My experience of OpenOffice is that it's slow, ugly and doesn't work very well as a Mac application - even worse than Microsoft Office in that regard.
On the other hand, iWork is the least buggy, has a better interface, fantastic layout tools, integrates well with the iLife apps and the OS. I happily paid for it (multiple times now I guess) because it saves me a lot more time than I'd waste on the free software alternative.
While OpenOffice/NeoOffice may not be as sexy as iWork, it still blows it away in functionality and it's certainly not any buggier than the shit from MS. I've used OpenOffice on Linux for 8 years and NeoOffice on the Mac for 2 years now and other than startup, the speed is not bad at all. I happily donate to further develop these open source solutions.
iWork, on the other hand should really be called iPretendtoWork. While it is sexy and has a great interface to the OS and iLife, it's like the blonde bombshell you find in a bar you want to take home and have your way with. Once she opens her mouth to speak you quickly figure out she's as dumb as a box of rocks. You'll lose all interest and go home. iWork is that blonde - at least for what I need to do with it. Although for the average home user it may be just the ticket.
List of things MS has taken away from the Mac folk (presumably because the Mac team was incompetent because nobody would accept that it was done out of malevolence to the Mac platform).
Internet Explorer (this one actually helped Apple gain dominance with Safari on the Mac)
Media Player (this app was utter garbage)
VirtualPC (bought and dropped, thanks mofos)
Bungie (bought and dropped, years later a port house finally secured the right to port Halo to Mac)
A fast Office (the latest Office makes me wonder if MS is for real or if they're inviting people to switch to iWork)
I know I'm missing lots of things in this list...I think this list should probably twice as big as this one but these are just the things that came to my mind when I was writing this post.
Now they're hiring to bring new products? Fuck you MS...fuck you very much.
ahhh bungie.. i hated MS so much that year, as i watched the HALO demos. it was suppose to be a MAC game. ohwell. at least bungie is free now, i can't wait for a new MYTH for MAC
While OpenOffice/NeoOffice may not be as sexy as iWork, it still blows it away in functionality and it's certainly not any buggier than the shit from MS. I've used OpenOffice on Linux for 8 years and NeoOffice on the Mac for 2 years now and other than startup, the speed is not bad at all. I happily donate to further develop these open source solutions.
iWork, on the other hand should really be called iPretendtoWork. While it is sexy and has a great interface to the OS and iLife, it's like the blonde bombshell you find in a bar you want to take home and have your way with. Once she opens her mouth to speak you quickly figure out she's as dumb as a box of rocks. You'll lose all interest and go home. iWork is that blonde - at least for what I need to do with it. Although for the average home user it may be just the ticket.
I really don't think that's the case at all since iWork 08 but I suspect if you've come from Linux, you've settled with Thelma instead of aspiring for Daphne. Meanwhile Daphne's been out and got a degree and Thelma is still butt-ugly and annoying.
I really don't think that's the case at all since iWork 08 but I suspect if you've come from Linux, you've settled with Thelma instead of aspiring for Daphne. Meanwhile Daphne's been out and got a degree and Thelma is still butt-ugly and annoying.
I have only used iWork '08 and have since passed it on. So, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
My experience is that I still find the bombshells with advanced degrees. I don't need to settle for butt-ugly just because they are smart.
Yes very true. Although I was very pleased to finally be able to chat with my PC friends using iChat on the Mac and AIM on the PC. We do so all the time now. Because of this many have stopped using MSN on their PCs and switched to AIM.
I hear ya...and I tried that too. However, while a few friends and family were willing to give AIM a go, they found it annoying to keep switching between AIM for me and MSN for the rest of the world. iChat is certainly a better chat application, but it and AIM simply don't have the penetration (yet?) to be of much use when dealing with the rest of the Windows world.
I'm not sure what kind of craziness Microsoft is pulling with its MBU to keep it from having Messenger equality on PCs and Macs, but enough is enough already.
Is it just me or is there someone else that really doesn't give a hoot about ODF or OpenOffice? iWork kicks it's ass all over the place since OpenOffice is really in its heart just an Office wannabe.
It's called Keynote. THAT's what makes iWork worth using a gazillion times over OpenOffice.
If all I had to do were slides, and there was a version of Keynote on Windows, there would be no problem. Even the Mac people I've seen do presentations, just use PP 2004.
But I don't, and I primarily use Word/Excel/Access. Unfortunately 2008 has been a dog, but 2007 mops the floor with iWork 08, and I can't do didly with Numbers. as most of my data comes from text files, which I import into Excel, do some calculations, and sometimes pass them off to Access/SQL Server.
I like Pages, but I simply work faster with Word 2007 now. OOo at least has a database app. iWork is good for letters, simple graphs, and good presentations, but the lack of features in Numbers is a real killer for a Office replacement.
I don't care about IE, as all I use anymore is FF3 (on Windows and Linux too), iTunes for audio, although on Vista, I do use WMP for video.
Is it just me or is there someone else that really doesn't give a hoot about ODF or OpenOffice? iWork kicks it's ass all over the place since OpenOffice is really in its heart just an Office wannabe.
It's called Keynote. THAT's what makes iWork worth using a gazillion times over OpenOffice.
Keynote may be the only part of iWork that is worth a crap. Numbers is terminally retarded for any serious work compared to OpenOffice/NeoOffice Calc.
With OpenOffice on the Mac coded with Cocoa and ready this fall, Redmond's free ride with Office is almost at an end. If Sun had any brains, they would have done this years ago.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Microsoft is putting more emphasis on application development.
And while we routinely deride MS for the second class status of the apps they put on the Mac today, there was a time when Microsoft's Mac apps were downright brilliant.
If they can rediscover that pizazz, Intuit, Adobe and Filemaker will need to watch their backs.
Is it just me or is there someone else that really doesn't give a hoot about ODF or OpenOffice? iWork kicks it's ass all over the place since OpenOffice is really in its heart just an Office wannabe.
It's called Keynote. THAT's what makes iWork worth using a gazillion times over OpenOffice.
Federal Contracts require ODF native support to get future contracts with the US Government and international governments.
ODF 1.2 is an excellent solution that eliminates vendor lock-in.
Instead of barring competition through file format wars you have to win on the merits of your applications.
ODF 1.2 is an ISO Standard.
Use it and write an intelligent interface to leverage the specs and you'll win the market.
Keynote may be the only part of iWork that is worth a crap. Numbers is terminally retarded for any serious work compared to OpenOffice/NeoOffice Calc.
Make no mistake, iWork is the wannabe here.
I don't use Keynote, or rather I've used it once because I was asked to. I don't like 'Powerpoint presentations' - I just talk and give out a handout at the end.
I don't know what you mean by 'serious work' but Numbers is fine for what I'm using it for - company accounts reports (profit&loss, cashflow analysis etc). It also seems to be the only spreadsheet app I've used that understands that people actually want to print stuff sensibly on one page.
And Pages rules for layout too. I'd still like multi document TOC/index generation and page numbering but that's generally my only issue that affects how I use it for documentation work.
Sure they don't cover 'every' function but IME they're perfect for small business use at the very least and probably more.
I don't use Keynote, or rather I've used it once because I was asked to. I don't like 'Powerpoint presentations' - I just talk and give out a handout at the end.
I don't know what you mean by 'serious work' but Numbers is fine for what I'm using it for - company accounts reports (profit&loss, cashflow analysis etc). It also seems to be the only spreadsheet app I've used that understands that people actually want to print stuff sensibly on one page.
And Pages rules for layout too. I'd still like multi document TOC/index generation and page numbering but that's generally my only issue that affects how I use it for documentation work.
Sure they don't cover 'every' function but IME they're perfect for small business use at the very least and probably more.
Please understand that I am not here to piss into anybody's cereal bowl. If iWork does what you need it to, then by all means use it. To be truthful, I really wanted to use iWork for some of what I need to do because of its formatting capabilities and ease of use. To use your example, if I tried to create a report for what I need to fit on one page, you would need a scanning electron microscope to read it. Keynote is actually a deceptively impressive presentation tool. The technical writers on my staff, however, have little incentive at this point to switch to Pages.
I run a hedge fund. In our office we use Linux as our main platform because Windows is far too unreliable when managing millions of dollars of other people's money. On those machines we have purpose written software for derivatives analysis and data is exported that we use in the field at client locations, creating portable risk models or the trading floor. In the 'old days' we used Unix workstations.
So today at the office we use OpenOffice on Linux boxen and out in the field we use Macs with NeoOffice. iWork's Numbers simply cannot handle the models we need to create. For us, like I said in a previous post, it's the sexy blonde without a brain. (No offense to smart blondes intended.)
With that being said, if AAPL ever decides to elevate the entire iWork suite to a viable Office replacement in functionality, programmability and performance, we'd be all over it in a minute.
Numbers' cells-on-a-grid aspect is very innovative, but often gets in your way.
Apple may have to split the program into two modes (like Pages) for those who want a regular spreadsheet and those who want a more DTP approach to tables.
Apple may have to split the program into two modes (like Pages) for those who want a regular spreadsheet and those who want a more DTP approach to tables.
I have only used iWork '08 and have since passed it on. So, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
My experience is that I still find the bombshells with advanced degrees. I don't need to settle for butt-ugly just because they are smart.
Hold the fort. When Numbers gets the level of functionality that Borland Quattro Pro could do for Data acquisition, Numerical analysis and more, plus has the ease of use reminiscent of Lotus Improv for NeXTStep then you'll want to use it.
The same goes for Pages.app where it needs the Vector Tools of Inkscape [at least most of them], the full PDF spec implementation to make use of PDF Forms, layers with differing color depth support, full SVG 1.2, and action libraries ala TIFFany [both engineers work at Apple] and opens up services to interact with applications from Apple and 3rd parties [Photoshop, Pixelmator, OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa] and more then you'll rethink your view.
OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa would be smart to offer Services to hook into iWork, especially Keynote.
This can all be done when Apple adds ODF 1.2 for iWork.
Hold the fort. When Numbers gets the level of functionality that Borland Quattro Pro could do for Data acquisition, Numerical analysis and more, plus has the ease of use reminiscent of Lotus Improv for NeXTStep then you'll want to use it.
The same goes for Pages.app where it needs the Vector Tools of Inkscape [at least most of them], the full PDF spec implementation to make use of PDF Forms, layers with differing color depth support, full SVG 1.2, and action libraries ala TIFFany [both engineers work at Apple] and opens up services to interact with applications from Apple and 3rd parties [Photoshop, Pixelmator, OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa] and more then you'll rethink your view.
OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa would be smart to offer Services to hook into iWork, especially Keynote.
This can all be done when Apple adds ODF 1.2 for iWork.
Comments
My experience of OpenOffice is that it's slow, ugly and doesn't work very well as a Mac application - even worse than Microsoft Office in that regard.
On the other hand, iWork is the least buggy, has a better interface, fantastic layout tools, integrates well with the iLife apps and the OS. I happily paid for it (multiple times now I guess) because it saves me a lot more time than I'd waste on the free software alternative.
While OpenOffice/NeoOffice may not be as sexy as iWork, it still blows it away in functionality and it's certainly not any buggier than the shit from MS. I've used OpenOffice on Linux for 8 years and NeoOffice on the Mac for 2 years now and other than startup, the speed is not bad at all. I happily donate to further develop these open source solutions.
iWork, on the other hand should really be called iPretendtoWork. While it is sexy and has a great interface to the OS and iLife, it's like the blonde bombshell you find in a bar you want to take home and have your way with. Once she opens her mouth to speak you quickly figure out she's as dumb as a box of rocks. You'll lose all interest and go home. iWork is that blonde - at least for what I need to do with it. Although for the average home user it may be just the ticket.
So no one is going to rip me a new asshole over 'Publisher for the Mac'? (Post #8)
What's happened to this forum?
I did, I said publisher was the worst program ever, why would you want it for mac???
List of things MS has taken away from the Mac folk (presumably because the Mac team was incompetent because nobody would accept that it was done out of malevolence to the Mac platform).
Internet Explorer (this one actually helped Apple gain dominance with Safari on the Mac)
Media Player (this app was utter garbage)
VirtualPC (bought and dropped, thanks mofos)
Bungie (bought and dropped, years later a port house finally secured the right to port Halo to Mac)
A fast Office (the latest Office makes me wonder if MS is for real or if they're inviting people to switch to iWork)
I know I'm missing lots of things in this list...I think this list should probably twice as big as this one but these are just the things that came to my mind when I was writing this post.
Now they're hiring to bring new products? Fuck you MS...fuck you very much.
ahhh bungie.. i hated MS so much that year, as i watched the HALO demos. it was suppose to be a MAC game. ohwell. at least bungie is free now, i can't wait for a new MYTH for MAC
While OpenOffice/NeoOffice may not be as sexy as iWork, it still blows it away in functionality and it's certainly not any buggier than the shit from MS. I've used OpenOffice on Linux for 8 years and NeoOffice on the Mac for 2 years now and other than startup, the speed is not bad at all. I happily donate to further develop these open source solutions.
iWork, on the other hand should really be called iPretendtoWork. While it is sexy and has a great interface to the OS and iLife, it's like the blonde bombshell you find in a bar you want to take home and have your way with. Once she opens her mouth to speak you quickly figure out she's as dumb as a box of rocks. You'll lose all interest and go home. iWork is that blonde - at least for what I need to do with it. Although for the average home user it may be just the ticket.
I really don't think that's the case at all since iWork 08 but I suspect if you've come from Linux, you've settled with Thelma instead of aspiring for Daphne. Meanwhile Daphne's been out and got a degree and Thelma is still butt-ugly and annoying.
I really don't think that's the case at all since iWork 08 but I suspect if you've come from Linux, you've settled with Thelma instead of aspiring for Daphne. Meanwhile Daphne's been out and got a degree and Thelma is still butt-ugly and annoying.
I have only used iWork '08 and have since passed it on. So, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
My experience is that I still find the bombshells with advanced degrees. I don't need to settle for butt-ugly just because they are smart.
Perhaps this is a sign of Microsoft's desire to port their products to Cocoa. After all, it is known that Carbon will not become 100% 64bit capable.
Mmm... Cocoa. With marshmallows.
Yes very true. Although I was very pleased to finally be able to chat with my PC friends using iChat on the Mac and AIM on the PC. We do so all the time now. Because of this many have stopped using MSN on their PCs and switched to AIM.
I hear ya...and I tried that too. However, while a few friends and family were willing to give AIM a go, they found it annoying to keep switching between AIM for me and MSN for the rest of the world. iChat is certainly a better chat application, but it and AIM simply don't have the penetration (yet?) to be of much use when dealing with the rest of the Windows world.
I'm not sure what kind of craziness Microsoft is pulling with its MBU to keep it from having Messenger equality on PCs and Macs, but enough is enough already.
Is it just me or is there someone else that really doesn't give a hoot about ODF or OpenOffice? iWork kicks it's ass all over the place since OpenOffice is really in its heart just an Office wannabe.
It's called Keynote. THAT's what makes iWork worth using a gazillion times over OpenOffice.
If all I had to do were slides, and there was a version of Keynote on Windows, there would be no problem. Even the Mac people I've seen do presentations, just use PP 2004.
But I don't, and I primarily use Word/Excel/Access. Unfortunately 2008 has been a dog, but 2007 mops the floor with iWork 08, and I can't do didly with Numbers. as most of my data comes from text files, which I import into Excel, do some calculations, and sometimes pass them off to Access/SQL Server.
I like Pages, but I simply work faster with Word 2007 now. OOo at least has a database app. iWork is good for letters, simple graphs, and good presentations, but the lack of features in Numbers is a real killer for a Office replacement.
I don't care about IE, as all I use anymore is FF3 (on Windows and Linux too), iTunes for audio, although on Vista, I do use WMP for video.
Is it just me or is there someone else that really doesn't give a hoot about ODF or OpenOffice? iWork kicks it's ass all over the place since OpenOffice is really in its heart just an Office wannabe.
It's called Keynote. THAT's what makes iWork worth using a gazillion times over OpenOffice.
Keynote may be the only part of iWork that is worth a crap. Numbers is terminally retarded for any serious work compared to OpenOffice/NeoOffice Calc.
Make no mistake, iWork is the wannabe here.
With OpenOffice on the Mac coded with Cocoa and ready this fall, Redmond's free ride with Office is almost at an end. If Sun had any brains, they would have done this years ago.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Microsoft is putting more emphasis on application development.
And while we routinely deride MS for the second class status of the apps they put on the Mac today, there was a time when Microsoft's Mac apps were downright brilliant.
If they can rediscover that pizazz, Intuit, Adobe and Filemaker will need to watch their backs.
Is it just me or is there someone else that really doesn't give a hoot about ODF or OpenOffice? iWork kicks it's ass all over the place since OpenOffice is really in its heart just an Office wannabe.
It's called Keynote. THAT's what makes iWork worth using a gazillion times over OpenOffice.
Federal Contracts require ODF native support to get future contracts with the US Government and international governments.
ODF 1.2 is an excellent solution that eliminates vendor lock-in.
Instead of barring competition through file format wars you have to win on the merits of your applications.
ODF 1.2 is an ISO Standard.
Use it and write an intelligent interface to leverage the specs and you'll win the market.
Keynote may be the only part of iWork that is worth a crap. Numbers is terminally retarded for any serious work compared to OpenOffice/NeoOffice Calc.
Make no mistake, iWork is the wannabe here.
I don't use Keynote, or rather I've used it once because I was asked to. I don't like 'Powerpoint presentations' - I just talk and give out a handout at the end.
I don't know what you mean by 'serious work' but Numbers is fine for what I'm using it for - company accounts reports (profit&loss, cashflow analysis etc). It also seems to be the only spreadsheet app I've used that understands that people actually want to print stuff sensibly on one page.
And Pages rules for layout too. I'd still like multi document TOC/index generation and page numbering but that's generally my only issue that affects how I use it for documentation work.
Sure they don't cover 'every' function but IME they're perfect for small business use at the very least and probably more.
I don't use Keynote, or rather I've used it once because I was asked to. I don't like 'Powerpoint presentations' - I just talk and give out a handout at the end.
I don't know what you mean by 'serious work' but Numbers is fine for what I'm using it for - company accounts reports (profit&loss, cashflow analysis etc). It also seems to be the only spreadsheet app I've used that understands that people actually want to print stuff sensibly on one page.
And Pages rules for layout too. I'd still like multi document TOC/index generation and page numbering but that's generally my only issue that affects how I use it for documentation work.
Sure they don't cover 'every' function but IME they're perfect for small business use at the very least and probably more.
Please understand that I am not here to piss into anybody's cereal bowl. If iWork does what you need it to, then by all means use it. To be truthful, I really wanted to use iWork for some of what I need to do because of its formatting capabilities and ease of use. To use your example, if I tried to create a report for what I need to fit on one page, you would need a scanning electron microscope to read it. Keynote is actually a deceptively impressive presentation tool. The technical writers on my staff, however, have little incentive at this point to switch to Pages.
I run a hedge fund. In our office we use Linux as our main platform because Windows is far too unreliable when managing millions of dollars of other people's money. On those machines we have purpose written software for derivatives analysis and data is exported that we use in the field at client locations, creating portable risk models or the trading floor. In the 'old days' we used Unix workstations.
So today at the office we use OpenOffice on Linux boxen and out in the field we use Macs with NeoOffice. iWork's Numbers simply cannot handle the models we need to create. For us, like I said in a previous post, it's the sexy blonde without a brain. (No offense to smart blondes intended.)
With that being said, if AAPL ever decides to elevate the entire iWork suite to a viable Office replacement in functionality, programmability and performance, we'd be all over it in a minute.
Have to go now, the market's open...
Numbers' cells-on-a-grid aspect is very innovative, but often gets in your way.
Apple may have to split the program into two modes (like Pages) for those who want a regular spreadsheet and those who want a more DTP approach to tables.
Apple may have to split the program into two modes (like Pages) for those who want a regular spreadsheet and those who want a more DTP approach to tables.
<The ghost of Appleworks rattles it's chains>
I have only used iWork '08 and have since passed it on. So, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
My experience is that I still find the bombshells with advanced degrees. I don't need to settle for butt-ugly just because they are smart.
Hold the fort. When Numbers gets the level of functionality that Borland Quattro Pro could do for Data acquisition, Numerical analysis and more, plus has the ease of use reminiscent of Lotus Improv for NeXTStep then you'll want to use it.
The same goes for Pages.app where it needs the Vector Tools of Inkscape [at least most of them], the full PDF spec implementation to make use of PDF Forms, layers with differing color depth support, full SVG 1.2, and action libraries ala TIFFany [both engineers work at Apple] and opens up services to interact with applications from Apple and 3rd parties [Photoshop, Pixelmator, OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa] and more then you'll rethink your view.
OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa would be smart to offer Services to hook into iWork, especially Keynote.
This can all be done when Apple adds ODF 1.2 for iWork.
Hold the fort. When Numbers gets the level of functionality that Borland Quattro Pro could do for Data acquisition, Numerical analysis and more, plus has the ease of use reminiscent of Lotus Improv for NeXTStep then you'll want to use it.
The same goes for Pages.app where it needs the Vector Tools of Inkscape [at least most of them], the full PDF spec implementation to make use of PDF Forms, layers with differing color depth support, full SVG 1.2, and action libraries ala TIFFany [both engineers work at Apple] and opens up services to interact with applications from Apple and 3rd parties [Photoshop, Pixelmator, OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa] and more then you'll rethink your view.
OpenOffice 3.0 for Cocoa would be smart to offer Services to hook into iWork, especially Keynote.
This can all be done when Apple adds ODF 1.2 for iWork.
Did you read my post from this morning?
Did you read my post from this morning?
No. I don't read every threaded comment prior to the most recent page.
No. I don't read every threaded comment prior to the most recent page.
It was only 3 posts up.