with. Esp. since I can just copy/paste the final table into whatever final document I happen to need to put it in.
I think it's just what tools people are comfortable using.
The age difference between the suites is incomparable and so also it is in terms of features, I love MS Office 2007/8 - and it will be many moons before iWork comes close... here's to hoping.
I hope iWork will never turn into another Office, i.e. bloatware with bazillion of features that 99% of users have no idea how to utilize them. For me iWorks is streamlined suite that helps me generate good looking documents that behaves the way I expect and I feel that I am in control. With Office, I always wrestled to get the document the way I wanted, with some "intelligent" assistant standing in my way. I am just happy with iWork and hope it will stay its way.
Any idea if Apple will ever make Numbers a viable Engineering/Finance spreadsheet? I would love to have true multi-dimensional spreadsheets and graphing capability without purchasing a $3,000 application with no portability and limits in other areas.
Maybe a NumbersPro version?
Also on Keynote, when will they develop multi-screen capability similar to MultiPresenter? Dual-projector presentations offer so many more interesting interatction options. Maybe they could even build in video-conferencing capability?
Well, it is easy to do 90% of the functionality of Project with a relatively simple spreadsheet. Not sure if Numbers can pull it off effectively, but we do them all the time in Excel.
Graphics. Create a chart in Numbers and then an identical one in Excel. There is no comparison. Numbers charts are smooth, professional, and photorealistic. Excel charts look like stick figures. Excel charts are fine for throwing around typical office crap to colleagues, but when it comes time to put together a professional presentation, I turn to Numbers to generate all my charts, and then I can place them in whatever presentations or printed documentation that I need to distribute to clients.
For formal documents, I usually end up taking an Excel chart and bringing it into Illustrator to make it "pretty" (what do I know; I'm an engineer) and to combine information into dashboard-style graphics.
Can you get similar results in Numbers? For simplicity, we could call this the ability to create a multiple-chart diagram seamlessly mixing text and graphics.
One thing it integrate it with the OS but to make parto fthe OS?
See MS and Internet Explorer.
Microsoft didn't get in trouble just for bundling its OS with apps; it got in trouble because it had acted to unfairly restrained trade for years in the PC OS market, and had subsequently consented to follow a court order to stop doing certain things that would further increase its monopoly power given that it had killed off all competition in the PC OS market (i.e., the market for bundled operating software for all PCs sold by every PC maker in the world).
Microsoft then violated its consent decree (disobeyed the court) to bundle IE with Windows, in flagrant disregard for the rule of law. Bill Gates and the executives mocked the court by saying absolutely ridiculous things and spewing lies such as the idea that Microsoft couldn't produce an OS without an integrated browser, so that bundling IE wasn't really bundling at all.
Microsoft was found guilty of lying in disobeying the court and in working actively to restrain trade (prevent competition, not competing better/smarter/cheaper/faster in the market).
This is why Google, Palm, RIM, and Apple can bundle browsers with their OSs with no problem. It's not bundling that's the issue, it's monopolizing markets and then agreeing to court restrictions and then violating those restrictions and lying about it.
There is no reason Apple can't bundle iWork. It just wants to make some software revenue from the tittle. Charging shareware-type fees for the three very good apps is fine. It also lets the company push out versions independently from the OS, to prevent one from holding up the other.
In 2010, expect to see new iLife, iWork and hopefully other Pro Apps with support for 64-bit and parallelized code and slick animation effects. iWork is really nice to use, but needs refinement and enhancements. Being free would increase its market installed base, but being paid makes it worth Apple's while to update and improve it. Being low cost achieves both goals.
What I don't get is why so many people use a spreadsheet application to make a simple table. If I saw this only occasionally, I'd write it off -- but it happens constantly.
In my experience it's just easier to work with in a spreadsheet for a few reasons:
1) If you need to make it more complex you're already in the right application
2) It's bit easier in iWork and Office to manipulate cells/columns in the spreadsheet app
3) Sorting
4) Easier to select an entire row/column
5) Not based off letter sized pages. You could change the sizes in Pages/Word of course but it's an extra set of steps.
6) There's no real advantage to making it a Pages/Word document most of the time and no real downside to using Numbers/Excel
7) You can add multiple sheets if you're working with a bunch of simple tables, easier than adding more pages in Word/Excel.
Probably some other reasons too -- those are just the ones I encounter often.
Well, Numbers is a few versions behind the other two also though.
I think it makes more sense to compare the apps between Office and iWork rather than to give an arbitrary number to iWork "completeness."
I would put it as:
Keynote vs. PowerPoint
= clear win for Keynote. Better in almost every way w/no missing functions.
Pages vs. Word
= a push. Pages is clearly the better designed app, Word has a few more tricks though
Numbers vs. Excel
= Excel wins for much more functionality than Numbers, but Numbers is a better design.
In all likelihood, Numbers will gain more functions with each release so look for the next version of the iWork suite to be the one the pundits refer to as "real competition for Office" (even though people have already been switching for years).
I've been using Excel since version 3.0, and 1-2-3 before that. Anything that requires numbers or lists or a matrix of whatever goes into a spreadsheet, regardless of whether I need to do any math with the numbers, because it requires zero effort. I don't need to configure a group of cells or a table, the spreadsheet already has that built-in.
I could do most of this in a table in a word processor document, but I'd have to futz with it the next time I needed to add a column or do any sort of calculation or concatenation anyway, so why not do it in a spreadsheet to begin with. Esp. since I can just copy/paste the final table into whatever final document I happen to need to put it in.
I think it's just what tools people are comfortable using.
Maybe, but also maybe working with tables in Word is a pain.
MS Office (both Windows and Mac platforms) became a bloated pig over the years as features grew and grew... I worry that iWork will also follow this path...
With that being said, my wife (who is a teacher) refuses to look at Pages until they add some sort of built-in clip art library browser that connects to a online repository.
That said, I still like iWork much better than Microsoft's Office.
you can't really put it all on larger user base cause there is Office for Mac and they do pretty decent sales as well
better integration with the Mac software, similar interface elements as ilife (reducing the learning curve) and a way lower price are also key elements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aizmov
That wont fly in either US or Europe.
I know Apple is no Microsoft, but why should Apple even risk getting sued?
so long as Apple doesn't prevent you from installing and using other software, the inclusion of iwork is not likely to get them sued anymore than Mail, Address Book, iChat etc has.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zep
if that was allowed, MS would cry foul and would be founded in doing so. they got crushed for IE, so would be different if apple did it for iWork?
1. the bundling folks are talking about is preinstallation just like ilife has. it wouldn't eat much into the profit margin since they are selling iwork for $49 with a computer so there is a logic to the idea.
2. Microsoft got dinged cause they tried to make the installation of IE and only IE a condition of licensing Windows. AND they refused to give up critical details to other browser companies like Netscape as well as sue them for reverse engineering.
In my experience, Keynote is 5/5, Pages 3.5/5, and Numbers a 1/5.
At the moment, although Numbers has better charting capabilities, Excel is far superior in its overall functionality and add-ins.
I fully agree. I do accounting and both pages and numbers have kept me from dumping office and exclusively utilizing iWork. They are both severly lacking in the ability to fine tune your data or formatting, as well as not very user friendly.
I can't dump office until they stop with the wow factor and actually study the usability of iWork.
I've grown up using Office, of course, so I've just never seen the need to switch to iWork, even as I've become a Mac user exclusively. Why switch when I already know Word/Excel inside-out, forwards and backwards?
The current version of Word is really great, in fact. The addition of source management over the last couple versions has been a godsend.
Agreed. I gave iWork a try, and it was not as good as Office 08, sorry apple. Office is much more powerful, both in text editing and especially in Excel. Keynote is a power point killer, but not enough to get me to switch.
Office 2011 (I hope unless there is delays to make it 2012) will be even better with some features making a comeback (VB) and some new ones to make it lighter and more powerful. As always Mac BU can fuck up, but 08 was a huge improvement over 04, even with the loss of some features, but could still be better.
I sent my 12 year old daughter to a couple of Apple Store classes last summer... iMovie and Keynote.
When school started, she jumped into Pages with no other experience and has been flooring her teachers with her projects and reports. The interface to Pages is so consistent with the other products that she had zero learning curve.
I've associated all of our .xls and .doc extensions with Pages and Numbers and haven't looked back.
I use Excel at work and have found nothing I can't do in Numbers, and Word has gotten so bloated that its unusable, so Pages works perfectly for us.
I totally understand the deep divers who need the sophisticated features of Excel, but this is a classic case of the 80/20 rule... more like 95/5 in this case. Most people use only a sliver of Excel's features and would benefit far more from Numbers' usability.
I'm impressed with this as something as marginal as line spacing I have found impossible to fine tune in pages. That is where I say it's interface may be pretty well designed, but as far as I'm concerned this is a simple function where the ball was dropped.
Comments
Has Apple ever documented it's formats for iWork? I really like Pages but being locked into on application makes me extremely wary. I would strongly prefer that other applications be able to read iWork formats without dependance on a Mac being present.
A Mac with iWorks yet!
I need two more pieces:
a replacement for Adobe Illustrator. I have never understood how to use 90% of Illustrator. I need apple to make a great, user friendly mac-like replacement that is more powerful than OmniGraffle Professional but less complicated than Illustrator.
a Microsoft Project alternative.
Has Apple ever documented it's formats for iWork? I really like Pages but being locked into on application makes me extremely wary. I would strongly prefer that other applications be able to read iWork formats without dependance on a Mac being present.
You can export any Pages document as PDF, DOC, RTF or TXT. I don?t think anything can read a .PAGES file and decipher it. I assume iWork.com will give the export feature to any standards-based browser.
What I don't get is why so many people use a spreadsheet application to make a simple table. If I saw this only occasionally, I'd write it off -- but it happens constantly.
I've been using Excel since version 3.0, and 1-2-3 before that. Anything that requires numbers or lists or a matrix of whatever goes into a spreadsheet, regardless of whether I need to do any math with the numbers, because it requires zero effort. I don't need to configure a group of cells or a table, the spreadsheet already has that built-in.
I could do most of this in a table in a word processor document, but I'd have to futz with it the next time I needed to add a column or do any sort of calculation or concatenation anyway, so why not do it in a spreadsheet to begin with. Esp. since I can just copy/paste the final table into whatever final document I happen to need to put it in.
I think it's just what tools people are comfortable using.
The age difference between the suites is incomparable and so also it is in terms of features, I love MS Office 2007/8 - and it will be many moons before iWork comes close... here's to hoping.
I hope iWork will never turn into another Office, i.e. bloatware with bazillion of features that 99% of users have no idea how to utilize them. For me iWorks is streamlined suite that helps me generate good looking documents that behaves the way I expect and I feel that I am in control. With Office, I always wrestled to get the document the way I wanted, with some "intelligent" assistant standing in my way. I am just happy with iWork and hope it will stay its way.
Maybe a NumbersPro version?
Also on Keynote, when will they develop multi-screen capability similar to MultiPresenter? Dual-projector presentations offer so many more interesting interatction options. Maybe they could even build in video-conferencing capability?
a Microsoft Project alternative.
Well, it is easy to do 90% of the functionality of Project with a relatively simple spreadsheet. Not sure if Numbers can pull it off effectively, but we do them all the time in Excel.
Why use iWork? ...
Graphics. Create a chart in Numbers and then an identical one in Excel. There is no comparison. Numbers charts are smooth, professional, and photorealistic. Excel charts look like stick figures. Excel charts are fine for throwing around typical office crap to colleagues, but when it comes time to put together a professional presentation, I turn to Numbers to generate all my charts, and then I can place them in whatever presentations or printed documentation that I need to distribute to clients.
For formal documents, I usually end up taking an Excel chart and bringing it into Illustrator to make it "pretty" (what do I know; I'm an engineer) and to combine information into dashboard-style graphics.
Can you get similar results in Numbers? For simplicity, we could call this the ability to create a multiple-chart diagram seamlessly mixing text and graphics.
a Microsoft Project alternative.
OmniPlan?
Not gonna happen.
One thing it integrate it with the OS but to make parto fthe OS?
See MS and Internet Explorer.
Microsoft didn't get in trouble just for bundling its OS with apps; it got in trouble because it had acted to unfairly restrained trade for years in the PC OS market, and had subsequently consented to follow a court order to stop doing certain things that would further increase its monopoly power given that it had killed off all competition in the PC OS market (i.e., the market for bundled operating software for all PCs sold by every PC maker in the world).
Microsoft then violated its consent decree (disobeyed the court) to bundle IE with Windows, in flagrant disregard for the rule of law. Bill Gates and the executives mocked the court by saying absolutely ridiculous things and spewing lies such as the idea that Microsoft couldn't produce an OS without an integrated browser, so that bundling IE wasn't really bundling at all.
Microsoft was found guilty of lying in disobeying the court and in working actively to restrain trade (prevent competition, not competing better/smarter/cheaper/faster in the market).
This is why Google, Palm, RIM, and Apple can bundle browsers with their OSs with no problem. It's not bundling that's the issue, it's monopolizing markets and then agreeing to court restrictions and then violating those restrictions and lying about it.
There is no reason Apple can't bundle iWork. It just wants to make some software revenue from the tittle. Charging shareware-type fees for the three very good apps is fine. It also lets the company push out versions independently from the OS, to prevent one from holding up the other.
In 2010, expect to see new iLife, iWork and hopefully other Pro Apps with support for 64-bit and parallelized code and slick animation effects. iWork is really nice to use, but needs refinement and enhancements. Being free would increase its market installed base, but being paid makes it worth Apple's while to update and improve it. Being low cost achieves both goals.
What I don't get is why so many people use a spreadsheet application to make a simple table. If I saw this only occasionally, I'd write it off -- but it happens constantly.
In my experience it's just easier to work with in a spreadsheet for a few reasons:
1) If you need to make it more complex you're already in the right application
2) It's bit easier in iWork and Office to manipulate cells/columns in the spreadsheet app
3) Sorting
4) Easier to select an entire row/column
5) Not based off letter sized pages. You could change the sizes in Pages/Word of course but it's an extra set of steps.
