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post #81 of 126
AppleOffice/iOffice/iWorks/whatever, won't see the light of day in my opinion. At least not for a while. Millions of people rely on Microsoft Office, and everyone uses the format. If Apple were to introduce their own Office suite tomorrow, MS would leave the Mac platform permanently, making the Mac a dinosaur once again.
post #82 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by va1entino
AppleOffice/iOffice/iWorks/whatever, won't see the light of day in my opinion. At least not for a while. Millions of people rely on Microsoft Office, and everyone uses the format. If Apple were to introduce their own Office suite tomorrow, MS would leave the Mac platform permanently, making the Mac a dinosaur once again.


I think the Office Pricecut might just prevent Apple from making an attempt at a suite. Apple wouldn't be able to do much better than $299 and Office is entrenched. However I think it's a little sophomoric to actually believe Microsoft would cancel Mac Development of Office. That's highly reactionary and would require time. Apple's Office suite would actually have to take marketshare for this to happen and we're talking possibly years here. Losing Office wouldn't affect Apple as much as pundits love to think. I know lots of Mac users and many...probably a majority don't own office or even a bootleg of it. This tells me that this "so called" indispensable app isn't quite living up to the hype.

Should Apple decide that they want to make a go at selling an Office Suite I would love to give it full consideration. I'm looking for a Suite that let's me get my work done as efficiently as possible. Filesharing of documents is a secondary consideration. YMMV however.
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post #83 of 126
If Apple doesn't want to make a real office suite, they at least need to kill Appleworks. The app is a piece of crap, as we have gone over countless times here, that needs to shape up or ship out.
post #84 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by CubeDude
If Apple doesn't want to make a real office suite, they at least need to kill Appleworks. The app is a piece of crap, as we have gone over countless times here, that needs to shape up or ship out.

No kidding! AppleWorks isn't even meant for OS X!
post #85 of 126
iSpread? No thanks. It's just too much a similarity.
post #86 of 126
Originally posted by hmurchison:
Quote:
I think the Office Pricecut might just prevent Apple from making an attempt at a suite.

Just thought of something. What if Apple's next foray into Office software was a competitor to Microsoft PROJECT?

Perhaps Apple could back off the WP and Spreadsheet areas for awhile (because of the pricecut) but continue to build best-of-class productivity apps for the business market.

MS couldn't pull Office in protest, since Project isn't available for the Mac. But it would be one more area in which Apple reasserts itself.

Also, Jobs said Keynote was originally made just for his use. With the thousands of employees, multiple product lines and numerous deadlines Apple faces each day, I would expect they've written some killer Project Management software internally as well...
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post #87 of 126
That makes sense Frank. Apple appears to be going after holes or softspots. An app similar to MS Project would definitely fill the bill.
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post #88 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by va1entino
AppleOffice/iOffice/iWorks/whatever, won't see the light of day in my opinion. At least not for a while. Millions of people rely on Microsoft Office, and everyone uses the format.

Which is why the Apple office suite will use MS's formats, just as Keynote does.

Quote:
If Apple were to introduce their own Office suite tomorrow, MS would leave the Mac platform permanently, making the Mac a dinosaur once again.

Hmm, well maybe, but maybe not. Microsoft hasn't abandoned Powerpoint v.X now, has it?

The politics of the situation are complicated. I think Apple has a few cards in their hand to persuade MS to stay in the Mac platform.

I agree that I'm not sure whether Apple will compete head-to-head with MS Office with their suite -- at least right away. But they'll definitely release a consumer/education-friendly iWorks suite within the next year. This is not a market segment that's threatening to MS, and it's very important to Apple, for at least three reasons:

- For the consumer market, Apple's steady sweetheart.
- An iWorks suite, built in Cocoa, can be readily expanded into a full professional suite, if Office v.X is threatened or begins to pale in feature-parity to the Windows version.
- Software is pure profit for Apple; they love to do it, and it's an increasing percentage of their revenue.
post #89 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by Hobbes
Which is why the Apple office suite will use MS's formats, just as Keynote does.

While Keynote can sort of import and export PowerPoint, it doesn't really "use" that format. It has its own XML format.
post #90 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by JBL
While Keynote can sort of import and export PowerPoint, it doesn't really "use" that format. It has its own XML format.

Yeah, "use" was badly put. Of course Apple needs to have its own file format, in the event that Microsoft decides to alter the structure inside .ppt, .doc, or .xls. As it often does.

Just to mean to say that I think Apple understands that MS Office-compatibility is critical to having even a chance of succeeding.
post #91 of 126
If Apple comes out with a full featured office suite, MS WILL drop Office:X. I wish a court would come in and say "um, MS, you are bad, and your file formats will be 100% compatible FOREVER, and any updates to your formats must be released to developers X amount of time so that they may update their software."

