Keynote and Pages are powerful apps. I use Numbers and it does everything I need, but I do know people like the Excel because of all the macros. Of course, these people also make complete "apps" in Excel like the Flight Simulator () and, as kids, made their TI calculators show boobs as inverted normal distribution curves.
Keynote and Pages are powerful apps. I use Numbers and it does everything I need, but I do know people like the Excel because of all the macros. Of course, these people also make complete "apps" in Excel like the Flight Simulator () and, as kids, made their TI calculators show boobs as inverted normal distribution curves.
Keynote is the best of the three iWork apps. Many people were stunned with my Keynote presentations made entirely on the iPad. But the real problem is when people asking for a copy of the "PowerPoint". I can only hand out PDFs cause Keynote-generated PowerPoints look like crap (not Keynote's problem though). But that upsets people, because they think I'm circumventing company's policy and standard templates, etc.
Pages is more of a Wordpad+. It handles basic stuffs well, easy to configure styles, beautiful typography, etc. But missing some big features like bibliography.
Numbers is the weakest of the three. it offers little beyond beautiful charts. What drives me honker is the lack of a n equivalence to F2 in Excel, You have to double click a cell to edit it, even though my board navigation is right there. No PivotTable is a huge miss.
You did not mention Microsoft's free Outlook.com. It's pretty nice. And, Apple's Pages for iOS has style sheets; but, the styles cannot be updated, making them rather useless.
The author would pick Google Docs and the Google Drive app based solely on Docs's ubiquity among internet users.
Wow! Now there is some quality reasoning. Office runs circles around anything offered by Google and is the predominantly used application suite amongst those that need a serious productivity solution. I willing to bet Office is more ubiquitous than Google Docs/Drive.
Agreed. And with the desktop applications, personally, I think Apple wins with Keynote, but Microsoft Word is better. (Never used Numbers so can't comment yet!)
If I want a straight word processor . . . a REAL one, I turn to Mellel.
If I want word processing + layout (and I don't want to spring for InDesign), I turn to Pages.
I can't really speak for the rest of Office (other than Keynote wipes the floor with PowerPoint), but I'd rather not use badly designed software like Word, which, among things, handles typography as if it were a Jersey hooker.
Numbers is awful and more eye candy than functionality. Pages and Keynote far easier to use and way ahead in of their MS offerings, word or powerpoint. Until Apple get Numbers functionality on par with Excel, they are never going to to break into the corporate IT world where the spreadsheet is king.
Oddly, doing the same thing with any of the old iLife suite apps will redirect you to their http://www.apple.com/mac/<name>; page, but you get the page error when doing this with any of the old iWork suite apps.
Hey Sol, welcome back… Are you through with school for a while?
Until the new desktop version of Pages is able to import documents from the previous (i.e., very recent) Pages version, I won't be using it.
This is the second transition where Apple decided that its own apps wouldn't be able to read previous documents.
Indeed, iWork, which clearly draws heavily upon AppleWorks, handles AppleWorks documents very poorly, if at all.
Now we are faced with a similar incompatibility.
Please Apple, clean up your act. In the MacOS days up to version 9, the Mac was well-known for utter backward compatibility (much more so than in the Windows world). Now the tables are turned and Apple is only bothering to serve new users (i.e., switchers) and forgetting about those who supported them from day 1.
[ BTW, something similar is happening with iCloud compatibility. Apple has proven to support legacy Windows versions (and hence legacy hardware) much better than for its own users, mainly for iCloud syncing. Cf. XP vs. Leopard (PPC machines), even Lion (late 2006 machines). Speaking about "mind boggling". ]
Hey guys, anyone knows if there is a solid review including: - desktop apps - mobile apps - browser apps. - how they work together (on different devices, between ecosystems, cross-platform collaboration) - cost of ownership
If Apple put their effort on it (and apparently they really do), their productivity app will soon close their gap in desktop apps competing with MS, and their collaboration/online gap competing with Google. Exciting times. Considering they come with every device, the cost of their hardware becomes more and more compelling as you get: - premium device (fit and finish, materials used, refinement, design) - fully operational device for consumers and most prosumers including software (creativity, productivity) - smooth ecosystem - excellent after sales support
Prior to the new disastrous downgrade of the iWork applications on Mac OS, I believed they were very close to being an acceptable replacement for MS Office for most people. My closest friend only really needs Access on Mac to abandon Windows.
But now? Forget it. Major step backwards.
The mobile apps... Well I haven't used them, because of missing password protection up until this new release (and if I have to use the new crippled versions on Mac OS to get the cross-platform functionality, screw that). But I bet they're not too bad for mobile apps.
I have tried various office suites on my iPad and iPhone and found iWork is the only suite that makes a reasonable attempt at opening documents that I have sent home from work using MS office. These include Word docs, PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets. Word docs and PowerPoint presentations work well unless you include smart art or something not supported in iWork. Generally if it is just text with a few pictures thrown in they both work perfectly. I have also sent home a spreadsheet with a dozen or so tabs and over 1000 rows per sheet with graphs and formulas. It opened perfectly in numbers. Granted I can't then carry out pivot table reports but it still works better than any other if the office suites I have used. iWork is the only suite I have used where you can create all document formats, insert charts and graphs in all three apps and supports build in and transitions in presentations. It was well worth the £6.99 I paid for each app and now it is free on new devices is an absolute steal.
