I think Apple should make a Page Maker like application. Layers, lots of objects that can be easily moved around, embedding other documents via drag and drop.
It'd be a simple word processor like Word, unless you actually looked for advanced features. But the features should be unique, things that tap directly into OS X.
It should be a graphics powerhouse with the abilities X has. Definitely start to create an application that could move in and take over if Adobe axes PhotoShop, or even PhotoShop Elements.
Combine this with PDF creation and we've got a big winner on our hands.
Basically what I had in mind, except I don't like how Pagemaker handles elements and objects, I prefer the Quark and InDesign way. But yes, the page should be presented for normal word processing but with the ability to add separate text and picture boxes.
I agree with the "something between AppleWorks word process and TextEdit".
TextEdit is 70% the way there. We need footers/headers, columns, tables, and styles would be nifty.
I think you may see Apple slowly replace AppleWorks functionality with new stand alone applications. Keynote is example of this. Much better than AppleWorks presentation application. Perhaps not quite as complete as PowerPoint (yet).
Word processing should be next.
A database after that. Something more like Access than FileMaker. Might use some FileMaker technology, but FM is likely overkill for most users.
Finally a spreadsheet. Then AppleWorks can fade quietly into the sunset.
You could also see some very vertical applications come from Apple that are more consumer oriented and essential leverage things like the iLife suite (among other applications). A greeting card tool that pulls together Address Book, iPhoto and some additional capabilities is an example.
Show the ruler, and top left you see a styles pop-down. You can define styles, but they don't convey - if you set something to use a style, then set a new style with the same name (redefining it, essentially), the style isn't applied to the text that was told to use the style. It's a one-shot thing. Okay in the short term, but a style editor would be a great first step.
NWE is an all right app but it has a long ways to go and Nisus has really been dragging its feet. (Again, this could be due to some deficiencies in the text engine of pre-panther OSX.)
NWE gets a lot of its looks from an earlier app called Okito Composer which seemed to have some features that NWE still does not have.
NWE has bad graphics support, no styles, no numbered lists, etc. The dev team keeps saying wait for the next rev. It's in a bit of a stall. Mariner Write is probably better right now and costs about the same. MW is still not there either.
If Apple releases their long-rumored Apple Office, will Microsoft cancel development of the next version of Office for the Mac? That's the $64k question.
Here's their options, as I see it:
1. Apple releases their Apple Office suite all at once, and goes full speed ahead against common wisdom, bad publicity, and some serious FUD that Macs can't open Office documents. Rather unlikely.
2. Apple releases a less competitive, consumer-friendly of Apple Office, a real Cocoa version to replace AppleWorks -- while reserving the option to pump up development if Office for the Mac is ever cancelled. I thought this possible, but Keynote doesn't fit well into this scenario.
3. Apple releases each component of their suite in separate components -- first Keynote, then Document, finally Calc -- to soften the blow of their increasing MS Office-independence. This seems the wisest course; build an .ppt/.doc/.xls-compatible Apple Office piece by piece, while allowing Office for the Mac development to continue as long as possible.
If it's #3, we should see Document coming out soon. MWSF, perhaps...?
I think that Apple would also be killing the nascent word processor development on the Mac. While they have come under fire previously for this kinds of stuff, this might be considered to be crossing the line.
It would be nice if Apple would just support developers a little bit more. Why not farm out programmers to Mac only software companies to help them develop their apps in exchange for exclusivity? God knows that Nisus Writer Express, while a nice app, really needs to be developed much quicker.
I think that Apple would also be killing the nascent word processor development on the Mac. While they have come under fire previously for this kinds of stuff, this might be considered to be crossing the line
So what? Consumers care about having best of breed tools. If Apple wishes to keep the platform vital they will do what's necessary to ensure that productivity apps are available. Frankly I don't have much hope for smaller companies that can only offer hopes for the future. I need robust Office apps NOW.
Quote:
It would be nice if Apple would just support developers a little bit more. Why not farm out programmers to Mac only software companies to help them develop their apps in exchange for exclusivity? God knows that Nisus Writer Express, while a nice app, really needs to be developed much quicker.
What makes you think the Developers aren't being supported now? This is a free market society<still> the developer that creates the must have product will receive the spoils. The system works fine the way it is. Exemplarary apps have the best chances for success. Those who produce half hearted attempts do not.
1. Apple releases their Apple Office suite all at once, and goes full speed ahead against common wisdom, bad publicity, and some serious FUD that Macs can't open Office documents. Rather unlikely.
Why not? Most people already think that Macs can't open Office documents, so Apple has very little to lose here. They could even take advantage of the opportunity to get the Word out, so to speak, about their document compatibility.
Apple will probably continue to hone their strategies of replacing Important Apps That Suck(TM) (Premiere, PowerPoint, etc.) and bringing out apps that break new ground.
The major argument for Apple replacing Office:mac is Office:mac: If MS got on the stick, used native widgets, cleaned up the labyrinthine preferences to maybe glance in the general direction of UI guidelines, fixed the bugs, supported UNICODE and long filenames (hello?!), etc. then Apple has that much less incentive to do it themselves. As long as Office continues to act like a ten year old relic it's a candidate for replacement under the Important Apps That Suck(TM) clause.
Except for complex word documents, there are several apps on the street that read and write .doc including TextEdit and even Appleworks.
I think that there is a difference between reading and writing in these formats and working natively in these formats. Document "conversion" leads to problems, in my experience. There are many of us who still need MS Word on the Mac.
Question: To get around this, could Apple release a wordprocessor based directly on the .doc format? MS might try to sue, but Apple could argue that .doc has become a de facto public standard and that it would be anti-competitive to allow MS to restrict competition based on this standard.
If Apple releases their long-rumored Apple Office, will Microsoft cancel development of the next version of Office for the Mac? That's the $64k question.
Is MS still developing Office for OSX in any real and substantial sense? I hope so, but I am not convinced.
i think the question on whether or not MS is doing or still planning on doing further development of Office:mac is obviously the most important point.
there was something reported a few weeks ago that might lead us to think that MS might be pulling its support for mac overall: lack of future support of IE for mac.
at the same time as the above, apple is releasing iTunes for Windows. And, it is rumored that it might be working on Safari for Windows.
if this true, then what apple should do is clear: make a great office application that is ported to both mac and windows. this will allow apple to kill the perception that software only works on the mac alone.
i think we all want to be free from microsloth asap. we need both excel and word replacements before that can be done. more and more in our business applications we are incorporating graphics and multimedia. even in excel. with iPhoto, and Keynote, apple has a chance to capitalize on its superior position in bringing in well done graphics and multimedia into traditional business apps.
What if Apple did develop an office suite that was platform compatible? (I'm not hopeful but I do think it would be good if it was on par with the iTunes effort.)
Does Windows have the graphics ability to display the transparencies, create them, do the cool typography, etc?
Question: To get around this, could Apple release a wordprocessor based directly on the .doc format? MS might try to sue, but Apple could argue that .doc has become a de facto public standard and that it would be anti-competitive to allow MS to restrict competition based on this standard.
The .doc format is proprietary, just like Colonel Sanders famous recipe and Coca-Cola's 7X ingredient! If .doc were open, I am sure we would not be having this debate - several developers would have full Word (and Excel, Powerpoint) compatibility built into their Mac software offerings.
One topic that has not had much coverage is whether Apple could pay MS a license fee to gain full access to the .doc (.xls and .ppt) file formats. This potentially gives users the best of both worlds - Apple develops the office software (which in Jobs' own words would be "kick-ass"), MS wouldn't need to support its Mac division (and continue writing crud) and the end user gets full office compatibility.
In exchange for MS granting Apple access to the file formats, Apple would share (say) 5% of the revenue from sales with MS.
It would be nice if Apple would just support developers a little bit more. Why not farm out programmers to Mac only software companies to help them develop their apps in exchange for exclusivity? God knows that Nisus Writer Express, while a nice app, really needs to be developed much quicker.
