Apple unveils iWork '05 productivity suite - Page 2

Aw, that sucks.

OTOH, a scripting dictionary for a new type of app is HARD... in some ways, harder than leveraging out your code into public frameworks, since you're exposing more of the nitty gritty internal model. Perhaps we can hope for this in the future, along with new frameworks?

Just seems like they've had plenty of time to get these things out the door. With Keynote 2 and now Pages apparently using the same thing, how much more work does it take? Meh, nevermind me and my impatience.

I agree with the person who noted that Steve said "With iWork, we're _building_ the successor to AppleWorks." Clearly they know they are not done.

Let's take the 6 pieces that make up the AppleWorks software: Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Database, Drawing, Painting & Presentation: \t

1 - Word Processing: "Pages" clearly handles that, albeit maybe it will need to get to version 1.1 before some smaller missing items (like word count) are added. But we all agree that word processing is taken care of.

2 - Spreadsheet: Clearly missing, with rumors of "Cells". I have no doubt that Apple is working on something in their labs, and maybe "Cells" simply wasn't ready to debut just yet.

3 - Database: "Filemaker" does it, but is too complex and costly for mom and dad and the average person. Apple needs to create a "Filemaker Light" to bundle with iWork 2.0 that fills this need.

4 - Drawing & Painting: "iPhoto" & "Core Image" clearly show that Apple has all the knowledge and tools to edit& manipulate images, and do all the fancy stuff that Photoshop currently does. Why Apple doesn't release some sort of "MacPaint '05" application is unknown, but I think a very good idea.

5 - Presentation: Hello "Keynote".

To truly replace AppleWorks, Apple needs to supply Cells, Filemaker Light. MacPaint '05 ... until then, calling Pages and Keynote a "suite" seems a little overblown. I also think the extra "s" in "iWorks" makes the package sound significantly better than the singular "iWork" but what do I know?

did someone say they need a utility for word count?

So, how normal can Pages be? Can it be a Word-like app?

Yes, it is a word processor. One of the Themes is a blank page, just like Word et al. The cool looking stuff is there to help get you started, just like you can find in MS Word's porject gallery. The difference is that adding your own graphics is easier and more likely to give you better results with Pages than with Word

iWork is a steal, anyway you look at it. Keynote 1.0 was $99. Now you get Keynote 2 AND Pages for $79!!??

Leave it to Apple to "think different." You have to love the simplicity of the product. Almost too easy to use, Pages can help anyone create visually appealing content that looks professional. I'm about to sell a house and you better believe I'll be using Pages for the layout.

I also own a small web firm and often use Flash (instead of powerpoint) for my business proposals. However, Keynote adds just enough animated effects for me to skip using Flash as a proposal medium when I am in a crunch.

Now, with iPod Shuffle I can listen to 1GB of success tracks (selling, closing, etc.) while I am on my way to the client, then use it as a storage device for my flash/keynote presentations.

I do have one question, however. Keynote 2 can export flash, but can it import a flash animated sequence?

I don't care if Apple makes an Office competitor. I do want to see an Apple-based Microsoft Project competitor. Without a Project contender, business project management professionals will not be able to migrate completely to the Mac. I prefer Apple makes a MS Project competitor, but if Microsoft makes it, so be it. I just need the functionality to ditch my PC (acually, I will always develop flash on a PC until macromedia makes a flash iteration than can perform equally to the PC version).

Arondale

so Apple will continue to ship AppleWorks with new Macs and not iWork?

Carson,

After reading some of your previous posts... you seem like someone who has some insight on the 'Research Community' (comments about EndNote and Graphing/Charting etc).

If I'm correct, do you feel Pages could be used by a "Principal Investigator Type" that is writing a grant? Grant writing is a pain to begin with and from what all the PI's I talk to say - MS Word isn't helping matters.

In short do you think Pages would be 'Better' 'Worse' or 'Same' when it comes to grant writing?

(yea I know - EndNote gives a clear advantage to Word but lets hope Niles and Associates steps up to the plate with Pages support - them or one of their competitors)

Dave

does anyone know if the rumor of LaTEX 'under the hood' in pages is true?

For the time being, seems so. I was quite surprised by that at first, but w/ a little reflection it makes sense... iWork is still really in a transitional period. I suspect the AW bundling may last up until all of the functionality of AW is replaced.

BTW, the lack of word count (if that's true) in Pages is really silly, but anyone can easily add word count (and much more!) for any Services-savvy app with the wonderful and free WordService. Add the modest APE module IceCoffee, if you dare, and you'll be in 7th heaven.

This is the addition that almost makes TextEdit a light WP. Almost.

Carson, can you (or anyone else from MWSF) report in more detail how Pages fares in the WP dept.? It was demo'd almost entirely as a surprisingly powerful lightweight DTP application... Which is great, but I'm curious if it's up to snuff for casual but solid WP usage.

