AppleOffice?

9secondko9secondko
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Seeing how Appleworks scripts were recently removed from the upcoming Automator App for Tiger, do you think Apple is shelving the 'Works program to fry bigger fishies such as MS Office (which is an obvious slap in the face to Apple by MS - bloated code, features left out of the Mac version - not to mention an ad campaign that makes it look like Macs cannot get anything done without the help of the "PC world"). By the way, did you know that the biggest security vulnerability this year came as a result of having Excel 2004 installed?



Any thoughts?



I for one would welcome this. OpenOffice already can read and write just about any type of Office file.



An AppleOffice app would certainly blow the doors off of Open (maybe even borrowing some tech to keep standards? and more than likely supercede MS's offering on the PC as well.



Would you buy it?



Sounds like Appleworks is gone. Sounds like MS stinks. Sounds like Apples Office-killer is coming.
«134567

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 123
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    It would be just plain stupid for Apple to do this. MS has every feature you could possibly want in their word and excel software.



    Apple would have to add a few of those back in, and sell it at a low margin like Keynote.



    It would also have to be fully compatible, which Apple never achieved with keynote or Appleworks



    I don't know how Keynote's doing, but I doubt it's doing that well, even when they're practically giving it away to educators.



    The only thing I use Appleworks for anymore is the drawing program.
  • Reply 2 of 123
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by slughead

    It would be just plain stupid for Apple to do this. MS has every feature you could possibly want in their word and excel software.



    Why it's not stupid:
    • Four years later, Office is still a Bad Carbon Port™. So is AppleWorks. NisusWriter for OS X is still missing. So they're 0-for-3 with the main office apps, as far as taking advantage of OS X's capabilities goes. There are some technical reasons here having to do with OS X's capabilities not being fully implemented (that's why the full-blown NisusWriter hasn't appeared yet), but it's still a sad situation for the platform.

    • Office is pricey, and it has too many features for a lot of people, cluttering up the interface. I don't see AppleWorks (or whatever replaces it) competing head-on with Office. Certainly not out of the starting gate! What it will be is a clean, simple, mostly compatible 80% solution, with an emphasis on polish and ease of use over raw power. If you need more than it offers, buy Office.

    • Office apps are absolutely bedrock at this point. Apple has to bundle something. Office is not a candidate for obvious political reasons, and probably cost reasons as well, since many consumer Windows PCs don't bundle it either. And AW6 is a glaring scuff in the polish of OS X.

  • Reply 3 of 123
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    The hang-up I think with OpenOffice is that it's presented (from my perspective) as one big ball of code and UI. Apple would love to have very strong Office compatibility, but would want to roll in not only the standard text tools like the fonts panel and such, but also use whatever Core* technology that makes sense as well as roll their own UI like Keynote into it. I don't know how OpenOffice splits up for those things to happen. It's like if there were a kernel compatibility layer, and Apple could build all around it, it would be a very attractive option.



    [fixed typo]
  • Reply 4 of 123
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by 9secondko

    Seeing how Appleworks scripts were recently removed from the upcoming Automator App for Tiger..



    I remain unconvinced that Apple isn't just messing with us, as they've been for the last five years.
  • Reply 5 of 123
    boukmanboukman Posts: 93member
    I believe that it would be a waste of ressources for Apple to actually take OpenOffice.org and make it a native application. Anyways, some people at neooffice.org are already doing that and they are starting to get there with the new build of NeoOffice/J. OpenOffice.org is a big monolithic application, the same way that Mozilla is a big application.



    It would be better for Apple to take the OASIS file formats (the standard OpenOffice.org file formats) and make new applications that can read & write those file formats. Apple could start from scratch and do something nice in Cocoa in relatively little time, or they could reuse other open-source code like they did with WebCore (née KHTML). KOffice comes to mind, but there are probably other projects that could also fit the bill. Another suggestion would be to buy one of the little apps already mentioned and develop it to be the next Appleworks. Anyways, the OASIS file format looks like it will be the standard of the future, with pretty much every office application supporting it (except maybe... Microsoft Office!), the same way that you can open a jpeg image in different image manipulation programs.
  • Reply 6 of 123
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    There is definitely a place for MS Office but it's ridiculous for Apple to have an Xserve and other products yet they offer no suite application of their own.



    That's the reason why companies are %95 PC and 2-5% Mac. Companies could go all Mac if Apple had a breadth of products available for the biz sector.
  • Reply 7 of 123
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I dunno, just because MS has both an OS and an Office suite under the same banner doesn't mean that a productitivty suite is supposed to be made by the OS vendor. Ms came to that situation by happenstance, wanting to own the whole ball of wax. If MS made Pagemaker or Quark instead, people might expect a layout app to come from the OS maker and not a spreadsheet.



    Having said that, OASIS is exactly what I was hoping would be available, and what IMO Apple should embrace. With my post above, that would fit in perfectly, a much more modular approach.
  • Reply 8 of 123
    carson o'geniccarson o'genic Posts: 1,279member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by slughead

    It would be just plain stupid for Apple to do this. MS has every feature you could possibly want in their word and excel software.





    Yes, Office is a very mature set of applications, but I have found myself running into trouble doing some very basic stuff. Like many folks, I write grants-word documents with some basic graphics placed in them. This is simple stuff and using Quark and InDesign is just overkill. Nonetheless, Words handeling of pictureplacement has gotten worse if anything over the years. I still use frames, a function MS like to hide away a s much as possible. Still, I spend hours trying to keep a graphic in one place when I change a line of text. It is all to complicated and the final results just don't look as good as they should.



    I've often complained about the lack of PDF compatibility with Offfice products. For us Mac folks PDF is a great option for getting graphics between programs. But place a PDF file in powerpoint and word and it becomes a big fuzzy mess. That is why I use Keynote and that is why I hope for Apple Office.
  • Reply 9 of 123
    chris cuillachris cuilla Posts: 4,825member
    I think the business of "OS vendor" and "office suite vendor" and "hardware vendor" are too limiting.



    Apple, MS, Sun, Dell, etc. are businesses. They are looking to continue growing revenue and profits. If Apple can do this (overall) with a home-grown office product suite, they will. It's just about that simple.
  • Reply 10 of 123
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BuonRotto

    I dunno, just because MS has both an OS and an Office suite under the same banner doesn't mean that a productitivty suite is supposed to be made by the OS vendor. Ms came to that situation by happenstance, wanting to own the whole ball of wax. If MS made Pagemaker or Quark instead, people might expect a layout app to come from the OS maker and not a spreadsheet.



    Having said that, OASIS is exactly what I was hoping would be available, and what IMO Apple should embrace. With my post above, that would fit in perfectly, a much more modular approach.



    No it doesn't mean the the suite has to be coming from the vendor but reality is Apple needs to follow suite if they wish to see Macs anywhere besides the design/marketing depts(and even that grip is tenous)



    Licensing is everything and other than Windows Office is MS' biggest cash cow.
  • Reply 11 of 123
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Carson O'Genic

    This is simple stuff and using Quark and InDesign is just overkill.



    Don't even get me started on Adobe's incompetence. They'll cry like babies if Apple introduces a DTP capable Office suite, but InDesign's been out for years now. Where the heck is InDesign Elements?



    It would take all of five minutes to strip out the high end features and design a new box.
  • Reply 12 of 123
    xflarexflare Posts: 199member
    Have you seen the latest version of TextEdit in Tiger?



    Here's a screenshot:



    http://alexandros.roussos.free.fr/ma...c/textedit.jpg
  • Reply 13 of 123
    bborofkabborofka Posts: 230member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by xflare

    Have you seen the latest version of TextEdit in Tiger?



    Here's a screenshot:



    http://alexandros.roussos.free.fr/ma...c/textedit.jpg



    Jeez, could a text editor HAVE anymore palettes?



    Apple needs to make a good Word Processor. They seem to be taking a lot of things other developers do "in house" (just look at all the Core stuff coming in Tiger) because no one can make the great software that Apple can which fully exploits OS X.



    Word processing is one of the most common tasks people do on a computer. Why not have a great Apple app to do it? Office 2004 is still crap.
  • Reply 14 of 123
    chris cuillachris cuilla Posts: 4,825member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by bborofka

    Jeez, could a text editor HAVE anymore palettes?



    Apple needs to make a good Word Processor. They seem to be taking a lot of things other developers do "in house" (just look at all the Core stuff coming in Tiger) because no one can make the great software that Apple can which fully exploits OS X.



    Word processing is one of the most common tasks people do on a computer. Why not have a great Apple app to do it? Office 2004 is still crap.



    First, I think you are missing the point about what TextEdit looks like in one screen shot. TextEdit is a "proving ground" for their word processing technologies and capabilities. It seems even more clear that this is something Apple is going to do. It looks like, with TextEdit in Tiger, they are even closer.



    Secondly, it is funny what you say about word processing being the most common tasks people do with their computers. Speaking only for myself, it is not. Web browsing, email, writing code, calendar, address book, budget (Quicken), some note taking (Outliner)...these are my top tasks.



    Still, I would love to see what Apple would do with a word process and a spreadsheet too.
  • Reply 15 of 123
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by xflare

    Have you seen the latest version of TextEdit in Tiger?



    Here's a screenshot:



    http://alexandros.roussos.free.fr/ma...c/textedit.jpg



    Heaven help us. Even Nisus Writer Express handles palettes better than that.
  • Reply 16 of 123
    merovingianmerovingian Posts: 436member
    Word processing on Mac OS X sucks.



    I have Office installed, but avoid its use where possible. I have AppleWorks installed, but don't ever tend to use it anymore.



    For many word processing requirements, I now use LaTeX, which is not WYSIWYG, but it creates very professional looking documents. For different word processing requirements, I use a nice little program called Mellel.



    But please, Apple, give us an Apple Office suite designed for the 21st century!!! m.
  • Reply 17 of 123
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    I know, but I must admit Nisus' sidebar seems to be a good way of dealing with this.



    Also, there's still no real button bar at the top? Why haven't the Bold, Italic and Underline controls been added, at the very least?
  • Reply 18 of 123
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    So is a two button mouse. Call me when Apple ships one.
  • Reply 19 of 123
    stupider...likeafoxstupider...likeafox Posts: 1,618member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Frank777

    Heaven help us. Even Nisus Writer Express handles palettes better than that.



    I hate to burst anyone's bubble but the palettes in that screenshot are available from any Cocoa App (and most from any App) e.g.



    * Character Palette

    * Font Chooser

    * Preferences

    * Check Spelling



    If the abaove aren't available from any Word Processor on Mac OS X then that's its problem. Which leaves:



    * 1 palette, for table formatting

    * 1 sheet for line spacing

    * 1 window for document metadata



    The only real oddity is that the Preferences window seems to have a sheet.
  • Reply 20 of 123
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stupider...likeafox

    I hate to burst anyone's bubble but the palettes in that screenshot are available from any Cocoa App (and most from any App) e.g.



    * Character Palette

    * Font Chooser

    * Preferences

    * Check Spelling



    If the abaove aren't available from any Word Processor on Mac OS X then that's its problem. Which leaves:



    * 1 palette, for table formatting

    * 1 sheet for line spacing

    * 1 window for document metadata



    The only real oddity is that the Preferences window seems to have a sheet.



    These tools are expressly for third parties to adopt, TextEdit is simply one place they show up. Look at Stone's Create. It simply folds these text tools provided form Apple along side their own stuff. Creater will simply inherit these features, though I'm sure it will get a maintenence update to make sure it all works smoothly. Hell, if you want InDesign Lite, Create is an app that takes better advantage of the OS you're working in. Plus the developer actually responds to your input.
Sign In or Register to comment.