According to an interview with the president of Nisus Software, they worked very, very closely with Apple Engineers on NWE, precisely because Nisus was pushing the OS X text engine to its limits and beyond.
They're there and they're available and they are working with third party developers. I can only imagine that Nisus Writer is taking a while to write because Express left out a lot of features, and Nisus seems to be the sort of company that doesn't like to release first and patch later (bless them).
I think Apple should make a Page Maker like application. Layers, lots of objects that can be easily moved around, embedding other documents via drag and drop.
It'd be a simple word processor like Word, unless you actually looked for advanced features. But the features should be unique, things that tap directly into OS X.
I really hope they don't combine word processing and DTP!
The word processing package should do text documents. It should support the odd inline image if needed, but they'd be inline with the text. It should also handle simple columns and tables.
But if you want moveable text boxes, layers, moving objects not inline with text, etc, then you should use a different program - one focussed on DTP not word processing.
If Apple were clever, they'd make both programs (at a consumer level of course - not going after the professional DTP market). They'd make it so that there was an easy way to get your word processed text into the DTP program, if you want to make it pretty.
If Apple were clever, they'd make both programs (at a consumer level of course - not going after the professional DTP market). They'd make it so that there was an easy way to get your word processed text into the DTP program, if you want to make it pretty.
What they should do, IMO, is offer a word processing program that outputs professional-quality work within the constraints of a word processor - none of the fancy reflowing and positioning and layering options, as you say, but a precisely laid out and beautifully kerned rendering of whatever letter or essay or proposal is being written.
Then you could offer AppleWorks-style DTP: Very simple, mostly template-based, but good enough for newsletters and such. And, again, done in such a way that if you fired up InDesign and did the same thing, it wouldn't look all that much different.
The world has suffered enough at the hands of Word documents.
I really hope they don't combine word processing and DTP!
The word processing package should do text documents. It should support the odd inline image if needed, but they'd be inline with the text. It should also handle simple columns and tables.
But if you want moveable text boxes, layers, moving objects not inline with text, etc, then you should use a different program - one focussed on DTP not word processing.
If Apple were clever, they'd make both programs (at a consumer level of course - not going after the professional DTP market). They'd make it so that there was an easy way to get your word processed text into the DTP program, if you want to make it pretty.
Amorya
Thing is that consumers shouldn't have to pay mucho bucks for DTP style apps. Obviously a consumer oriented DTP program wouldn't have the advanced features of Quark or even Pagemaker and should cost no more than $129.
The .doc format is proprietary, just like Colonel Sanders famous recipe and Coca-Cola's 7X ingredient! If .doc were open, I am sure we would not be having this debate - several developers would have full Word (and Excel, Powerpoint) compatibility built into their Mac software offerings.
One topic that has not had much coverage is whether Apple could pay MS a license fee to gain full access to the .doc (.xls and .ppt) file formats. This potentially gives users the best of both worlds - Apple develops the office software (which in Jobs' own words would be "kick-ass"), MS wouldn't need to support its Mac division (and continue writing crud) and the end user gets full office compatibility.
In exchange for MS granting Apple access to the file formats, Apple would share (say) 5% of the revenue from sales with MS.
If MS stops developing Office for OSX, I say that Apple should use .doc without paying any licence. MS practices have made .doc a de facto public standard. Let MS try to sue Apple. I think that MS might not suceed in a atmosphere of continuing scrutiny of MS regarding competition in computer software.
More than develop an application Apple should help develop an open standard for documents that are mostly text. Apple doesn't have enough juice to do this on their own. However, they could probably get some other big players to help them.
The idea would be to have a realtively simple, open source standard with collaboration built-in that could be used by many applications.
We already have pdf files which are cross platform. When I send pdf files to windows users they sometimes ask for word files because they want to modify the document. With pdf you can't modify the document. You can copy out portions but that doesn't satisfy them.
IBM is said to be going away from windows for internal use. Many countries outside the US (Brazil, China, others) are shying away from windows for many reasons.
There is a giant need for a word alternative that is not tied to microsoft and windows. This is a real opportunity for Apple. The world needs to define a document format which supports collaboration and which is open source and which easily supports many different language scripts.
Comments
Originally posted by bunge
I think Apple should make a Page Maker like application. Layers, lots of objects that can be easily moved around, embedding other documents via drag and drop.
It'd be a simple word processor like Word, unless you actually looked for advanced features. But the features should be unique, things that tap directly into OS X.
It should be a graphics powerhouse with the abilities X has. Definitely start to create an application that could move in and take over if Adobe axes PhotoShop, or even PhotoShop Elements.
Combine this with PDF creation and we've got a big winner on our hands.
Basically what I had in mind, except I don't like how Pagemaker handles elements and objects, I prefer the Quark and InDesign way. But yes, the page should be presented for normal word processing but with the ability to add separate text and picture boxes.
TextEdit is 70% the way there. We need footers/headers, columns, tables, and styles would be nifty.
I think you may see Apple slowly replace AppleWorks functionality with new stand alone applications. Keynote is example of this. Much better than AppleWorks presentation application. Perhaps not quite as complete as PowerPoint (yet).
Word processing should be next.
A database after that. Something more like Access than FileMaker. Might use some FileMaker technology, but FM is likely overkill for most users.
Finally a spreadsheet. Then AppleWorks can fade quietly into the sunset.
You could also see some very vertical applications come from Apple that are more consumer oriented and essential leverage things like the iLife suite (among other applications). A greeting card tool that pulls together Address Book, iPhoto and some additional capabilities is an example.
Show the ruler, and top left you see a styles pop-down. You can define styles, but they don't convey - if you set something to use a style, then set a new style with the same name (redefining it, essentially), the style isn't applied to the text that was told to use the style. It's a one-shot thing. Okay in the short term, but a style editor would be a great first step.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
I agree with the "something between AppleWorks word process and TextEdit".
TextEdit is 70% the way there. We need footers/headers, columns, tables, and styles would be nifty.
You just described Nisus Writer Express. I'm still trying it out, but so far it seems like a decent app.
NWE gets a lot of its looks from an earlier app called Okito Composer which seemed to have some features that NWE still does not have.
NWE has bad graphics support, no styles, no numbered lists, etc. The dev team keeps saying wait for the next rev. It's in a bit of a stall. Mariner Write is probably better right now and costs about the same. MW is still not there either.
If Apple releases their long-rumored Apple Office, will Microsoft cancel development of the next version of Office for the Mac? That's the $64k question.
Here's their options, as I see it:
1. Apple releases their Apple Office suite all at once, and goes full speed ahead against common wisdom, bad publicity, and some serious FUD that Macs can't open Office documents. Rather unlikely.
2. Apple releases a less competitive, consumer-friendly of Apple Office, a real Cocoa version to replace AppleWorks -- while reserving the option to pump up development if Office for the Mac is ever cancelled. I thought this possible, but Keynote doesn't fit well into this scenario.
3. Apple releases each component of their suite in separate components -- first Keynote, then Document, finally Calc -- to soften the blow of their increasing MS Office-independence. This seems the wisest course; build an .ppt/.doc/.xls-compatible Apple Office piece by piece, while allowing Office for the Mac development to continue as long as possible.
If it's #3, we should see Document coming out soon. MWSF, perhaps...?
It would be nice if Apple would just support developers a little bit more. Why not farm out programmers to Mac only software companies to help them develop their apps in exchange for exclusivity? God knows that Nisus Writer Express, while a nice app, really needs to be developed much quicker.
I think that Apple would also be killing the nascent word processor development on the Mac. While they have come under fire previously for this kinds of stuff, this might be considered to be crossing the line
So what? Consumers care about having best of breed tools. If Apple wishes to keep the platform vital they will do what's necessary to ensure that productivity apps are available. Frankly I don't have much hope for smaller companies that can only offer hopes for the future. I need robust Office apps NOW.
It would be nice if Apple would just support developers a little bit more. Why not farm out programmers to Mac only software companies to help them develop their apps in exchange for exclusivity? God knows that Nisus Writer Express, while a nice app, really needs to be developed much quicker.
