Apple spreadsheet application in the works? - Page 2

sweet fancy moses, don't you think apple can spare a few software developers to at least give a spreadsheet app a try? yes, i am sure developing numbers will push leopard back to 2008. sheesh...

and i don't know what the heck peopel thought they were GETTING when they bought iWork. i knew exactly what i was getting. i was getting a kick-butt presentation app (and it is... anyone who tells you differently is a liar. yeah, it could still use some work, but damn i can impres folks now), with a word-processing/basic page layout app thrown in for free. i mean, come on, it's $70. $70! $100 for a multi-use family pack. if that's all you can afford, it's pretty damned good. if you think you can do better, then go BUY IT. please, enjoy the cheap family-pack version of office for mac. oh yeah, that's right, there isn't one. i swear, some people act liek they're INSULTED by pages even being in the same box, nay, on the same disc.

give it a rest. pages 1.0 needs work. pages 2.0 will be the quantum leap we saw from keynote 1 to 2. keynote 3 will probably make my head explode (in a good way), and numbers 1.0 will probably disappoint lots of folks. but if apple only charges $80 or $100, i will just not understand the self-righteous anger of some people towards apple over developing software because, well, why SHOULDN'T THEY?!?!?!?

I wonder if Apple is considering using Gnumeric or something similar as a base?

As a student, I'm betting IWork can do everything you need word to do. This is assuming your writing basic reports. If I'm wrong, please let me know what it can't do. BTW, you can export using RTF. Anyone can open that up in their word program.

I think most are complaining much too much over a version 1.0. Yes, I'm also having issues, but I've used it because it provides far better graphics than Word. My big problem is that I need to use a reference program like EndNote or my current new favorite Sente. However, these programs don't work from within Pages. My last grant was written with Sente in MSWord X. Then when the text and, more importantly the references, were finished I exported to Pages to add the figures and finnish the layout. It worked well, but I dislike that if I ever use the text again and need to add references, I have to go back to the figureless version in Word. Nonentheless, since a reviewer recently complained about the fuzzy quality of my figures printied out from Word, I am very happy Apple came out with Pages. Now if they could only provide a means for other developers to add plugins so that we can get it to play nice with Sente or Endnote.

I really think Pages has the potential to be everyhting anyone needs working in the life sciences. Basic papers and grants with figures can be easily written using Pages.

edit. Keynote is sooooo much better than PP. iWork is worth it simply for Keynote. Think of Pages as a bonus.

You're wrong. Microsoft was under contract to develop Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office only for so long. When that time was up, they continued developing Office because it made them money, and they stopped development of IE since it brought them no money whatsoever.

Apple built Safari in response to what they knew would most likely happen - Microsoft would kill off IE for Mac once their contract was up, and they did. When Safari debuted, IE had not been updated for many months.

Maybe you didn't know this but Pages exports to Word format.

Can it do PDF too?

Yes.

PDF, Word, HTML, RTF and Plain Text.

That's cool. But how well is the HMTL output. I've tried exporting several things into HTML on the mac, but they always come out wrong with the spacing, coloring, etc.

I like Pages. It has some bugs (such as the well-known problem with tabs when text is not left-justified) but overall it's very cool.

The problem is that most people expect it to be a Word clone, but it's not. It's an odd hybrid between a page layout program and a word processor. It's pretty good for page layout, but only OK as a word processor. Where people really have trouble is when they mix the two uses w/o understanding how the various features interact with each other.

My main use of Pages at this point is as a sort of "Keynote for paper" .. I used to use PowerPoint for making posters (both my current and former employers do this) but Pages is much better for this. I can create beautiful 36"x56" posters with very little effort, and it works much better than PowerPoint. (why 56"? because that's our standard size, because it was the largest dimension supported by PPT. With Pages I can make them even bigger if I'd like, but so far we're sticking with our old standard size just to be consistent.)

I'm trying to figure out what I miss most about Word after I switched to Pages.

The little brain behind Word that decides for me how everything should be formatted, the bad grammar checker or the terrible, terrible drawing tools and image-embedding capabilities. I think I miss all of them equally.

I'm just sad iWorks came out at the end of my university degree.

You can't make anything complex. I wonder if this'll change in a future release...I doubt it though. Pages isn't a webpage authoring app.

As long as that annoying paperclip annimation stays far, far away, I'm all good.