Seems to me that the best solution is for Apple to just revamp, from the ground up, AppleWorks. Something cheap and fully functional for the basics. Perhaps code upon which a full featured office suite COULD be built quickly as a contingency, should MS drop Office:X for some reason.

Meanwhile, OpenOffice development is where it's at. Long way to go, for sure, but when the OS X port is aquafied, it will be a serious Office contender. And free. And MS can't blame/retaliate against Apple.
post #92 of 126
head over to thinksecret they seem to have news on filemaker 7. seems juicy.


all i want is apple to give the word proceesing app the name Author and have a pic with a scroll and one of those ink pens.

and whose to say apple hasnt already built this i office app?

wasnt there something on the macnn front page a while ago on a team who was affiliated with apple on a word processing app.
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post #93 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by Robby
head over to thinksecret they seem to have news on filemaker 7. seems juicy.

Looks pretty interesting...what I think Apple should do is just let FileMaker 7 arrive, then just stick with that and Keynote.

They should then wait for MS to release the next ver of Office, and then, after taking extra time to work on and polish the app(s), then Apple can release a full office suite without having to worry about MS pulling it.
post #94 of 126
Quote:
Looks pretty interesting...what I think Apple should do is just let FileMaker 7 arrive, then just stick with that and Keynote.

Hmmmm a Database and Presentation package. Not exactly putting the "P" in Productivity.

Apple only need decide on if they can do a Suite better than what's available. If so then ship it and let the market decide. If not shelve it.

Any Suite shipped must have a bedrock of at least Spreadsheet and Word Processing.
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post #95 of 126
My bad. I just checked the Filemaker site and the Developers convention starts on the 24th, not the 20th as I originally posted.

I'm also beginning to like this idea of Apple pursuing a trio of business-friendly apps: Keynote (Presentations), Filemaker (Database) and Timeline (my name for new Project Management software)

It fills a need (maybe they could purchase Fastrack Schedule and integrate it with Mail, Address Book and iCal.) It also doesn't directly go after Redmond (not yet, at least.)

There are rumors of a new product coming this week.

Maybe we'll see Filemaker 7 at long last.
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post #96 of 126
Well this isn't good.

The arrival of the OpenOffice suite on the Mac has just been postponed to Q1 2006!

In terms of non-MS productivity software on the Mac, the situation seems to be getting bleaker each passing day.
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post #97 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by Frank777
Well this isn't good.

The arrival of the OpenOffice suite on the Mac has just been postponed to Q1 2006!

In terms of non-MS productivity software on the Mac, the situation seems to be getting bleaker each passing day.

I'm not suprised. Apple doesn't need OpenOffice. The originators of Appleworks nee Clarisworks work at Apple. Apple wooed them back from Gobe.

I would surmise that Apple is sitting on enough code that hasn't been used to whip up something that beats the stuffings out of OO.

The parallels here with the rumors of Apple using Mozilla for a browser. OO is bloated and needs work. Apple can probably take the core of AW and build on top of that into a new app filled with Cocoa goodness.

I say do it. The Office Suite has stagnated. It's Microsoft Office or nothing. Lets see what an Office Suite of the 21st Century looks like.

Like Browsers I think an OS Vendor should have it's own Office Suite that utilizes the best of what the OS has to offer. The Politics of this Industry should not interfere with forward progress.
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post #98 of 126
Quote:
Apple can probably take the core of AW and build on top of that...

Oh heavens nooooo........
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post #99 of 126
Quote:
Lets see what an Office Suite of the 21st Century looks like.

And that means using code as old as Apple itself. I had Claris 4 on my old Performa, there is very little difference between that and AW 6, presentation features, tweaks, version numbers. Compared to Office or anything that's useable. Any code worth using in AW is probably not worth saving as it probably would only make up like 5% of apps consisting of tens of thousands of lines of code. If Apple wasn't working on something else it would take months maybe weeks to recode AppleWorks in Cocoa.

And to the above quote, an Office Suite will look like Keynote with friends.
post #100 of 126
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post #101 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by Frank777
Well this is interesting.

Forgive my ignorance... Why is that interesting?
post #102 of 126
Because it guarantees that Filemaker 7 will be out by September.


...or maybe this weekend....
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post #103 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by hmurchison
The parallels here with the rumors of Apple using Mozilla for a browser. OO is bloated and needs work. Apple can probably take the core of AW and build on top of that into a new app filled with Cocoa goodness.

Which is different, as there was a better open source solution in KHTML. Apple took KHTML, cleaned it up a bit, built a QT translation library and wrote an interface for it. And we all know how easy it is to write interfaces in Mac OS X.

What is their besides OpenOffice though (which runs fantastically on my PC)? KOffice? AbiWord? Come on. emacs on eMacs?