6) There's no real advantage to making it a Pages/Word document most of the time and no real downside to using Numbers/Excel
7) You can add multiple sheets if you're working with a bunch of simple tables, easier than adding more pages in Word/Excel.
Probably some other reasons too -- those are just the ones I encounter often.
Well, Numbers is a few versions behind the other two also though.
I think it makes more sense to compare the apps between Office and iWork rather than to give an arbitrary number to iWork "completeness."
I would put it as:
Keynote vs. PowerPoint
= clear win for Keynote. Better in almost every way w/no missing functions.
Pages vs. Word
= a push. Pages is clearly the better designed app, Word has a few more tricks though
Numbers vs. Excel
= Excel wins for much more functionality than Numbers, but Numbers is a better design.
In all likelihood, Numbers will gain more functions with each release so look for the next version of the iWork suite to be the one the pundits refer to as "real competition for Office" (even though people have already been switching for years).
Good post.
I've been using Excel since version 3.0, and 1-2-3 before that. Anything that requires numbers or lists or a matrix of whatever goes into a spreadsheet, regardless of whether I need to do any math with the numbers, because it requires zero effort. I don't need to configure a group of cells or a table, the spreadsheet already has that built-in.
I could do most of this in a table in a word processor document, but I'd have to futz with it the next time I needed to add a column or do any sort of calculation or concatenation anyway, so why not do it in a spreadsheet to begin with. Esp. since I can just copy/paste the final table into whatever final document I happen to need to put it in.
I think it's just what tools people are comfortable using.
Maybe, but also maybe working with tables in Word is a pain.
With that being said, my wife (who is a teacher) refuses to look at Pages until they add some sort of built-in clip art library browser that connects to a online repository.
Larger user base = larger numbers sold.
Simple statistics.
That said, I still like iWork much better than Microsoft's Office.
you can't really put it all on larger user base cause there is Office for Mac and they do pretty decent sales as well
better integration with the Mac software, similar interface elements as ilife (reducing the learning curve) and a way lower price are also key elements.
That wont fly in either US or Europe.
I know Apple is no Microsoft, but why should Apple even risk getting sued?
so long as Apple doesn't prevent you from installing and using other software, the inclusion of iwork is not likely to get them sued anymore than Mail, Address Book, iChat etc has.
if that was allowed, MS would cry foul and would be founded in doing so. they got crushed for IE, so would be different if apple did it for iWork?
1. the bundling folks are talking about is preinstallation just like ilife has. it wouldn't eat much into the profit margin since they are selling iwork for $49 with a computer so there is a logic to the idea.
2. Microsoft got dinged cause they tried to make the installation of IE and only IE a condition of licensing Windows. AND they refused to give up critical details to other browser companies like Netscape as well as sue them for reverse engineering.
In my experience, Keynote is 5/5, Pages 3.5/5, and Numbers a 1/5.
At the moment, although Numbers has better charting capabilities, Excel is far superior in its overall functionality and add-ins.
I fully agree. I do accounting and both pages and numbers have kept me from dumping office and exclusively utilizing iWork. They are both severly lacking in the ability to fine tune your data or formatting, as well as not very user friendly.
I can't dump office until they stop with the wow factor and actually study the usability of iWork.
I've grown up using Office, of course, so I've just never seen the need to switch to iWork, even as I've become a Mac user exclusively. Why switch when I already know Word/Excel inside-out, forwards and backwards?
The current version of Word is really great, in fact. The addition of source management over the last couple versions has been a godsend.
Agreed. I gave iWork a try, and it was not as good as Office 08, sorry apple. Office is much more powerful, both in text editing and especially in Excel. Keynote is a power point killer, but not enough to get me to switch.
Office 2011 (I hope unless there is delays to make it 2012) will be even better with some features making a comeback (VB) and some new ones to make it lighter and more powerful. As always Mac BU can fuck up, but 08 was a huge improvement over 04, even with the loss of some features, but could still be better.
I sent my 12 year old daughter to a couple of Apple Store classes last summer... iMovie and Keynote.
When school started, she jumped into Pages with no other experience and has been flooring her teachers with her projects and reports. The interface to Pages is so consistent with the other products that she had zero learning curve.
I've associated all of our .xls and .doc extensions with Pages and Numbers and haven't looked back.
I use Excel at work and have found nothing I can't do in Numbers, and Word has gotten so bloated that its unusable, so Pages works perfectly for us.
I totally understand the deep divers who need the sophisticated features of Excel, but this is a classic case of the 80/20 rule... more like 95/5 in this case. Most people use only a sliver of Excel's features and would benefit far more from Numbers' usability.
I'm impressed with this as something as marginal as line spacing I have found impossible to fine tune in pages. That is where I say it's interface may be pretty well designed, but as far as I'm concerned this is a simple function where the ball was dropped.