Does Pages use a new file format? I imagine it would. The specs say it imports AW files, but nothing about exporting them. Also, I doubt Apple would use the Word file format, which the specs say it both imports and exports. Just curious.

I'll buy iWork. It's just what I've wanted minus a spreadsheet. I'll use AW until "Cells" comes out. I can hope Cells is introduced when Tiger comes out, that it just needs some of Tiger's frameworks. OTOH, I think that idea proposed earlier has merit. Sell the office suit in two separate packages. The name iWork sounds more like an iApp. Yet if it's beefed up with spreadsheet and more it will be like an Express or Pro application. Any speculation about this?

If Keynote, Create and other Cocoa apps are an indication (and they are), then Pages will use its own bundle file format with a base file in xml. For example, in Keynote and Create files, you can control-click on the document, choose "show package contents" and see the Images folder and other elements in separate locations, just like you can do with an application bundle. The bundle is treated like a file but keeps its data "readable" and modular rather than shoving all the data into a cryptic file format.

Yes, I'm a scientist in academics-biomedical stuff. I write too many grants.

I'm hoping to replace MS Word, mostly because of the absolute pain Word is when dealing with pictures/graphics. I'm looking forward to having crisp straight lines again, instead of the fuzz i had to deal with since moving to Word X.

Page layout on grants is pretty simple stuff. Generally, they don't even let you use color. The rules usually regard page limitations, margins, font sizes and such. Other than the limitations in importing PDF into Word, the big problem with Word was the bad habit of graphics suddenly jumping pages when a space was added somewhere else. Hours can be spent on rearranging the order of the text and graphics to make it all fit. Sometimes I've been completely unable to get a figure to stay on one page, instead of the page before and after. I'm hoping Pages makes this all a lot easier. In my tryout at MWSF, I didn't get fancier than two graphics and a couple of pages of text, but the feel to the whole thing was great. It feels like Keynote. You can drag and drop your file in, add a text box for a legend, group the graphic and text box and then size and place were you want it.

The lack of word count will hopefully be fixed soon.

Semi-off topic EndNote bash:

EndNote is no longer owned by Niles&Associates. It has been bought out by Thomson Researchsoft (ISI). It has been going downhill ever since. Note these guys also own ProCite and Reference Manager. I've always been an Endnote user, but the point is they have a monopoly.

If and when they support pages with a plug in, it will take at least until the next version (about a year). I got this info from the rep at MWSF. They just came out with EndNote 8, which I'm reluctant to buy since they never fixed the serious bugs in version 7.

I'm sure Pages can be used with EndNote in the old fashion way: cut and paste the references and open the final document in Endnote to format.

I focused on how it handled inserting and manipulating graphics, so I'm not sure about all the WP functions. It is a WP, but the demo was showed the flashy side with all the nice colors and pictures. From what i saw, if you are familiar with Keynote, then you have a good idea of how things are laid out. The main functions are found in the inspector. Look at Apple's site for more info: http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/word.html

I think it has most WP functions. One thing I didn't check was if it supports headers and footers and how page numbers are dealt with. Did anyone look at these?

Actually, haven't used Keynote, but think I have a decent idea how it looks, and how it's used.

I was hoping for a little more info on WP in Pages than from Apple's one-pager.

I'm curious how the experience is using Pages in WP, and all the things Apple doesn't mention: headers + footers, document information, the Pages file format, success rate of .doc compatibility, whether it offers anything new in WP, etc. How it works, beyond basic functionality. (After all, AppleWorks mostly "works". It just works like an ugly, bad Carbon Port.)

IOW, the experience.

p.s. Glad to hear Pages will solve your highly irritating problems w/ Word. It's kind of amazing there hasn't been a lite DTP/Publisher-style program for the Mac for ages now.

Well, for the longest time the Microsoft Office "suite" was only Word and Excel, so...

Still, I agree with what you said.

Gonna need to get my hands on it at home to begin to answer these questions.

Headers and Footers seems important and many of the themes have what appear to be headers, so I think there must be some way to make H+F, even it is a little different than what I'm used to with Word.

I don't recall seeing any document info when testing it out. I guess if they don't have word count in there yet, then they probably don't have the other stuff yet either.

I can say that one thing that seemed really neat and polished was the whole switching between single and multiple columns of text. The app did a great job in not sending your graphics all over the place. There was good control of the margins when working with multiple columns.

I was never a Framemaker user, but I'm curious of what Framemaker users will think of Pages.

The URL you gave has a graphic about half way down which shows a pull down formatting menu for a paragraph, with the word "footer" in it.

So you can make a paragraph in the style of a "footer". But does that mean they do it like MS Word etc?

Actually, if they sold Word and Excel in a bundle for $299., I might switch back.

I have no need for PowerPoint and Entourage.