Writing an office suite from scratch is a huge job, which is why we are seeing it done peice-meal, with Keynote first.

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post #104 of 126
Quote:
Writing an office suite from scratch is a huge job, which is why we are seeing it done peice-meal, with Keynote first.

.

That sound reasonable. Not being a programmer myself, I can't tell which open source alternative is better to start with, but is seems obvious that both AppleWorks, Openoffice are to complex to use as a foundation for a new office suite, considering they already have the presentation application, the browser, calendar and the email apps. But what are the technical reasons for not reusing some of KOffice.

What is lacking (in my opinion):
1. We still miss a built-in notetaking app that outlines, organizes and integrates better with iCal, Mail and iSync. Stickies is a laugh, even with services.

2. A full-featured (but not bloated) alternative to MS Word. I think Apple should definitely keep an eye to Mellel, who does things the elegant Apple way, achieving a lot with simple means.

3. A scriptable spreadsheet. I hate Excel, but hey, everyone use it once in a while for different purposes. Some people even love it. It can't be that difficult to implement something similar.

- Token.
post #105 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by Token
But what are the technical reasons for not reusing some of KOffice.

I don't think I can give a more technical answer than "because it sucks".

Dog-slow, incompatible and feature-starved. That's my 2nd try, hows that for technical?

Also, Apple would be more likely to want to extend Mac OS X's frameworks to support what their future Word Processor and Spread Sheet can do rather than just making a standalone application, as Apple and 3rd party apps would then inherit those capabilities. WOW!

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post #106 of 126
Sound like reasonable reasons

I agree with the genius of supporting stuff through frameworks.

A stand-alone application is more of what I wish for, especially in the case of the Word processor, as the implementation in the not yet released Panther (by the look of the leaked screenshots) seems rather inadequate. Thus, it seems we will have to wait for quite some time for an MSoffice alternative...
post #107 of 126
(puts on grandad's old war helmet )

I know a lot of people here have a downer on Appleworks and it could certainly do with a bit of modernisation but an awful lot of people, including myself, use it voluntarily. I have Office but only ever use Powerpoint ( I'm still on my Keynote learning curve). Most of my WP work is simple text, I can swap effortlessly from AW to Word and back and it doesn't try to best guess me every time I turn round.

In short, it does everything I ask of it. Not saying it suits everyone but don't assume everyone is a super user when it comes to WP. Most of the teachers in my school switch on, type text, print out - and AW is fine for that.
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post #108 of 126
Apple have the following purposes behind making apps themselves, in the following order:

1. Apple is a hardware company, therefore their reason to make software is to persuade potential buyers & switchers to buy macs. Another simple texteditor with rudimentary Word support is not a selling point. An MSOffice compatible AND better wordprocessor would be. Obviously Appleworks is an old but somehow acceptable app, but not excactly "better", lacking technological hype value and OS X integration.

2. If Microsoft threathens to withdraw from the mac market, Apple will need an alternative... AW is not that alternative.

3. Lastly, Apple can make a profit from the software itself - if there are market possibilities for that (Final Cut, DVD studio, Webobjects, etc..). If not, make them free iApps. Apple can only sell appleworks because its cheaper (like, free if you buy an eMac) than MSOffice.
post #109 of 126
Hmmm, is this a speculation amalgam or just THE rumor. From another thread, started by 'Ellens toy boy':

Quote:
I'm not really a rumor monger, but this one was too amazing to keep to myself.
First of all, I'm a software coder for a small company doing apps for University Libraries and other academic customers.

We use a mix of Linux and OS X and most people I deal with eventually find out I do my coding on OS X.

One of them let some news slip that she sort of regretted later but I think its amazing and shouldn't be kept secret.

Apple is working FULL-STEAM on an office suite. I know this is old news to most of you. But here's the catch: the apps are all being tested on Both Windows and OS X!

The design of the suite takes a lot from Adobe and Quark, rather than MS. The main basis of the suite is an ever growing cross-platform framework of utitilies, that any app in the suite can use. Plug-ins of all types can be written to extend the core engine, ala Adobe InDesign, or Quark Xtensions. Even third party apps can use them. Think web-core applied to business app functionality. Some of it was built on the old NeXT libraries but most had to be rewritten.

Even though this is top secret, enough developers are in the know that Open Office for Quartz is all but dead. The general idea I got from this is that this project is at full-tilt and Apple is serious about going head to head against Microsoft's main cash cow.

I'll try to get more news but I have a feeling my source has clammed up for now. The project is being shown to a very select FEW academic higher-ups though.

I, for one, am psyched.
post #110 of 126
Token is right, Mellel looks good and has lots of potential to do things.