Yup. It's a disaster on so many levels. The interaction design, usability and UX is a major step back and on top of that they left out so many features... You'd thought they learned from the Final Cut Pro X launch, but no.
Anyway our company actually used iWork as a standard, but we are moving on to Office (even though we do not want to). We just can't rely on Apple's roadmap anymore and we can't keep using iWork '09 and hope the new version will 'get there'.
Sorry, not impressed with Pages/Numbers on iOS. But worse is what they've done to the desktop versions, by stripping away the most useful features for power users.
I've got 6,000.00 contact cards in my Contacts app, yet when I need to use a Template to create a simple business letter, I have to switch apps and hunt and peck to copy and paste the multiple fields that I routinely use in correspondence (Name, address, date of birth, fax numbers, email etc etc.)
What's the point of having templates if you cannot use the device's computing power to elegantly merge the fields from Contacts? For the life of me I cannot understand how most reviewers never mention this? Most reviewers must be in professions where they do not have to produce "real world" correspondence. (When all you do is email, you don't have to insert many of the things you need for paper correspondence.
I would love to do away with more formal correspondence, but in my industry as an attorney, most of the folks I deal with every day -- State Farm is a perfect example -- do not use email. They are still using fax machines! Try preparing a proper fax cover sheet on Pages for iOS, or the new Pages for Mac Mavericks. Takes forever! With my old Pages (2009), which thankfully still works, I simply drag and drop the recipient's contact card on the the template and PRESTO, all the necessary fields have been populated and I'm off and running. That's why you have a computer. The new Pages feels more like a glorified typewriter.
I have found the new Pages, Numbers and Keynote to be awesome upgrades from the previous versions. I am not a power user, but do use these apps for my work daily (not keynote very much). The transition with all my spreadsheets and pages documents was seamless. The integration is best of class. Whatever I update on my iPhone or iPad is instantly updated on my computer at home.
Wonderful job, Apple! You guys are the best!
I am sure Apple will get all the features (that some are crying about) back as soon as they can be made stable enough across all devices...
Comments
Diehard Apple fan here. But even with a gun pointed to my head, I still pick Office over iWork.
Uh-hun. And what if you pull the trigger? What happens next?
Uh-hun. And what if you pull the trigger? What happens next?
Then you go back to English school. Have problems understanding metaphors, huh?
Keynote and Pages are powerful apps. I use Numbers and it does everything I need, but I do know people like the Excel because of all the macros. Of course, these people also make complete "apps" in Excel like the Flight Simulator (
Keynote is the best of the three iWork apps. Many people were stunned with my Keynote presentations made entirely on the iPad. But the real problem is when people asking for a copy of the "PowerPoint". I can only hand out PDFs cause Keynote-generated PowerPoints look like crap (not Keynote's problem though). But that upsets people, because they think I'm circumventing company's policy and standard templates, etc.
Pages is more of a Wordpad+. It handles basic stuffs well, easy to configure styles, beautiful typography, etc. But missing some big features like bibliography.
Numbers is the weakest of the three. it offers little beyond beautiful charts. What drives me honker is the lack of a n equivalence to F2 in Excel, You have to double click a cell to edit it, even though my board navigation is right there. No PivotTable is a huge miss.
Then you go back to English school.
Ooh, the Remedial Gun. It’s hard to find ammo for those.
Agreed. And with the desktop applications, personally, I think Apple wins with Keynote, but Microsoft Word is better. (Never used Numbers so can't comment yet!)
If I want a straight word processor . . . a REAL one, I turn to Mellel.
If I want word processing + layout (and I don't want to spring for InDesign), I turn to Pages.
I can't really speak for the rest of Office (other than Keynote wipes the floor with PowerPoint), but I'd rather not use badly designed software like Word, which, among things, handles typography as if it were a Jersey hooker.
Could not have said it better!
Hey Sol, welcome back… Are you through with school for a while?
This is the second transition where Apple decided that its own apps wouldn't be able to read previous documents.
Indeed, iWork, which clearly draws heavily upon AppleWorks, handles AppleWorks documents very poorly, if at all.
Now we are faced with a similar incompatibility.
Please Apple, clean up your act. In the MacOS days up to version 9, the Mac was well-known for utter backward compatibility (much more so than in the Windows world). Now the tables are turned and Apple is only bothering to serve new users (i.e., switchers) and forgetting about those who supported them from day 1.
[ BTW, something similar is happening with iCloud compatibility. Apple has proven to support legacy Windows versions (and hence legacy hardware) much better than for its own users, mainly for iCloud syncing. Cf. XP vs. Leopard (PPC machines), even Lion (late 2006 machines). