I'm not quite sure what makes bundling iWork with a Mac verboten when iLife has raised no such concerns. Seems like a stretch.
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Originally Posted by fabsgwu
I hope they continue to update iWork to be better compatible with MS Office, though.
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Originally Posted by myapplelove
I grew with office too but have switched to iWork, except some excel bits. Much better and lighter.
Apple should put the extra effort in because this is the best office replacement.
I don't care about interface compatibility or having evvvvery feature in the world and I like the iWork GUI quite a bit - but I stick with Word because of the file-saving fandango I have to go through to create universally shareable (.doc) editable documents. Just what the world needed is another incompatible document file format that 98% of the world can't open (including most Mac owners!). And just what I need on my hard drive - duplicate file names for every doc I want to share, or take the time to manually weed out all the Pages versions all the time.
Ridiculous - and no more inherent sense than Sony trying to force feed us Memory Sticks, Atrac files and every other proprietary off shoot which either remains stuck in a niche or dead-ended.
Yet when I do save a Pages document as a doc, Pages has no problem opening it with everything I put in it. So why not simply add one simple option to save by default in in Doc (and, I suppose DocXJ) format. WordPerfect's done that on my PC for over a decade and Apple clearly understands the Doc deal.
Oh well. I dislike Word and even having it, but it's the least kludgy way to go for me. And I suppose all productivity programs are headed to the cloud anyway where we'll be debating other aspects.
Meanwhile this (below) just in from a few fantasy land fans who clearly believe the Mountain's about to come to Mohammed. Not in the first half of this decade at least, pals.......
Quote:
Originally Posted by mplaisance
Not ME! I hope Apple continues to make iWork just a elegant and continues to get more to use it AND I HOPE OFFICE BECOMES MORE COMPATIBLE WITH IWORK!. It is about time Microsoft plays nicer with others!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
The idea is to ween the world off of Office, not prolong its miserable existence.
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?
Yes, very different. Microsoft can't claim that they don't have a huge market for Office outside of the Mac, so they'd have nothing to complain about if Apple bundled iWork with the Mac. Which I think they should do.
Business is about more than just doing complicated things with VB basic and Excel. Most businesses, don't need or use anything much beyond the basic functionality of the Office suite, and most small businesses, do all their accounting with a separate accounting software package, not Excel.
Agreed, heartily. This is yet another example of people assuming that their needs are serious, and others less so. We've been using iWork for all our word processing since the first version. It was fine for this purpose then, and has only gotten better. Numbers I hardly ever use, except to open Excel documents others send to me, which 95% of the time are just simple tables that don't include a single calculation anyway. When I tried to import a fairly large database into Numbers, it choked -- so I'll continue to use FileMaker for that task. Obviously, Numbers needs more work.
First let me say I'm not a heavy user of "Office" type apps at all. That is the case at home or at work.
Given that I installed NeoOffice on my early 2008 MBP after spending years running Linux for my home computer. Let's just say it is OK, but not much more than that. I installed iWorks when Snow Leopard came out and have only used it a little. Part of the problem here is that I'm more inclined to use simple text editors, python or web tools rather than "Office" tools.
That being said I can see myself expanding the use of numbers in the future, especially if the feature set expands. One thing I'd like to be able to do is to generate plists for software development. Numbers may be able to do this already, I really haven't looked as I've been using Python for that. Also the ability to tightly control rounding is a must.
In any event continued use of future versions of iWork requires that Apple keep the cost equation under control. I actually don't want to see it bundled with the operating system. There are a number of problems with bundling, one of which is interference from the highly regulated EU. A bigger issue is that it is anti innovation in my mind, especially for a product that has a long ways to go development wise. In some ways I see NeoOffice as a better solution and that it will continue to be developed as long as people have to make a choice. If Apple where to bundle iWorks then there will be far less energy focused on alternative software.
