A Windows guy that I work with bought a Macbook Air, wiped OSx, and installed Windows 7, JUST so that he could use MS Office on a Mac. When I enquired about it, he said that he loves Apple's hardware, but hates their software, and this was the perfect solution. Needless to say, he is having endless problems with it. This is after I warned him multiple times not to do this... Strange. Now he is complaining how bad Macs are because he is having so many issues. One must live with your decisions. Oh well...
A Windows guy that I work with bought a Macbook Air, wiped OSx, and installed Windows 7, JUST so that he could use MS Office on a Mac. When I enquired about it, he said that he loves Apple's hardware, but hates their software, and this was the perfect solution. Needless to say, he is having endless problems with it. This is after I warned him multiple times not to do this... Strange. Now he is complaining how bad Macs are because he is having so many issues. One must live with your decisions. Oh well...
Agreed that they are not as full-featured as MS Office, but we are talking about iOS here, not OSX. Who would realistically be able to utilize all of the complex features and formatting, let alone complex spreadsheets and the like on a 10 inch tablet? Excel takes a lot of horsepower and memory to churn through files with thousands of formulas and calculations. Not sure that would work that well on a tablet at least at today's power levels.
We have a member that adamantly thinks they're going to get practical use of Adobe creative apps on a Surface Pro, so who knows. I don't think it would take long to figure out how it's not the panacea they expected.
Who would buy it? Pages, Numbers and Keynote can already read and write Microsoft documents. Why would I spend whatever outrageous price Microsoft would charge when I can get Pages for $10?
Office has some exclusive macros that can screw with compatibility, not to mention that Excel is way better than Numbers for complex spreadsheets, Mac OS and iOS. So at this point there are some folks that could benefit from the Microsoft programs.
MS Office is still considered the de facto suite. I wish Apple would add more enterprise level features and market it more but they don't seem to care to much about it.I hope that changes soon.
Numbers for sure could use a serious upgrade in supported features. Pages and Keynote aren't too bad. All three could use a slight UI overhaul in the sense of replacing the floating windows for more of an iPhoto type sliders pane. I think it's easier to navigate. Or give us the opinion of which we want.
iWorks is more consumer software, though very good consumer software. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think they're really competing squarely against Office. Out of the group, Keynote is most comparable to PowerPoint. I think of Pages more of a page layout program than a word processor like Word. Excel and Numbers are the least comparable in my opinion.
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You raise a good point, but how about a mid ground. Keep the programs more or less as they are, Pharos with the switch to a slider UI as I mentioned in my other post. And add, much as they have for Aperture etc support for some of these more advanced items. So those that don't need them don't suffer the bloat, but those that do could add them.
Who would buy it? Pages, Numbers and Keynote can already read and write Microsoft documents. Why would I spend whatever outrageous price Microsoft would charge when I can get Pages for $10?
Are you serious, I like Apple products like the next guy but dismissing MS Office and comparing it to Pages is ridiculous. If I only needed a word processor for my English homework or a spreadsheet to keep track of my babysitting money that I collected over thee summer then Pages and the rest of Apple's suite is satisfactory. Once you start doing real work like writing a letter to your entire customer base which requires access to a Oracle or MySQL DB for the address as well as personalizing them by adding in the first name to the letter it self then Pages starts to looks real silly. Not to mention the power of Visual Basic in Excel to do complex financial math or create specialized spreadsheets . The list goes on and on as to why Office is a huge benefit.
It's nice that you have brand loyalty but some of us aren't just writing down our daily thoughts in hope of one day writing a book that would outshine Old Man and The Sea. We have real work that needs to be done and we need programs that can accomplish those tasks. Sorry for jumping on you but posts like yours seem to be increasing. Apple doesn't do it all and a 10 dollar program doesn't even scratch the surface of what MS Office can do.
it's okay that the iPad doesn't support Office though as I don’t think the iPad makes for a very good business tablet. Most companies store their data and files on servers, something the iPad doesn't do well with. There is plenty of market left for a good business tablet, though I don't think the RT version of Windows 8 cuts it , the x86 versions like the Lenovo ThinkPad 2 are pretty decent machines. Though I can do most of the calculations in SQL, Visual Basic in Office adds a lot of possibilities that can't be ignored just because you don't need them.