Yup, you're right. I just looked over the text without reading it.

Use a service for word count. I have one that I cna't remember the name of (the menu item is Statistics) which does word count for any cocoa or services aware app.

Amorya

Most of you are making the wrong association. This has absolutely nothing to do with Word or Office. Pages, if anything, is Apples answer to Publisher, if that. It may even be more along the lines of Printshop or one of those cheap project programs intended for women and children. Greeting cards and family newsletters does not a high-end WP make. I'm not sure if Pages should even be called a WP. I will just have to see what it really is when it comes out. For now, Apple seems content to advertise it as little more than a project program. That is not a bad thing. It is just not a replacement for a real WP.

Wow, that was amazingly condescending.

I'm sure what you *meant* to say is 'one of those simple and cheap programs marketed towards those more interested in simple and fast home-oriented projects'. Really. I'm sure that's what you meant, instead of coming across as... well, I'll let someone pull the trigger on that one.


1) NSTextField is the core of TextEdit. It has 95% of the functionality in one drag-and-drop element in Interface Builder.

2) Pages is presumed to be Cocoa, as Keynote is, and they share a lot of elements.

3) Pages would then use NSTextField for typography, processing, etc

4) Pages would then, indeed, be a word processing application of a rather high caliber in most people's eyes.

What would you consider to have to be included to be a 'real' WP app??? I mean, I consider being able to use a simple graphic from another application and keep the full resolution to be a basic BASIC feature of a word processor, but Word continually disappoints on that front.

True enough and point taken.

From what was demonstrated, it seems to have little to do with competing with Word. You put it best when you said

'one of those simple and cheap programs marketed towards those more interested in simple and fast home-oriented projects'.

Has anyone seen or heard anything about this program that would suggest otherwise?

I wonder if Cells relates more to a database than spreadsheet. Indeed, with a database built into every OS Apple may be rethinking Filemaker.

Also, any Database 'app' they have could act as a spreadsheet - by basically simplifying the interface. Couldn't it?


Hopefully iDraw or iPaint will be part of iLife, not iWork.

I think the demo was to show off what Pages did much better than Word-which is make pretty looking documents. This has two sides to it, IMHO. One is to catch the attention of all of us who have been waiting to get something better than Word for our documents, but something less than Quark or InDesign. Second, I don't think Apple was trying to pick a fight or directly compare themselves to MS Office. They know they are still short on some ends and not even playing on others (Excel).

Nonetheless, I think my professional needs are will be met by this program, although I'm guessing I'll be looking for a few added features in version 2.

Keynote. I use it a lot, and frankly, the layout tools can give dedicated layout apps a run for their money, IMHO. Pages looks to share much of the same code and development, which indicates that it will work much the same way.

If so, this is a word processor (TextEdit functionality, including the robust styles/rulers/typography we've seen already and in Tiger previews) with the layout and compositing capabilities of Keynote (which are excellent), and the additional layout intelligence needed for columns, auto-wrap around objects, and other little goodies.

I'd hardly call it simple. You're confusing a simple interface with power, I believe. It's all right, a lot of people do it, thinking that only if it has a thousand switches and buttons can it ever possibly be used for advanced things. cf: MS marketing.

Not to mention this text in the sidebar:

Just because Pages does layout and presentation much better than most word processors do doesn't mean it is only a Print Shop-like program.

Pages is a word processor.

It may not compete with Word feature for feature (and as a regular college student, I really don't even have any idea what all those features are), but I can tell you one thing: I'm dropping Word for Pages. I think there will be plenty of people who will too. That alone should suggest to you that Pages does compete with Word on some level.

I would drop Word in a heartbeat for Pages, but only if it has some good word processing features. Right now it seems more like a page layout app than "WP with style". I need in Pages to have a good word count function, easy page numbering, and powerful multilanguage grammar and spell checking (for french class). If it has those, then I guess my iMac will be Microsoft free. If not, hopefully Apple will add those soon either in the next release or a firmware update.

If the word processing part of Pages is based on the standard text engine that runs textedit, create, keynote, and other cocoa programs, then can I assume that it will have all the same bugs and problems that these apps currently have?

The main show stopping bug at the moment is controlling the line spacing when using subscripts (which as a scientist, I need to use ALL the time). It is currently impossible to use subscripts in a cocoa text document while keeping the spacing of the lines constant. It works for superscripts, but not for subscripts. Apple people have confirmed that this is a current limitation. However, when I asked someone with Tiger to test if it had been fixed, they said no.

I will certainly buy Pages, as I have suffered with the 'trying-to-write-grant-proposal-but-Bill-Gates-knows where-the-images-should-be-placed-better-than-me' problems with Word that someone mentioned above.

I would be VERY interested to know if Apple has solved the problems with linespacing and subscripts in Pages.