My MS Office experience is entirely PC based at work. Of the suite, Excel is the only offering that really impresses me and is actually a productivity tool. That even with a rather large database that i developed in Access. In reality Access is a marginal buggy piece of crap from what I can see, but that is an older version of Access. Word while usable I find strange. Excel is just the opposite and very handy. This can be seen in the number of Excel documents that I get E-Mailed to me that contain nothing but text. It is pretty obvious that Excel is a tool that many people reach for first. Interestingly that dies not seem to be the case with Mac users and Numbers. Mac users are more incline to reach for the "right" tool when creating a document. What is even funnier is that Excel seems to help some people with their compositions.
So for me the value in iWork for use at home is not clear. Even further down the road where I imagine running a business value isn't certain. I'm actually hoping that the tech in Snow Leopard, especially GCD, leads to a vastly improved version of iWorks. There should be extensive focus on Numbers. I'd like to see more depth in Numbers including an interface to sqlite3.
Why sqlite3? Well the database capabilities of Excel are nice but an Excel file can hardly be called a database. So while I'd live to see more features in Numbers to handle spread sheets as databases I'd be far happier to see Numbers provide an interface to Sqlite3. Sqlite3 is a simple SQL environment that would go well with numbers and simplfy the deliver of novel solutions to problems. No it is not a replacement for traditional databases, but is rather a solution to the issue of spreadsheet complexity.
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.
Why use iWork? Because it does things MS Office wants to do when/if it grows up...
Yes, I use MS Office too, but I have taken to using iWork more and more. I hope to switch completely some day, but only if Apple improves spreadsheet features, adds decent forms features to Pages, and makes import/export to MS Office so good you won't have to reformat your files after opening them in the other program...
So what does iWork do that's so special? Well, I don't have time to list everything here, but here's two major points:
Keynote. The whole thing. I can't even stand to use PowerPoint at all anymore. In fact I don't. I've switched completely to Keynote and have not looked back. I know of no capabilities in PowerPoint that are not 100% better in Keynote, plus Keynote has capabilities PowerPoint only dreams of.
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.
MS Office can't be replaced just yet - I have found continued requirements in the business world (because unfortunately, everybody uses it). OpenOffice seems to be the most compatible, but does nothing to improve upon Office. iWork is less compatible and still a little immature, but produces far superior results.
One fine day, hopefully one fine day, an alternative suite will be a sufficient replacement for MS Office, until then I'm okay with using iWork and Office together. I would really like to switch to iWork completely, but Apple needs to build in lots of additional compatibility, and a Windows version of the suite would be nice too. Apple, are you listening?
I just wish they would add a drawing app so iWork would have the functionality of AppleWorks (RIP).
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Originally Posted by razorpit
Agreed on the drawing app. I'm surprised there is nothing comparable in the iWork suite. Thanks for the tip also, like others I completely forgot about creating keyboard shortcuts like that.
I do hate that Apple no longer offers even a basic drawing app for their OS. I have found the free and simple modern version of MacPaint app called Paintbrush that is easy to use. It?s more akin to MS Paint than the drawing app in AppleWorks.
Yes, my point was it?s no longer is included with Macs.
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Originally Posted by Quadra 610
Love iWork. It's all I've been using since 2006. It handles MS documents very well, but with such great PDF features built into it I never really have a need to save in an MS format.
MobileMe works beautifully. I've been a .Mac user for years now and the service has come a long way. Syncing is much more reliable than it used to be. I work off the iDisk "cloud" exclusively and the service has held up with 4gb of synced data.
I don?t see how people can complain about MobileMe as a whole. The increases features since .Mac are great and well worth the $65/year.
The speed could be faster but I think that is being worked on. The new iDisk app for the iPhone seems to work much faster. I stream movies I?d put on my iDisk smoothly. I do wish Apple supported more codecs and containers but that is for a different thread.
I'll save you the disappointment... it isn't. It isn't meant to be.
Its for people, not accountants/engineers. (no offense to accountants or engineers meant.)
That's an artificial distinction. There's no reason that Apple to not make Numbers more functional to accommodate the 'accountants/engineers' as well (without losing its simplicity for 'people.')
Add: Just noticed that Dave (#50) said it much better than I did!