Comments
A Windows guy that I work with bought a Macbook Air, wiped OSx, and installed Windows 7, JUST so that he could use MS Office on a Mac. When I enquired about it, he said that he loves Apple's hardware, but hates their software, and this was the perfect solution. Needless to say, he is having endless problems with it. This is after I warned him multiple times not to do this... Strange. Now he is complaining how bad Macs are because he is having so many issues. One must live with your decisions. Oh well...
Why didn't he just run the Mac version of Office?
We have a member that adamantly thinks they're going to get practical use of Adobe creative apps on a Surface Pro, so who knows. I don't think it would take long to figure out how it's not the panacea they expected.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bdkennedy1
Who would buy it? Pages, Numbers and Keynote can already read and write Microsoft documents. Why would I spend whatever outrageous price Microsoft would charge when I can get Pages for $10?
Office has some exclusive macros that can screw with compatibility, not to mention that Excel is way better than Numbers for complex spreadsheets, Mac OS and iOS. So at this point there are some folks that could benefit from the Microsoft programs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
MS Office is still considered the de facto suite. I wish Apple would add more enterprise level features and market it more but they don't seem to care to much about it.I hope that changes soon.
Numbers for sure could use a serious upgrade in supported features. Pages and Keynote aren't too bad. All three could use a slight UI overhaul in the sense of replacing the floating windows for more of an iPhoto type sliders pane. I think it's easier to navigate. Or give us the opinion of which we want.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
iWorks is more consumer software, though very good consumer software. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think they're really competing squarely against Office. Out of the group, Keynote is most comparable to PowerPoint. I think of Pages more of a page layout program than a word processor like Word. Excel and Numbers are the least comparable in my opinion.
.
You raise a good point, but how about a mid ground. Keep the programs more or less as they are, Pharos with the switch to a slider UI as I mentioned in my other post. And add, much as they have for Aperture etc support for some of these more advanced items. So those that don't need them don't suffer the bloat, but those that do could add them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bdkennedy1
Who would buy it? Pages, Numbers and Keynote can already read and write Microsoft documents. Why would I spend whatever outrageous price Microsoft would charge when I can get Pages for $10?
Are you serious, I like Apple products like the next guy but dismissing MS Office and comparing it to Pages is ridiculous. If I only needed a word processor for my English homework or a spreadsheet to keep track of my babysitting money that I collected over thee summer then Pages and the rest of Apple's suite is satisfactory. Once you start doing real work like writing a letter to your entire customer base which requires access to a Oracle or MySQL DB for the address as well as personalizing them by adding in the first name to the letter it self then Pages starts to looks real silly. Not to mention the power of Visual Basic in Excel to do complex financial math or create specialized spreadsheets . The list goes on and on as to why Office is a huge benefit.
It's nice that you have brand loyalty but some of us aren't just writing down our daily thoughts in hope of one day writing a book that would outshine Old Man and The Sea. We have real work that needs to be done and we need programs that can accomplish those tasks. Sorry for jumping on you but posts like yours seem to be increasing. Apple doesn't do it all and a 10 dollar program doesn't even scratch the surface of what MS Office can do.
it's okay that the iPad doesn't support Office though as I don’t think the iPad makes for a very good business tablet. Most companies store their data and files on servers, something the iPad doesn't do well with. There is plenty of market left for a good business tablet, though I don't think the RT version of Windows 8 cuts it , the x86 versions like the Lenovo ThinkPad 2 are pretty decent machines. Though I can do most of the calculations in SQL, Visual Basic in Office adds a lot of possibilities that can't be ignored just because you don't need them.