iOffice : The Evidence?

imacfanimacfan
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Now, many people are talking of Apple creating a whole Office-like suite. I for one would dearly love this, and it would make me switch to a new OS X Mac in a heartbeat. So, what evidence is there?



1. Keynote - a fully formed application and cornerstone of the office suite.



2. Keynote supports import from Excel - suggesting that Apple is half way to being able to create a full spreadsheet app.



3. Safari - more integration



4. Document rumors - the most important app required (P.S. I like the name - it reminds me of the R.E.M. album)



5. When exactly does Apple's deal with Microsoft end? I thought that the 5 year agreement ended around now. Office X will still have legs for about another year, but if MS have suspended development now, Apple better get their skates on.



Any ideas, or extra info?



David

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    tomjtomj Posts: 120member
    I don't really feel like the ability to import data from excel would really suggest that apple is working on a spreadsheet. Although you're right that the deal with M$ ended, i doubt that means that they'll cease macintosh developement, even if they only sold 100,000 (i actually don't know how much software anyone sells, so that may be an outrageous number) copies of office this year, that's still 40m$ that they netted, and I can't believe that it would have cost them that much to produce the software. But hey, I don't really know what i'm talking about, I mean, this is what, my fifth post? Who knows what apple has up it's sleeve with all their programmers and developers locked up in the basement.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    formatcformatc Posts: 20member
    The evidence is "We Love Open Source!"



    Apple needs an office suite to be viable and is tired of being threatened by Microsoft.



    Apple loves open source

    +

    Needs Microsoft compatible office suite

    =

    <a href="http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/"; target="_blank">OpenOffice</a>



  • Reply 3 of 7
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Everyone thought Apple would go with Chimera, too, but they went for a dark horse instead.



    There are similar problems with OpenOffice: First, it's immense, so updating and maintaining it is a bear; second, it's one of those do-everything suites, but all indications from Apple are that they're moving away from that, and toward independent apps that work together; last, as with Chimera, it would take a lot of work on Apple's part to spiff that thing up into anything that could pass for a Mac application, let alone an Apple application. The question is, is it worth it? Now that Apple no longer develops for OS 9, they can leverage Cocoa to design killer office apps with no more than the personnel and time necessary to make something out of OpenOffice that wouldn't get the engineers fired the moment Steve laid eyes on it.



    Yes, Apple loves open source, finally. Nevertheless, how much of Keynote is open? Mail? iSync? Address Book? They're not going to put all their eggs in that basket.



    But they will replace MS Office. It's long past time for them to, since for all the hoopla the MS product is still basically Office 4, only slower (though not on contemporary hardware) and with gaudier lipstick.



    [ 01-30-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 7
    emaneman Posts: 7,204member
    [quote]Originally posted by iMacfan:

    <strong>5. When exactly does Apple's deal with Microsoft end? I thought that the 5 year agreement ended around now. Office X will still have legs for about another year, but if MS have suspended development now, Apple better get their skates on.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>

    The deal already ended.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    i still like the name "Author" for the word processing app. it just has more "authority" (pun intended) than Document. Similar to how "Keynote" isn't JUST Presenter or Presentation or something -- it's Keynote, the Mother of all Presentations.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Apple seems to have done a fine job of bringing PowerPoint importing/exporting to Keynote without open source. I suspect that if they are creating a Document (or "Author" or my fav, "Thesis") application, it will undoubtedly import and export Word .doc format, and they may not need open source or third party tools for the job. Without that, I don't see what Open Office brings to the table for Apple at this point.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Even Microsoft's things launch and function separately. Yes, you buy Office, but it's four apps...not one huge one with everything crammed in to it.



    I wouldn't mind if they got away from that AppleWorks approach and, instead, wrote standalone, top-of-the line apps geared to take on the Microsoft Office apps head-to-head.



    But, of course, they'd sell it in one box as a suite (just like Office).



    You'd have Keynote, Author(?) and a spreadsheet. Mail already comes on OS X, so you don't have to include it really. Just the three core workplace apps: word processing, presentation and spreadsheet.



    They could do to word processing and spreadsheets (read Word and Excel) what Keynote does to PowerPoint: makes it looks really lame and old hat.







    I bet they'll do this. Call it Workplace or something and sell it for $149 or so. Written by Apple for OS X. Slick, fast, smart and elegant.



    Just like all their other apps, "i" and otherwise.
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