Since switching to a Mac, all the time and money I gained from the Mac's better OS ( backup, security, etc ) I have then lost trying to regain basic office capability ( enter numbers into spreadsheets from business partners, update my CV, ... ).
Since switching to a Mac, all the time and money I gained from the Mac's better OS ( backup, security, etc ) I have then lost trying to regain basic office capability ( enter numbers into spreadsheets from business partners, update my CV, ... ).
MS Office for Mac is that much worse than MS Office for Windows to cause that much of a usability hit?
Love iWork. It's all I've been using since 2006. It handles MS documents very well, but with such great PDF features built into it I never really have a need to save in an MS format.
MobileMe works beautifully. I've been a .Mac user for years now and the service has come a long way. Syncing is much more reliable than it used to be. I work off the iDisk "cloud" exclusively and the service has held up with 4gb of synced data.
I was going to do more with iDisk but had a couple of worries. Firstly, that a dodgy sync could wipe out a big chunk of data and sync the wipe to my Mac ( I've seen bad sync's reported and my first ever MobileMe sync failed horribly ). Plus files in iDisk are excluded from Time Machine.
Agreed, heartily. This is yet another example of people assuming that their needs are serious, and others less so. We've been using iWork for all our word processing since the first version. It was fine for this purpose then, and has only gotten better. Numbers I hardly ever use, except to open Excel documents others send to me, which 95% of the time are just simple tables that don't include a single calculation anyway. When I tried to import a fairly large database into Numbers, it choked -- so I'll continue to use FileMaker for that task. Obviously, Numbers needs more work.
numbers, Excell or whatever I often fine that people try to use spread sheets for databases, generally to save up front time. I never really understood this myself as even a bad database program like Access has significant advantage ls over a spread sheet type program when handling data. Well data of any size, don't get me wrong here, I don't want to see a reduction in spread sheet data handling capability. Just that current solutions don't cut the mustard with sufficiently large or complex data sets.
That is why my previous post mentioned a hybrid approach where something like Sqlite databases are tied to the spread sheet capability of Numbers. Not as a huge page of rows and columns like is done today but rather as an object that can return data to a cell. Personally I think this sort of approach would have huge benifits and lead to more robust spread sheets. In some cases it might actually simplfy things. Better yet your data ends up in a more or less standard container. The nature of SQLite means you would always be able to get to your data in the future. I just see this sort of hybrid approach offering unigue solutions to many problems.
numbers, Excell or whatever I often fine that people try to use spread sheets for databases, generally to save up front time. I never really understood this myself as even a bad database program like Access has significant advantage ls over a spread sheet type program when handling data. Well data of any size, don't get me wrong here, I don't want to see a reduction in spread sheet data handling capability. Just that current solutions don't cut the mustard with sufficiently large or complex data sets.
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.
MS Office for Mac is that much worse than MS Office for Windows to cause that much of a usability hit?
I started by trying Pages and its ability to open Office documents, given that this is promoted as a capability and there is discussion about being able to live without MS Office (which I wanted to do).
After that turned out to be a no-go, I tried OpenOffice which was also mangling my documents.
Then I tried VMWare and found it killed my Mac's performance and had funny little instabilities that put me off.
So now I'm using Office for Mac for my own documents. Then I use bootcamp/Vista/Office for any document that is sent to me. I use iDisk and MobileMe to send docs from Mac to Windows (horrible) and plan to write some AppleScript to suck documents back into the Mac for Time Machine.
Getting to this point has been pretty time-consuming and also expensive if you add up all the software above.
Since switching to a Mac, all the time and money I gained from the Mac's better OS ( backup, security, etc ) I have then lost trying to regain basic office capability ( enter numbers into spreadsheets from business partners, update my CV, ... ).
Whatever dude. Are you trolling?
If you need your so called "basic office capability" go buy MS Office for Mac and you're done. No productivity lost. Or you could download OpenOffice for free. It's nearly 100% compatible with MS Office.
Y'know. We use 'Word', 'Power'Point and Excel at our school.
Seriously, how many beatings do people have to take before they finally bin this dinosaur Office suite into the clunky unusable bin? It's a NASTY piece of crepe.
iWorks is simple, elegant and extremely easy to use while not lacking in much capability. It's like coming up for air after using Word..which I rate as next to unusable.
Speaking from 'just typing' stuff perspective...I don't have arguments with paperclips, objects remaining rooted and bouncing around a page in an unexplained fashion, don't have a new interface which is obtuse but 'hey, looks like apple's aqua...', don't have clutter, don't have to data mine for simple functionality...from the bloated feature sprawl, don't have to get frustrated in general with Word's 'PRESUMPTIVE' behaviour...which is extremely irritating.
Sure, if, you use this everyday and you 'know' how to use it (folks, it's just a bloody word processor and M$ can't even get that right!) then ok, you've got Stockholm syndrome.
Design wise, iWorks is streets ahead. And Apple can keep adding functionality bit by bit without compromising that design.
Word is a turkey shoot. It aint pretty.
With the pending iPhone, App Store, iSlate and the following iWork for the 'Cloud', M$'s reign at the top of the pile is at the beginning of the end.
I started by trying Pages and its ability to open Office documents, given that this is promoted as a capability and there is discussion about being able to live without MS Office (which I wanted to do).
After that turned out to be a no-go, I tried OpenOffice which was also mangling my documents.
Then I tried VMWare and found it killed my Mac's performance and had funny little instabilities that put me off.
So now I'm using Office for Mac for my own documents. Then I use bootcamp/Vista/Office for any document that is sent to me. I use iDisk and MobileMe to send docs from Mac to Windows (horrible) and plan to write some AppleScript to suck documents back into the Mac for Time Machine.
Getting to this point has been pretty time-consuming and also expensive if you add up all the software above.
Sorry for your unfortunate experience. I use MS Office for Mac at the office no less, and it has never mangled any document anyone has sent to me. Even complex forms open fine, and their usability is about as good as Office for Windows (which isn't saying much). If you have Office '08 then you could run into an issue with the missing VB script, which is why I run Office '04 and won't upgrade until MS puts it back in.
BTW, if you need to run Win, then Parallels & WinXP works much better than what you tried.
I've noticed many posts here indicating an interest in drawing programs. There are many good solutions on the net for raster and simple vector graphics. I dint want to highjack this thread to list out those.
What I do want to mention is the addition of a "CAD" like program to iWorks. I put XAD in quotes because I think Apple could put a modern twist on the concept to make the app far more useful than the standard CAD program. The sad reality is there are lots of drawing programs out there and as such Apple really doesn't need to offer anything at the simple end. However when it comes to opening AutoCad .dxf files or creating them or PDFs there are far fewer options and even fewer low cost ones. That when today 2 & 3D wire frame CAD is old hat tech. Mind you I'm not talking about competeing with the $1000+++ CAD programs in features or capabilities. Rather I want to be able to open and edit the mechanical drawings often found on the net for various engineering components. Most of the times theses are simple 2D dimensioned drawings. The ability to create such drawings is also required.
What we really are talking about is a product that competes with AutoCad Light and Adobe Illustrator but frankly does not need the complexity of either. The idea would be to deliver maybe 80% of the features at a far more reasonable price.
The flip side of this is that as iWorks natures there is less development, that is useful, that can take place on the core line up. A good professional quality drawing program can go a long way improving the line up.
IMPORTANT NOTE: the support of AutoCads dxf format is extremely important due to the lack of low cost support on the Mac for those data files. However I'm nit talking about a program that is focused in CAD in the traditional sense. It needs the ability to handle CAD quality drawings but also needs the rapid expressiveness of a "drawing" program. If this sounds like wanting the best of both worlds then you understand what I'm asking for.
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 firmly believe that Office is shepard along by Excel with many people simply ignoring the rest of the suite. I can almost understand a simple table, but why write a two or three paragraph memo in Excel (with each paragraph in it's own cell). Mind you a memo that is all text. ;(
There seems to be multiple issues here but a big factor seems to be that Excel is very well done when comared to the rest of office.
