Apple introduces iWork '08 with 'Numbers' spreadsheet app
As part of its Mac product introductions on Tuesday, Apple introduced a significant upgrade to its iWork productivity software suite featuring new versions of Pages and Keynote, as well as an innovative new spreadsheet application called "Numbers."
Making its debut in iWork '08 is Numbers, which introduces the concept of intelligent tables on a flexible canvas, a new approach that makes it easy to organize information, create calculations, analyze results and make spreadsheets look as great as they work.
Similarly, Pages '08 now features distinct modes for streamlined word processing and flexible page layout, a new contextual format bar and change tracking. And Keynote '08 now includes text effects, transitions and themes that help users easily compose spectacular presentations, and Smart Builds with easy-to-set-up A-to-B animations that make impressive animations easy for anyone to create.
"Pages and Keynote make it incredibly easy, and even fun, for anyone to create stylish documents and presentations very quickly," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs. "Numbers rounds out the iWork suite, which is far more intuitive and easy to use than anything else out there."
Numbers '08
Numbers '08 is a new approach to spreadsheets that allows people to organize their information, interact with their data and calculations and make their spreadsheets easy to understand and print. With multiple intelligent tables on a flexible graphics canvas, users can rearrange information, resize and add columns?all without breaking their spreadsheet. Each table is a full-blown spreadsheet with automatic header and footer rows, easy sorting and filtering, and automatic cell naming so creating, reading and maintaining formulas is easy. Common functions can be dragged to any cell, and a total of 150 functions are available spanning a wide range of calculations, including numeric, date and time, financial and statistical. Interactive checkboxes and sliders let users change cell values easily to explore different scenarios and see their results instantly. Users can create stunning 2D and 3D charts that are automatically updated as data changes, then complement them with rich graphics, photos and text labels. Interactive printing makes it easy to fit a document on a single page or rearrange and resize tables and objects across multiple pages.
For those interested, AppleInsider first reported on the development of Apple's "Numbers" spreadsheet application back in June of 2005.
Pages '08
Pages '08 now has two distinct modes: streamlined word processing that makes it easy to create stunning documents in seconds; and flexible page layout, which gives users complete control over the position of objects on the page. Pages includes 140 Apple-designed templates that let users easily create letters, reports, newsletters and brochures. A new contextual format bar gives users the exact set of tools they need at their fingertips whether they're editing text, creating a table or adjusting an image. Change tracking lets users collaborate with others on a document by displaying each person's edits in different colors, then accept or reject each proposed change.
Keynote '08
Keynote '08, Apple's industry-leading application for creating cinema-quality presentations, introduces new Smart Builds to make it easy for anyone to create spectacular animations by simply dropping graphics onto a slide. More advanced users can control every aspect of their animations with new A-to-B animations to define movement, rotation, scaling and opacity. Keynote's new Instant Alpha feature makes it easy to remove unwanted backgrounds from photos and graphics without needing a graphics department. Users can record their presentations along with a voice-over, then deliver them to audiences in person or over the Internet via podcasting or YouTube. The new Keynote also includes a collection of new text effects, transitions and themes.
iWork '08 can import Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and AppleWorks word processing, presentation and spreadsheet files, and can export documents in Microsoft Office file formats or PDFs for easy sharing.
Pricing & Availability
iWork '08 is now available through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $79 (US). A 30-day iWork '08 trial will be available on new hardware and with copies of iLife '08 sold at retail. After 30 days, the trial becomes an iWork '08 player. iWork '08 requires Mac OS X version 10.4.10 or later, a Macintosh computer with a 500 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5 or Intel processor, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), 32MB of video RAM, QuickTime 7.2 or later and 1GB of available disk space. iLife '08 is recommended.
Making its debut in iWork '08 is Numbers, which introduces the concept of intelligent tables on a flexible canvas, a new approach that makes it easy to organize information, create calculations, analyze results and make spreadsheets look as great as they work.
Similarly, Pages '08 now features distinct modes for streamlined word processing and flexible page layout, a new contextual format bar and change tracking. And Keynote '08 now includes text effects, transitions and themes that help users easily compose spectacular presentations, and Smart Builds with easy-to-set-up A-to-B animations that make impressive animations easy for anyone to create.
"Pages and Keynote make it incredibly easy, and even fun, for anyone to create stylish documents and presentations very quickly," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs. "Numbers rounds out the iWork suite, which is far more intuitive and easy to use than anything else out there."