Just incase any of you didn't know - as it seems that people haven't taken notice of this - Keynote is just an updated "Concurrence" from the NeXt days. Literally down to the same locations of some of the items on the palettes etc.etc.

http://winkin.phpwebhosting.com/~buf...oncurrence.gif

So was there any spreadsheety or word processor type applications back in the day that are seemingly familiar when it comes to Pages or what will become the new Numbers?

I hate to say this but I want to use Pages but I can't seem to get over my MS Word training that has been driven into my head. The most frustrating thing was trying to figure our how to get it to bullet automatically when taking notes in class.

MS Word just did it when I was on a new line and pressed "tab" - it would indent and add numbers and letters etc. To this day haven't figured out how to do this with Pages.

P.S. I know you can do bullets and numbering but it is very awkward an d won't do it automatically.

I have absolutely no experience with Tiger yet (apart from demos in the Apple Store) but could automator help out there?

I don't think Automator would help. But that's the problem, I just want it to work like MS Word "out of the box" Also, if you indent a bullet by hand and number it, text on the next line moves all the way back to the left margin. This actually the most annoying problem.

When I bullet something and it continues onto the next line it should lineup with the bullet it's under - it doesn't.

I don't know how you can stand that. That's exactly what I hate the most. "Word deciding how everything should be formatted".

Word seems to think it knows more than I do and decides to bullet everything or number everything or keep my in a list format. I always have to backspace to tell Word to calm the fuck down. And even that has a chance of failing. There's some voodoo I don't understand, no doubt, but sometimes I'll backspace and Word will finally drop me out of it's list spree but, on occasion, it'll backspace me back to the margin but keep me in a list.

Really weird stuff...I should probably turn that feature off...it's driving me up the wall.

I've been conditioned - as simple as that. But even knowing and wanting to break the ugly MS training I find it difficult - especially when I'm in a hurry and my brain is focusing on what the Prof was saying and I just expect it to be a certain way.

I do think that MS's way of bulleting is faster for note taking.

I'll give you that.

But then again...I'd use OmniOutliner for notetaking if I had an iBook or Powerbook. :'(

I agree completely!

I don't have a Mac (hence the screen name) and I haven't used Pages, but I have to use Word almost every stinkin' day and rarely does it make me happy. Now that I think about it, I haven't been happy doing word processing since back in the days of WordPerfect. Yeah, I know, I'm ancient history.

But there is one thing about Word that I hate above all else. Periodically (and unpredictably) when closing the program it will tell me that I have made changes to the "normal" template and then it will politely ask if I would like to save changes "Yes, No or Cancel". It's a good thing that there is not a "hit with hammer" option because the only choice that will let me leave the program is "yes" - "no" has the same result as "cancel". Man, this drives me insane because as you said earlier it is as though "Word seems to think that it knows more than I do..." Exactly. I can also relate to the whole automatic numbering / bullet issue - it just doesn't work like I want it to.

Maybe I should switch to Mac - perhaps not for Pages just yet, but so I can take my frustration out on my PC!

Yes I love itwhen your list is all properly numbered and you go offf to do other things, print it out and soundly the numbers changed. Wee such fun.

The best is the junping figures that won't stay on one page (even if they fit) but insist on being on the page before or after. That is why I use Pages, the time spen getting Word documents in is less than adding figures to Word.

You know that Microsoft Office format is .doc right? You know you can save your Pages documents as .doc right?

Research. Before. You. Say. It. Doesn't. Do. What. I. Need. It. To. Do.

MS annonced that they ceased development on IE on both Mac and Windows.

IE was/is supposed to be tightly integrated with Longhorn, and only recently have they decided to make an update for WinXP SP2.

Furthermore, MS didn't make any major updates to IE5 for Mac since it was released in 2001.

It's more likely that Apple decided to make a browser because of MS' non existant development of IE than MS dropped IE because of Safari.

Every Mac app that can print can do PDFs - great, ain't it?

Well, there was Mesa from Athena Design, then bought by P&L Systems Ltd.


NeXTStep Mesa 2


Mac OS X Mesa 3

See this screenshot in particular. Very iWork in style.

Apple needs to get a fully featured (yet simple) office suite up and running, and it needs to be bundled with every mac at no extra cost. Yes, IT MUST BE FREE!!! Just like iLife, iWork needs to get to a point where it can be the centre of your digital (work) life, and it needs to come with every mac sold. Charging for updates is fine, but far more people buy a computer looking to do the things that Office suites do, rather than what iLife does. Having to shell out for a basic office package after buying a computer that costs as much as any mac does, including the mini, is simply cheap.

Pages is somewhat funky/ phunky. It's cool, but it requires a bit of rethinking to get the hang of it. particularly because text boxes are mostly columnised and not just fully draggable and repositionable around the page, AFAIK, only images and other media. I'm still figuring it out after a few weeks, me being a illustrator/photoshop/pagemaker/ms word user for several years now, it's a bit weird, i have to admit, but promising.

Keynote 2 though f8cking kicks ass. I love it, quicktime, safari web snapshots, and all that.

Pages 2.0
Keynote 3.0
Numbers 2.0
Mail.app 3.0
this would be closer to the microsoft office killer we are hungering for

getting close peoples
mwsf2006, mwsf2007 on intels, iWork and iLife bundled with all Macs, yes, very promising

What happened to the rumour a few months back that it'll be be based on Lotus Improv? Steve seems to love that apps so much

If Apple makes a spreadsheet, it better be like the Quantrix Modeler. That thing looks sweet. I think NeXT used to make something like back in the 90s.

umm, i hate to be an ass, but no.

a majority of apple's target market for growing the brand and profits would not even know wtf
"Quantitative Modeling Software for Professionals"
is,
let alone how to spell those words.

who was it that said "you can never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the *ahem* american (replace with global) public"


edit:

case in point: front page of website says:
"Quantrix was the best solution for Cimpor."
Eugenio Pauperio, CIO, Cimpor

1. who the hell is eugenio?
2. why should i care about Cimpor?
3. Cimpor is one of those sucky-ass uncool boring grey-building corporate names.
3. outside of the corporate world, "best solution" is meaningless jargon


the way iWork is currently built and apple, Numbers should probably be marketed as:

Phunky-sexy-looking 30something Jane:
"i finally managed to balance my checkbook, and could afford a whole new wardrobe..!"

not meant to be sexist:
Intelligent-but-suave-looking 30something Joe:
"with iWork '06, i can just focus on my family, my business, getting on with my life"

but what do i know? besides my restraining order banning me from 1km of any Apple marketing dept employee**











**no such restraining order is in place, joke used only for effect and to tickle the ribs of appleinsider visitors. apple marketing department is cool. um, and i am not a psycho stalker..... yet.....

.............

Sunil I think you're wrong on this one and bborofka is correct and here's why.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv


Steve has definitely been a fan of Lotus Improv which is improved in the Quantrix Modeler. I don't see him changing and moving to todays Excel clones. The natural language of Quantrix coupled with the ability to reorder data and use far fewer equations is huge to me. I think the only reason why Apple hasn't gone this route is because of the competition they wish to avoid with MS Office.

While Quantrix makes the product sound difficult or somehow aimed at just financial modelers I don't see why it wouldn't work for far more tasks.

I'd like to see Apple have something like Quantrix fused with nice graphic capability. We'll see if "Numbers" sees the light of day and what features it offers. I'm curious.

did next have a word processing app? why yes, they did. do a google search for steve jobs' promo video for nextstep 3 (i think), where he shows off a cool new word processing/layout app. care to guess what it was called?


..

...

wait for it....

...

"Pages"

fair enough mate. i think i was in a bit of a twisted moood because my 50+ year old aunt and uncle were over for supper last night and were like "oh, i heard apple and microsoft are going to merge and apple will be no more in two years" WTF?

...will check out da wikipedia link now...

For all those that say Pages is interesting but doesn't have the features they use in Word, may I ask what exactly those features are? Many people have said this but the only feature mentioned is Mail merge. Is it just this? I can understand Mail merge is very important to those who use it, but surely there can't be tht many people using it? I think the trouble here is just that a lot of people haven't taken 10 minutes to explorer Pages (IMO very good) interface.

Also there's all this talk of Pages being a hybrid Word-processor/DTP program. Again, I don't buy this. When Apple describes it as a "Word processor with an incredible sense of style" they are not actually far off. All the layouts are created with just columns, text boxes, section breaks, images and text styles, all of which are standard Word processing features. All Pages does is have excellant support for these features (unlike some other word processors...) and ~40 professionally designed templates to show off what you can do with them. Just select any template and go View -> Layout to see.

Pages is in many ways more powerful than Word. I can't wait to see v2.

I think Pages manages to straddle the middle ground between Quark/Indesign and Word sucessfully, Apple has to be careful not to step on Adobe or Microsoft's toe. beside a consumer page layout app is seriously missing, it's suppose to be an iApps afterall, if there's going to be Numbers, it would probably be a consumer level,

the only thing that doesn't fit the whole iApp regime is Keynote, it's waay too high-end, but that doesn't preclude it from being usable.

Unless there's a real breakthrough of functionality/performance like FinalCut Pro, Apple probably won't market a pro level office suite.

But I would consider that if this new spreadsheet program is based on Improv or Quantrix, that it would be pro enough, but then there's the problem of marketing two lines of pro and consumer level apps, not that it can't be done, but it's hard enough just to market a consumer level office suite like AppleWorks

I bought pages earlier this year and have used it to do some actual work. I had to read the manual to understand some aspects of it. I'm in college and i used it for eco, world lit, and cell bio.

Here are some cons:

--when i applied styles to stuff that was centered my text moved to the left. I am assuming that a style also includes the justification. I don't like that though. So i guess pages needs more fine grande control in that area.

--If pages wants to do bullets different than any other way i have ever seen it in an app (textedit or word). It should some how point that to users.

--I wish it wasn't so print oriented. I would like to be able to make a web page with it. In this day and age the internet is the most important medium.

--I know that you can option click the inspector icon to get multiple inspectors but i think that is a mistake. I think you should just click the inspector icon for a new inspector and click to close button on an inspector to get rid of them.

--the auto numbering when doing a list is hard to control if you don't go in order.

--I would like to be able to control the insertion and deletion of pages more easily. Maybe a column to the side like keynote.

--My biggest problem with pages is that the chart/graphing utility is far to weak. I don't care if its a consumer app there really is no excuse for the suckyness of the graphing capabilities in pages. Tables could be better but aren't terrible.

Hmm, it doesn't start them automatically (a blessing or a pain depending on your point of view), but its hardly difficult, is it? Click the 'list' button at the top and select bullets to start bullets. When you've finished, click it again and select none.

This was added with the 1.0.2 update - View -> Show Page Thumbnails

What exactly about the graphing don't you like?

neilj: thank you sooooooo much for that thumbnail view tip. I saw the delete page but not the thumbnail view. Its very useful. So i guess I take that con back.

--for bullets. What i mean by its not a standard format is that usually like, in textedit, if you want to make a sub series under a bullet you just press tab. pages you have to press cmd+ "]" or ""[". I've never had to do that before.

--For Graphs. The graphs I make are usually for science classes. So say i want to plot. distance vs. time. And i want the x-axis to be time and the y-axis to be distance. There is no easy way to label the graphs. There is no easy way to set the x-axis as time. I guess you could just add in your own text boxes to label. And if you enter in your own label then the labels don't move with the graph.

When entering the x & y coordinates why do i have to have the same x for a set of 2 ys. I would like to have a uniform x-axis number set, say every 15 seconds. and have a separate set for x & y coordinates. that way if i need to change from every 15 seconds to every 2 seconds I can with out having to change the entire graph to every 2 seconds. This is important because sometimes things are steady but then change exponentially. and using only even numbering through out data.

You can't do exponential graphs.

Also there is not scatter plot with best fit. That just knocks out 90% of the graphs i ever need to do.

I need to do std. deviations. There is no tool to do that.

I need to take some weird R squared deal that I forgot what it means.

and basically pages doesn't make it easy to graph for anything scientific at all.

--no equation editor.

oh gawd i wasted way too many hours at university and high school wrestling with excel 95, excel 98 trying to do all that shite. it was either that or figure out mathematica (which while excellent, is wayyy out of my league)**

**although i cant remember if in high school i tried to get mathematica to do my algebra homework for me... it kindaa worked, i think \

I just tried to really learn pages and I must say I am very impressed right now. In many ways i think its far more powerful than word.

--earlier I said that when you apply styles it changes all the position. This can be easily avoided if you use character styles. so thats another con off the list.

--The real problem with pages is discoverability and some UI issues. Its feature set will grow with time

--Some features I would like to see ASP is the stuff previously mentioned + a works cited editor for different formating styles. I personally want one for MLA document style.

my 2 cents