Comments
I'd personally prefer of the next OS was $149 and bundled iWork into the OS.
That wont fly in either US or Europe.
I know Apple is no Microsoft, but why should Apple even risk getting sued?
I want them to support ODF in next release of iWork. Even Microsoft is supporting it now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc...dwide_adoption
I'm not quite sure what makes bundling iWork with a Mac verboten when iLife has raised no such concerns. Seems like a stretch.
I hope they continue to update iWork to be better compatible with MS Office, though.
I grew with office too but have switched to iWork, except some excel bits. Much better and lighter.
Apple should put the extra effort in because this is the best office replacement.
I don't care about interface compatibility or having evvvvery feature in the world and I like the iWork GUI quite a bit - but I stick with Word because of the file-saving fandango I have to go through to create universally shareable (.doc) editable documents. Just what the world needed is another incompatible document file format that 98% of the world can't open (including most Mac owners!). And just what I need on my hard drive - duplicate file names for every doc I want to share, or take the time to manually weed out all the Pages versions all the time.
Ridiculous - and no more inherent sense than Sony trying to force feed us Memory Sticks, Atrac files and every other proprietary off shoot which either remains stuck in a niche or dead-ended.
Yet when I do save a Pages document as a doc, Pages has no problem opening it with everything I put in it. So why not simply add one simple option to save by default in in Doc (and, I suppose DocXJ) format. WordPerfect's done that on my PC for over a decade and Apple clearly understands the Doc deal.
Oh well. I dislike Word and even having it, but it's the least kludgy way to go for me. And I suppose all productivity programs are headed to the cloud anyway where we'll be debating other aspects.
Meanwhile this (below) just in from a few fantasy land fans who clearly believe the Mountain's about to come to Mohammed. Not in the first half of this decade at least, pals.......
Not ME! I hope Apple continues to make iWork just a elegant and continues to get more to use it AND I HOPE OFFICE BECOMES MORE COMPATIBLE WITH IWORK!. It is about time Microsoft plays nicer with others!
The idea is to ween the world off of Office, not prolong its miserable existence.
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?
Yes, very different. Microsoft can't claim that they don't have a huge market for Office outside of the Mac, so they'd have nothing to complain about if Apple bundled iWork with the Mac. Which I think they should do.
Business is about more than just doing complicated things with VB basic and Excel. Most businesses, don't need or use anything much beyond the basic functionality of the Office suite, and most small businesses, do all their accounting with a separate accounting software package, not Excel.
Agreed, heartily. This is yet another example of people assuming that their needs are serious, and others less so. We've been using iWork for all our word processing since the first version. It was fine for this purpose then, and has only gotten better. Numbers I hardly ever use, except to open Excel documents others send to me, which 95% of the time are just simple tables that don't include a single calculation anyway. When I tried to import a fairly large database into Numbers, it choked -- so I'll continue to use FileMaker for that task. Obviously, Numbers needs more work.
Given that I installed NeoOffice on my early 2008 MBP after spending years running Linux for my home computer. Let's just say it is OK, but not much more than that. I installed iWorks when Snow Leopard came out and have only used it a little. Part of the problem here is that I'm more inclined to use simple text editors, python or web tools rather than "Office" tools.
That being said I can see myself expanding the use of numbers in the future, especially if the feature set expands. One thing I'd like to be able to do is to generate plists for software development. Numbers may be able to do this already, I really haven't looked as I've been using Python for that. Also the ability to tightly control rounding is a must.
In any event continued use of future versions of iWork requires that Apple keep the cost equation under control. I actually don't want to see it bundled with the operating system. There are a number of problems with bundling, one of which is interference from the highly regulated EU. A bigger issue is that it is anti innovation in my mind, especially for a product that has a long ways to go development wise. In some ways I see NeoOffice as a better solution and that it will continue to be developed as long as people have to make a choice. If Apple where to bundle iWorks then there will be far less energy focused on alternative software.
My MS Office experience is entirely PC based at work. Of the suite, Excel is the only offering that really impresses me and is actually a productivity tool. That even with a rather large database that i developed in Access. In reality Access is a marginal buggy piece of crap from what I can see, but that is an older version of Access. Word while usable I find strange. Excel is just the opposite and very handy. This can be seen in the number of Excel documents that I get E-Mailed to me that contain nothing but text. It is pretty obvious that Excel is a tool that many people reach for first. Interestingly that dies not seem to be the case with Mac users and Numbers. Mac users are more incline to reach for the "right" tool when creating a document. What is even funnier is that Excel seems to help some people with their compositions.
So for me the value in iWork for use at home is not clear. Even further down the road where I imagine running a business value isn't certain. I'm actually hoping that the tech in Snow Leopard, especially GCD, leads to a vastly improved version of iWorks. There should be extensive focus on Numbers. I'd like to see more depth in Numbers including an interface to sqlite3.
Why sqlite3? Well the database capabilities of Excel are nice but an Excel file can hardly be called a database. So while I'd live to see more features in Numbers to handle spread sheets as databases I'd be far happier to see Numbers provide an interface to Sqlite3. Sqlite3 is a simple SQL environment that would go well with numbers and simplfy the deliver of novel solutions to problems. No it is not a replacement for traditional databases, but is rather a solution to the issue of spreadsheet complexity.
Dave
Just as a matter of interest, how would you rate Microsoft Office's apps?
Powerpoint is a 2.5/5, Word 4/5, and Excel 5/5.
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.
Why use iWork? Because it does things MS Office wants to do when/if it grows up...
Yes, I use MS Office too, but I have taken to using iWork more and more. I hope to switch completely some day, but only if Apple improves spreadsheet features, adds decent forms features to Pages, and makes import/export to MS Office so good you won't have to reformat your files after opening them in the other program...
So what does iWork do that's so special? Well, I don't have time to list everything here, but here's two major points:
Keynote. The whole thing. I can't even stand to use PowerPoint at all anymore. In fact I don't. I've switched completely to Keynote and have not looked back. I know of no capabilities in PowerPoint that are not 100% better in Keynote, plus Keynote has capabilities PowerPoint only dreams of.
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.
MS Office can't be replaced just yet - I have found continued requirements in the business world (because unfortunately, everybody uses it). OpenOffice seems to be the most compatible, but does nothing to improve upon Office. iWork is less compatible and still a little immature, but produces far superior results.
One fine day, hopefully one fine day, an alternative suite will be a sufficient replacement for MS Office, until then I'm okay with using iWork and Office together. I would really like to switch to iWork completely, but Apple needs to build in lots of additional compatibility, and a Windows version of the suite would be nice too. Apple, are you listening?
I just wish they would add a drawing app so iWork would have the functionality of AppleWorks (RIP).
Agreed on the drawing app. I'm surprised there is nothing comparable in the iWork suite. Thanks for the tip also, like others I completely forgot about creating keyboard shortcuts like that.
I do hate that Apple no longer offers even a basic drawing app for their OS. I have found the free and simple modern version of MacPaint app called Paintbrush that is easy to use. It?s more akin to MS Paint than the drawing app in AppleWorks.
You know you can download a free 30-day trial of the entire suite?
http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial/
Yes, my point was it?s no longer is included with Macs.
Love iWork. It's all I've been using since 2006. It handles MS documents very well, but with such great PDF features built into it I never really have a need to save in an MS format.
MobileMe works beautifully. I've been a .Mac user for years now and the service has come a long way. Syncing is much more reliable than it used to be. I work off the iDisk "cloud" exclusively and the service has held up with 4gb of synced data.
I don?t see how people can complain about MobileMe as a whole. The increases features since .Mac are great and well worth the $65/year.
The speed could be faster but I think that is being worked on. The new iDisk app for the iPhone seems to work much faster. I stream movies I?d put on my iDisk smoothly. I do wish Apple supported more codecs and containers but that is for a different thread.
I'll save you the disappointment... it isn't. It isn't meant to be.
Its for people, not accountants/engineers. (no offense to accountants or engineers meant.)