Numbers '08
Numbers '08 is a new approach to spreadsheets that allows people to organize their information, interact with their data and calculations and make their spreadsheets easy to understand and print. With multiple intelligent tables on a flexible graphics canvas, users can rearrange information, resize and add columns?all without breaking their spreadsheet. Each table is a full-blown spreadsheet with automatic header and footer rows, easy sorting and filtering, and automatic cell naming so creating, reading and maintaining formulas is easy. Common functions can be dragged to any cell, and a total of 150 functions are available spanning a wide range of calculations, including numeric, date and time, financial and statistical. Interactive checkboxes and sliders let users change cell values easily to explore different scenarios and see their results instantly. Users can create stunning 2D and 3D charts that are automatically updated as data changes, then complement them with rich graphics, photos and text labels. Interactive printing makes it easy to fit a document on a single page or rearrange and resize tables and objects across multiple pages.
For those interested, AppleInsider first reported on the development of Apple's "Numbers" spreadsheet application back in June of 2005.
Pages '08
Pages '08 now has two distinct modes: streamlined word processing that makes it easy to create stunning documents in seconds; and flexible page layout, which gives users complete control over the position of objects on the page. Pages includes 140 Apple-designed templates that let users easily create letters, reports, newsletters and brochures. A new contextual format bar gives users the exact set of tools they need at their fingertips whether they're editing text, creating a table or adjusting an image. Change tracking lets users collaborate with others on a document by displaying each person's edits in different colors, then accept or reject each proposed change.
Keynote '08
Keynote '08, Apple's industry-leading application for creating cinema-quality presentations, introduces new Smart Builds to make it easy for anyone to create spectacular animations by simply dropping graphics onto a slide. More advanced users can control every aspect of their animations with new A-to-B animations to define movement, rotation, scaling and opacity. Keynote's new Instant Alpha feature makes it easy to remove unwanted backgrounds from photos and graphics without needing a graphics department. Users can record their presentations along with a voice-over, then deliver them to audiences in person or over the Internet via podcasting or YouTube. The new Keynote also includes a collection of new text effects, transitions and themes.
iWork '08 can import Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and AppleWorks word processing, presentation and spreadsheet files, and can export documents in Microsoft Office file formats or PDFs for easy sharing.
Pricing & Availability
iWork '08 is now available through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $79 (US). A 30-day iWork '08 trial will be available on new hardware and with copies of iLife '08 sold at retail. After 30 days, the trial becomes an iWork '08 player. iWork '08 requires Mac OS X version 10.4.10 or later, a Macintosh computer with a 500 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5 or Intel processor, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), 32MB of video RAM, QuickTime 7.2 or later and 1GB of available disk space. iLife '08 is recommended.
Comments
Anyone not planning a switch after seeing all that goodness must be insane...
Similarly, Pages '08 now features distinct modes for streamlined word processing and flexible page layout, a new contextual format bar and change tracking.
Change tracking is a good addition. I write formal technical specification documents, and would love to be able to use Pages for it (and say goodbye to Word
So now what I'd like to know is if Pages yet supports the other two:
- Being able to have multiple windows open into a single document
- Being able to insert "internal cross references" to numbered paragraphs and headings (i.e., a particular form of a within-document hyperlink).
Anyone know?
- Paul
1) Is there a word count selection feature? In other words can I select some text and get an accurate word count? (I know there's freeware, but for a $79 word processor I'd hope there'd be something inside for a word count?!
2) Is there a way to change the page numbering? For example I'd like my cover page to be 0 and my next page to be 1, and so on.
With Keynote:
1) Any better export options? That's all the qualms I really have.
unless Office 2008 has some really kick-ass features, I don;t see myself buying it... edu discount or not!!
Change tracking is a good addition. I write formal technical specification documents, and would love to be able to use Pages for it (and say goodbye to Word
I really hope change tracking works back-and-forth with Word change-tracking info (working in a 99.99% windows/office environment....). I'm pretty pessimistic about that, though...
It's not human. It's dam close, and I didn't realise it wasn't a real person at first. At least I don't think it is. It's hard to tell, but every now and then there's a small change in a word that gives it away, if you listen carefully.
Could this be the new voice from Leopard? If so, it's stunning! My girlfriend was watching the demos and didn't notice at all until I pointed it out.
Has anyone else been onto Apple's web site, viewed the Video Demos of the iWork08 and iLife08 apps and noticed the voice?
It's not human. It's dam close, and I didn't realise it wasn't a real person at first. At least I don't think it is. It's hard to tell, but every now and then there's a small change in a word that gives it away, if you listen carefully.
Could this be the new voice from Leopard? If so, it's stunning! My girlfriend was watching the demos and didn't notice at all until I pointed it out.
That's scary, I'm sure it's just a real person with zero personality though.
I've decided to sell what little MS stock I have tomorrow - before the market catches up.
I guess I know a death knell when I see one.
Never tried to use word count on 06, just did testing of about 30 words, selecting variable numbers and it was correct, but it did count series of numbers (without spaces) as one word. Sorry I didn't want to actually count out a whole page to check accuracy. It was updating in real time as I highlighted different numbers of words.
I've had persistent performance hangups with Pages; frequent crashes, problems exporting documents to PDF, etc.
Frequent crashes? That's unusual. I always have at least two documents open on my Mac and sometimes as many as ten. It's never even crashed once on me in over two years.
What I find strange is that Apple never sees fit to integrate Quicktime into Keynote. That is, allow us to embed movies in Keynote presentations. (Correct me if I'm wrong. I've never really worked with Keynote.) With QT being one of Apple's core software technologies, you would think they'd be able to integrate it.
Has anyone else been onto Apple's web site, viewed the Video Demos of the iWork08 and iLife08 apps and noticed the voice?
It's not human. It's dam close, and I didn't realise it wasn't a real person at first. At least I don't think it is. It's hard to tell, but every now and then there's a small change in a word that gives it away, if you listen carefully.
Could this be the new voice from Leopard? If so, it's stunning! My girlfriend was watching the demos and didn't notice at all until I pointed it out.
i'm pretty sure that's a human but they've taken out a lot of spaces and breaths in audio editing. that's why you here an occassional pop or clip.
Frequent crashes? That's unusual. I always have at least two documents open on my Mac and sometimes as many as ten. It's never even crashed once on me in over two years.
What I find strange is that Apple never sees fit to integrate Quicktime into Keynote. That is, allow us to embed movies in Keynote presentations. (Correct me if I'm wrong. I've never really worked with Keynote.) With QT being one of Apple's core software technologies, you would think they'd be able to integrate it.
Consider yourself corrected. QT works beautifully in Keynote. You should try it. (Though a little more control over the movie playback would be nice - at the moment it's click and play - anyway, hopefully there's something in the new version).
I'm dying to know two major irritants that I've had with Pages:
1) Is there a word count selection feature? In other words can I select some text and get an accurate word count? (I know there's freeware, but for a $79 word processor I'd hope there'd be something inside for a word count?!
2) Is there a way to change the page numbering? For example I'd like my cover page to be 0 and my next page to be 1, and so on.
With Keynote:
1) Any better export options? That's all the qualms I really have.
I can help with the page numbers thing, but the word count annoyed me a bit with my dissertation, couldn't solve it, just figured no-body would go through and check. With the page numbers though, instead of inserting a new page where you want page numbers to restart again, insert a new section from the same menu. The inspector then allows you to sort out page numbers to start with each new section.
Apparently, my new iLife and iWork are already on route to me as I type. Looking forward to having a play, and making use of the new web gallery feature.
So far it is really great! Pages and keynote have been upgraded nicely with pages feeling a lot more mature than 06 version. Enough so that I now expect to be using it full time instead of word for writing my research papers.
But Numbers....
Yup, this one will cost microsoft a lot of office:Mac sales.......
VisualBasic for Applications and to a lesser degree MS Forms... are the two things that allow Microsoft's Office suite 'be all it can be' and basically customizable to any situation and need imaginable... Almost never utilized in the home-setting except perhaps in the more geeky homes... mostly due to its fairly complex implementation... VBA is however used extensively in the business market and its what makes MS Office *indispensable* as an office tool.
Most will (successfully) argue that iWork isn't going after that particular market and I'd agree... but all the same, it sure would be nice to have some form of VBA & Forms available just the same...
Dave
So now what I'd like to know is if Pages yet supports the other two:
- Being able to have multiple windows open into a single document
- Being able to insert "internal cross references" to numbered paragraphs and headings (i.e., a particular form of a within-document hyperlink).
Anyone know?
- Paul
Internal cross references can be done using bookmarks in the hyperlink tab of the Inspector even in '06. It was always a little bit of a pain in some instances because you have to manually create the bookmark and then manually create the hyperlink to it. '06 didn't have a lot of the custom table of contents features of Word.
With Keynote:
1) Any better export options? That's all the qualms I really have.
Have you seen '06? It can export to Powerpoint, QuickTime (self-playing or presentation, which means you can show your Keynote on a Windows computer w/out converting to PP and losing all the good looks) Flash, PDF, HTML. What else is there to export to?
There is a word count tool under Edit->Writing tools->Show Statistics.
Never tried to use word count on 06, just did testing of about 30 words, selecting variable numbers and it was correct, but it did count series of numbers (without spaces) as one word. Sorry I didn't want to actually count out a whole page to check accuracy. It was updating in real time as I highlighted different numbers of words.
Wait, is this in '08? 'Cause I don't see it in '06.
All in all, seems like an awesome upgrade. And only $79!! We're definitely getting something back for the premium prices we have to spend on hardware....