What makes you think the Developers aren't being supported now? This is a free market society<still> the developer that creates the must have product will receive the spoils. The system works fine the way it is. Exemplarary apps have the best chances for success. Those who produce half hearted attempts do not.
Originally posted by Hobbes
1. Apple releases their Apple Office suite all at once, and goes full speed ahead against common wisdom, bad publicity, and some serious FUD that Macs can't open Office documents. Rather unlikely.
Why not? Most people already think that Macs can't open Office documents, so Apple has very little to lose here. They could even take advantage of the opportunity to get the Word out, so to speak, about their document compatibility.
Apple will probably continue to hone their strategies of replacing Important Apps That Suck(TM) (Premiere, PowerPoint, etc.) and bringing out apps that break new ground.
The major argument for Apple replacing Office:mac is Office:mac: If MS got on the stick, used native widgets, cleaned up the labyrinthine preferences to maybe glance in the general direction of UI guidelines, fixed the bugs, supported UNICODE and long filenames (hello?!), etc. then Apple has that much less incentive to do it themselves. As long as Office continues to act like a ten year old relic it's a candidate for replacement under the Important Apps That Suck(TM) clause.
Originally posted by kcmac
Except for complex word documents, there are several apps on the street that read and write .doc including TextEdit and even Appleworks.
I think that there is a difference between reading and writing in these formats and working natively in these formats. Document "conversion" leads to problems, in my experience. There are many of us who still need MS Word on the Mac.
Question: To get around this, could Apple release a wordprocessor based directly on the .doc format? MS might try to sue, but Apple could argue that .doc has become a de facto public standard and that it would be anti-competitive to allow MS to restrict competition based on this standard.
Originally posted by Hobbes
Question is:
If Apple releases their long-rumored Apple Office, will Microsoft cancel development of the next version of Office for the Mac? That's the $64k question.
Is MS still developing Office for OSX in any real and substantial sense? I hope so, but I am not convinced.
there was something reported a few weeks ago that might lead us to think that MS might be pulling its support for mac overall: lack of future support of IE for mac.
at the same time as the above, apple is releasing iTunes for Windows. And, it is rumored that it might be working on Safari for Windows.
if this true, then what apple should do is clear: make a great office application that is ported to both mac and windows. this will allow apple to kill the perception that software only works on the mac alone.
i think we all want to be free from microsloth asap. we need both excel and word replacements before that can be done. more and more in our business applications we are incorporating graphics and multimedia. even in excel. with iPhoto, and Keynote, apple has a chance to capitalize on its superior position in bringing in well done graphics and multimedia into traditional business apps.
thnx
Does Windows have the graphics ability to display the transparencies, create them, do the cool typography, etc?
Pardon me if I get a few terms mixed up here.
Originally posted by Chinney
Question: To get around this, could Apple release a wordprocessor based directly on the .doc format? MS might try to sue, but Apple could argue that .doc has become a de facto public standard and that it would be anti-competitive to allow MS to restrict competition based on this standard.
The .doc format is proprietary, just like Colonel Sanders famous recipe and Coca-Cola's 7X ingredient! If .doc were open, I am sure we would not be having this debate - several developers would have full Word (and Excel, Powerpoint) compatibility built into their Mac software offerings.
One topic that has not had much coverage is whether Apple could pay MS a license fee to gain full access to the .doc (.xls and .ppt) file formats. This potentially gives users the best of both worlds - Apple develops the office software (which in Jobs' own words would be "kick-ass"), MS wouldn't need to support its Mac division (and continue writing crud) and the end user gets full office compatibility.
In exchange for MS granting Apple access to the file formats, Apple would share (say) 5% of the revenue from sales with MS.
Originally posted by TKN
It would be nice if Apple would just support developers a little bit more. Why not farm out programmers to Mac only software companies to help them develop their apps in exchange for exclusivity? God knows that Nisus Writer Express, while a nice app, really needs to be developed much quicker.
According to an interview with the president of Nisus Software, they worked very, very closely with Apple Engineers on NWE, precisely because Nisus was pushing the OS X text engine to its limits and beyond.