That's an artificial distinction. There's no reason that Apple to not make Numbers more functional to accommodate the 'accountants/engineers' as well (without losing its simplicity for 'people.')
Add: Just noticed that Dave (#50) said it much better than I did!
Since switching to a Mac, all the time and money I gained from the Mac's better OS ( backup, security, etc ) I have then lost trying to regain basic office capability ( enter numbers into spreadsheets from business partners, update my CV, ... ).
MS Office for Mac is that much worse than MS Office for Windows to cause that much of a usability hit?
Love iWork. It's all I've been using since 2006. It handles MS documents very well, but with such great PDF features built into it I never really have a need to save in an MS format.
MobileMe works beautifully. I've been a .Mac user for years now and the service has come a long way. Syncing is much more reliable than it used to be. I work off the iDisk "cloud" exclusively and the service has held up with 4gb of synced data.
I was going to do more with iDisk but had a couple of worries. Firstly, that a dodgy sync could wipe out a big chunk of data and sync the wipe to my Mac ( I've seen bad sync's reported and my first ever MobileMe sync failed horribly ). Plus files in iDisk are excluded from Time Machine.
Agreed, heartily. This is yet another example of people assuming that their needs are serious, and others less so. We've been using iWork for all our word processing since the first version. It was fine for this purpose then, and has only gotten better. Numbers I hardly ever use, except to open Excel documents others send to me, which 95% of the time are just simple tables that don't include a single calculation anyway. When I tried to import a fairly large database into Numbers, it choked -- so I'll continue to use FileMaker for that task. Obviously, Numbers needs more work.
numbers, Excell or whatever I often fine that people try to use spread sheets for databases, generally to save up front time. I never really understood this myself as even a bad database program like Access has significant advantage ls over a spread sheet type program when handling data. Well data of any size, don't get me wrong here, I don't want to see a reduction in spread sheet data handling capability. Just that current solutions don't cut the mustard with sufficiently large or complex data sets.
That is why my previous post mentioned a hybrid approach where something like Sqlite databases are tied to the spread sheet capability of Numbers. Not as a huge page of rows and columns like is done today but rather as an object that can return data to a cell. Personally I think this sort of approach would have huge benifits and lead to more robust spread sheets. In some cases it might actually simplfy things. Better yet your data ends up in a more or less standard container. The nature of SQLite means you would always be able to get to your data in the future. I just see this sort of hybrid approach offering unigue solutions to many problems.
Dave
numbers, Excell or whatever I often fine that people try to use spread sheets for databases, generally to save up front time. I never really understood this myself as even a bad database program like Access has significant advantage ls over a spread sheet type program when handling data. Well data of any size, don't get me wrong here, I don't want to see a reduction in spread sheet data handling capability. Just that current solutions don't cut the mustard with sufficiently large or complex data sets.
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.
MS Office for Mac is that much worse than MS Office for Windows to cause that much of a usability hit?
I started by trying Pages and its ability to open Office documents, given that this is promoted as a capability and there is discussion about being able to live without MS Office (which I wanted to do).
After that turned out to be a no-go, I tried OpenOffice which was also mangling my documents.
Then I tried VMWare and found it killed my Mac's performance and had funny little instabilities that put me off.
So now I'm using Office for Mac for my own documents. Then I use bootcamp/Vista/Office for any document that is sent to me. I use iDisk and MobileMe to send docs from Mac to Windows (horrible) and plan to write some AppleScript to suck documents back into the Mac for Time Machine.
Getting to this point has been pretty time-consuming and also expensive if you add up all the software above.
Since switching to a Mac, all the time and money I gained from the Mac's better OS ( backup, security, etc ) I have then lost trying to regain basic office capability ( enter numbers into spreadsheets from business partners, update my CV, ... ).
Whatever dude. Are you trolling?
If you need your so called "basic office capability" go buy MS Office for Mac and you're done. No productivity lost. Or you could download OpenOffice for free. It's nearly 100% compatible with MS Office.