I thought it of interest that Apple's Developer page links to Keynote information for Developers. How to use the Keynote file format for building presentations from databases and such. Looks interesting, haven't had a chance to read it yet.

This somewhat lends to the extensible architecture theory though these only deal with the file format.

If you look at the URL http://developer.apple.com/appleappl...note-apxl.html you notice "./appleapplications/" and if you dig further that there are no other pages in this directory. This might have to do with Final Cut, or DVD Studio, or easily Shake, or it could have to do with other things. But iMovie plug-in development is not here so, Why is only Keynote here? Perhaps I'm reading too much, but this is a rumor site and why create a new directory for something when it will fit just fine in an old one.

Something to think about.
post #111 of 126
Quote:
quote:
I'm not really a rumor monger, but this one was too amazing to keep to myself.
First of all, I'm a software coder for a small company doing apps for University Libraries and other academic customers...

Exactly how do you let all that info SLIP?

I think that most of that post is conjecture based on someone who initially said an Office suite is in the works and others who noted the frameworks for reading MS docs are accessible to TextEdit.

And Apple projects aren't shown outside the campus these days to anyone. Not until they're ready, and the suite is not.
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post #112 of 126
N.B. apologies for the multiple thread posts, but i think i need to start evangelizing this company again, especially when it comes to microsoft alternatives...

Mariner Software - makers of Mariner Write and Calc

the only drawback is that they didn't have a powerpoint contender, but now that keynote is out, i think that the combination of these three apps (keynote, write and calc) would make a pretty powerful team on anyone's desktop, without breaking the bank. small by comparison to most bloatware, and it was os x native before office was (though no one seemed to notice).

p.s. it still annoys me to no end that when macworld did a comparative review of office alternatives, they ignored these apps, but reviewed TEXTEDIT?!?!?! WTF?!?!
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post #113 of 126
I'm familiar with Mariner, though I have yet to try their products.

I think the reason Write and Calc haven't really caught on is that they don't really seem to bring anything new to the party. They read .doc, but I'm not sure they write to it. They're Carbon ports of the 9.X versions, so Nisus will probably overtake them once they've cleaned up the Writer interface inherited from Okito.

I think Apple's Keynote success shows that you have to bring improvements to the game if you want to play. Keynote is a step up from Powerpoint (or at least that's the image it projects.)

On another front, the Filemaker Conference Keynote is going on right NOW. It's entitled "The New Horizons of Filemaker", which seems straight-forward enough.

Anybody have any news?
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post #114 of 126
I think both Mariner Write, Nisus Express and MS Word gets beaten by Mellel“s superb ability to handle large documents with lots of styling, footnotes and text smoothing.
post #115 of 126
Unbelievable.

The Filemaker Keynote ended hours ago and NONE of the major Mac news outlets have any word on what was said. Not one person has posted on AI or any other forums I could find.

What did they do, make the entire conference sign an NDA?

I was actually pretty excited about today's speech, as I have a few FM projects to build in the next few weeks and it'd be nice to know what direction the app is headed in.
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post #116 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by Frank777
What did they do, make the entire conference sign an NDA?

That usually isn't 100% effective at staving off leaks.

Maybe they had Guido the Killer Pimp go around and have people sign the NDAs and honor them, or they'll be fed to the fish.
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post #117 of 126
I checked a few filemaker sites and apparently something was announced but nobody's talking.

I say, it's getting stranger and stranger to be a modern tech user. \
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post #118 of 126
I think Apple is waiting for the right time to spring something like an iOffice. Of course, they probably have something in development, why wouldn't they? Deep down everyone hates MS Office b/c of the fact that MS products always have to be upgraded in two years or less which means spending mo money mo money mo money!! Not to mention the fact that MS products from a quality stand point stink.

How many knowledgebase articles are out there for all the problems with office?

How many people are still using Office 2000 simply b/c they don't want to shell out the extra cash money to upgrade?

If apple does come out with an iOffice they should let current Appleworks users upgrade for free.

And besides, as long as whatever does come out is compatible and works and has the same quality apple puts in its products people will buy it...

Of course, the PC people will bash it to death regardless so wh ocares really?
post #119 of 126
Quote:
If apple does come out with an iOffice they should let current Appleworks users upgrade for free.

Not likely. Apple is not a charity and they know it.
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post #120 of 126
Quote:
Originally posted by Frank777
I checked a few filemaker sites and apparently something was announced but nobody's talking.

Well, nothing was announced (since it's kind of silly to have a secret product announcement!), but technologies were previewed which are due out "within a year."

If nothing leaks out for the months this technology could take to appear, Steve will probably staple himself to the FM executives until they tell him how they managed to keep the lid on so tight. It's a fair guess that the features that've already been leaked for a good while now are still in the pipeline - they were sensible enhancements for a toy database getting groomed for scalability.
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