They're there and they're available and they are working with third party developers. I can only imagine that Nisus Writer is taking a while to write because Express left out a lot of features, and Nisus seems to be the sort of company that doesn't like to release first and patch later (bless them).
Originally posted by bunge
I think Apple should make a Page Maker like application. Layers, lots of objects that can be easily moved around, embedding other documents via drag and drop.
It'd be a simple word processor like Word, unless you actually looked for advanced features. But the features should be unique, things that tap directly into OS X.
I really hope they don't combine word processing and DTP!
The word processing package should do text documents. It should support the odd inline image if needed, but they'd be inline with the text. It should also handle simple columns and tables.
But if you want moveable text boxes, layers, moving objects not inline with text, etc, then you should use a different program - one focussed on DTP not word processing.
If Apple were clever, they'd make both programs (at a consumer level of course - not going after the professional DTP market). They'd make it so that there was an easy way to get your word processed text into the DTP program, if you want to make it pretty.
Amorya
Originally posted by Amorya
If Apple were clever, they'd make both programs (at a consumer level of course - not going after the professional DTP market). They'd make it so that there was an easy way to get your word processed text into the DTP program, if you want to make it pretty.
What they should do, IMO, is offer a word processing program that outputs professional-quality work within the constraints of a word processor - none of the fancy reflowing and positioning and layering options, as you say, but a precisely laid out and beautifully kerned rendering of whatever letter or essay or proposal is being written.
Then you could offer AppleWorks-style DTP: Very simple, mostly template-based, but good enough for newsletters and such. And, again, done in such a way that if you fired up InDesign and did the same thing, it wouldn't look all that much different.
The world has suffered enough at the hands of Word documents.
Originally posted by Amorya
I really hope they don't combine word processing and DTP!
The word processing package should do text documents. It should support the odd inline image if needed, but they'd be inline with the text. It should also handle simple columns and tables.
But if you want moveable text boxes, layers, moving objects not inline with text, etc, then you should use a different program - one focussed on DTP not word processing.
If Apple were clever, they'd make both programs (at a consumer level of course - not going after the professional DTP market). They'd make it so that there was an easy way to get your word processed text into the DTP program, if you want to make it pretty.
Amorya
Thing is that consumers shouldn't have to pay mucho bucks for DTP style apps. Obviously a consumer oriented DTP program wouldn't have the advanced features of Quark or even Pagemaker and should cost no more than $129.
Originally posted by McCrab
The .doc format is proprietary, just like Colonel Sanders famous recipe and Coca-Cola's 7X ingredient! If .doc were open, I am sure we would not be having this debate - several developers would have full Word (and Excel, Powerpoint) compatibility built into their Mac software offerings.
One topic that has not had much coverage is whether Apple could pay MS a license fee to gain full access to the .doc (.xls and .ppt) file formats. This potentially gives users the best of both worlds - Apple develops the office software (which in Jobs' own words would be "kick-ass"), MS wouldn't need to support its Mac division (and continue writing crud) and the end user gets full office compatibility.
In exchange for MS granting Apple access to the file formats, Apple would share (say) 5% of the revenue from sales with MS.
If MS stops developing Office for OSX, I say that Apple should use .doc without paying any licence. MS practices have made .doc a de facto public standard. Let MS try to sue Apple. I think that MS might not suceed in a atmosphere of continuing scrutiny of MS regarding competition in computer software.
The idea would be to have a realtively simple, open source standard with collaboration built-in that could be used by many applications.
We already have pdf files which are cross platform. When I send pdf files to windows users they sometimes ask for word files because they want to modify the document. With pdf you can't modify the document. You can copy out portions but that doesn't satisfy them.
IBM is said to be going away from windows for internal use. Many countries outside the US (Brazil, China, others) are shying away from windows for many reasons.
There is a giant need for a word alternative that is not tied to microsoft and windows. This is a real opportunity for Apple. The world needs to define a document format which supports collaboration and which is open source and which easily supports many different language scripts.