Seriously, how many beatings do people have to take before they finally bin this dinosaur Office suite into the clunky unusable bin? It's a NASTY piece of crepe.
iWorks is simple, elegant and extremely easy to use while not lacking in much capability. It's like coming up for air after using Word..which I rate as next to unusable.
Speaking from 'just typing' stuff perspective...I don't have arguments with paperclips, objects remaining rooted and bouncing around a page in an unexplained fashion, don't have a new interface which is obtuse but 'hey, looks like apple's aqua...', don't have clutter, don't have to data mine for simple functionality...from the bloated feature sprawl, don't have to get frustrated in general with Word's 'PRESUMPTIVE' behaviour...which is extremely irritating.
Sure, if, you use this everyday and you 'know' how to use it (folks, it's just a bloody word processor and M$ can't even get that right!) then ok, you've got Stockholm syndrome.
Design wise, iWorks is streets ahead. And Apple can keep adding functionality bit by bit without compromising that design.
Word is a turkey shoot. It aint pretty.
With the pending iPhone, App Store, iSlate and the following iWork for the 'Cloud', M$'s reign at the top of the pile is at the beginning of the end.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Go right ahead, M$...we dare ya...
*Looks bothered. (Dripping sarcasm.)
Lemon Bon Bon.
I started by trying Pages and its ability to open Office documents, given that this is promoted as a capability and there is discussion about being able to live without MS Office (which I wanted to do).
After that turned out to be a no-go, I tried OpenOffice which was also mangling my documents.
Then I tried VMWare and found it killed my Mac's performance and had funny little instabilities that put me off.
So now I'm using Office for Mac for my own documents. Then I use bootcamp/Vista/Office for any document that is sent to me. I use iDisk and MobileMe to send docs from Mac to Windows (horrible) and plan to write some AppleScript to suck documents back into the Mac for Time Machine.
Getting to this point has been pretty time-consuming and also expensive if you add up all the software above.
Sorry for your unfortunate experience. I use MS Office for Mac at the office no less, and it has never mangled any document anyone has sent to me. Even complex forms open fine, and their usability is about as good as Office for Windows (which isn't saying much). If you have Office '08 then you could run into an issue with the missing VB script, which is why I run Office '04 and won't upgrade until MS puts it back in.
BTW, if you need to run Win, then Parallels & WinXP works much better than what you tried.
What I do want to mention is the addition of a "CAD" like program to iWorks. I put XAD in quotes because I think Apple could put a modern twist on the concept to make the app far more useful than the standard CAD program. The sad reality is there are lots of drawing programs out there and as such Apple really doesn't need to offer anything at the simple end. However when it comes to opening AutoCad .dxf files or creating them or PDFs there are far fewer options and even fewer low cost ones. That when today 2 & 3D wire frame CAD is old hat tech. Mind you I'm not talking about competeing with the $1000+++ CAD programs in features or capabilities. Rather I want to be able to open and edit the mechanical drawings often found on the net for various engineering components. Most of the times theses are simple 2D dimensioned drawings. The ability to create such drawings is also required.
What we really are talking about is a product that competes with AutoCad Light and Adobe Illustrator but frankly does not need the complexity of either. The idea would be to deliver maybe 80% of the features at a far more reasonable price.
The flip side of this is that as iWorks natures there is less development, that is useful, that can take place on the core line up. A good professional quality drawing program can go a long way improving the line up.
IMPORTANT NOTE: the support of AutoCads dxf format is extremely important due to the lack of low cost support on the Mac for those data files. However I'm nit talking about a program that is focused in CAD in the traditional sense. It needs the ability to handle CAD quality drawings but also needs the rapid expressiveness of a "drawing" program. If this sounds like wanting the best of both worlds then you understand what I'm asking for.
Dave
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 firmly believe that Office is shepard along by Excel with many people simply ignoring the rest of the suite. I can almost understand a simple table, but why write a two or three paragraph memo in Excel (with each paragraph in it's own cell). Mind you a memo that is all text. ;(
There seems to be multiple issues here but a big factor seems to be that Excel is very well done when comared to the rest of office.
Dave