A related problem is that when applying subscripts and superscripts, the size of the font is not automatically reduced, so you end up having to do this manually. You really need a nice single keyboard shortcut that will apply the subscript, reduce its fontsize, and KEEP THE LINE SPACING CONSTANT!!!!!!

Was anyone able to test this stuff out at MacWorld?

Cheers


Rich

It definitely does use the same text engine and features. The super- and subscript line spacing problem is apparently a known issue at Apple. I don't know if it will be fixed in Tiger though. Check out this thread in the Stone Design forums for Andrew's confirmation that Apple at least knows about this issue, but he can't comment on what's to come:

http://www.stone.com/stoneforum/viewtopic.php?t=200

I am wondering about the interoperability between Keynote and Pages.

It seems like you could create a page in Pages, transfer this to Keynote and then put transitions, etc. to it.

You could then have the header show up, then a column, then another column and so forth.

Does this seem reasonable? If so, Keynote may have become a whole lot more powerful.

I only wonder this because I saw the Group and Ungroup thing in the Pages toolbar preferences which seems like layering of some kind is going on.

Have you considered LaTeX? I use it daily, for precisely the fact that it does equations and intelligent placement of elements quickly, easily and intelligently. Coupled with TeXShop, you get most of the goodies of a WP for the text editing, and then let LaTeX handle the layout.

Yes, I have been having the same conversation with Andrew from Create (great program by the way - I can't help thinking that most of the functionality of Pages is already available in Create!).

I have considered latex, but I simply don't have the time to invest in learning how to do it. Maybe it is easier than I think? I did see a nice latex utility the other day to produce pdfs of typeset equations, which almost convinced me to give it a go.

I assume Pages will not come with any sort of equation editor, so we will be stuck with cutting and pasting from the free one that comes with appleworks and word?

I'll definitely buy iWork whatever happens, as keynote kicks serious powerpoint butt!

Cheers

Rich

Maybe you're thinking of Equation Service? I use it a lot to send equations to other folks via email, so there's no question about what we're talking about. Very useful, and you're absolutely right, it is *PERFECT* for dropping equations into Keynote (and presumably Pages).

See, this is where the uber-compositing comes in handy. These apps don't need to offer half-assed equation editors, when there are some stunning tools already out there to do it right, and for free.

If you're interested in LaTeX at all, go get TeXShop. It's free, it handles the installation of the full LaTeX system for you, and it works beautifully. It's primarily a text editor for raw LaTeX production, but it also has palettes and pop-up menus for generating the LaTeX for you until you learn it. (I find that after a while, typing it in is faster.) Also, one button click, and you have a beautiful PDF file to send to folks. I couldn't live without it.

Equation Service lets you type in a quick LaTeX equation anywhere, in any application, select the text, hit Cmd-< and a tiny PDF of your equation, stunningly rendered, will be sitting in your pasteboard. Cmd-V, it appears. Voila.

Actually, Create has much more functionality, though it's geared towards DTP and web publishing, not bibliographies and such. You're greeted with a blank page instead of a selection of themes, so it's more of a make-your-own-theme artists' kind of environment. And the choices of included vector art, images, blends, etc. are limited. (That's partly my fault.) It's not a WP though, and not made for all the scientific whatnot you're talking about, at least not yet. The text tools are again based on the standard cocoa text objects (and thus will also improve with Tiger, whatever that will bring). For long documents, you do most of the typing outside the app, drop in the text and Create will generate the pages needed to fit it and auto-flow the text.

Actually, Create is exactly why I want Apple to make its Keynote rulers standard issue for third-party use. Andrew has enhanced the currrent Apple-supplied rulers nicely, but the auto-alignment guides are just so nice to use.

Actually, Pages gives Create a clearer direction to go because there was thoughts thrown around to make it more "color by numbers," but Pages has stepped in to that spot. But I digress...

Holy crap, I hadn't even considered that!

With SQLite built right into Tiger, all Apple needs is a good interface with calls to SQLite, and "Requires MacOS 10.4 or higher" on the box. Instant database application.

As a sadder (if not wiser) Framemaker user I can't help but view Pages through a Frame-centric prism. We know that Apple produces a lot of its documentation using Framemaker ... wouldn't it be nice if Pages could fill those particular shoes? You can bet that a lot of people within Apple are thinking similar thoughts.

If Apple were to look after its own writers in this way, the result may well be a compelling solution not just for technical writers, but also for the education market. And there's the rub. If Pages were to become the educational writer's tool of choice, it might well presage a welcome resurgence in one of Apple's favourite markets.

Stone software is hideous. 1999 called, it wants it's Public Beta interface back.

http://www.stone.com/Create_Screenshot.html

I'm sure it works as advertised, but I won't use it based on aesthetic reasons. (I've tried to, many times over the years. Just doesn't feel Mac-like or finished or pro).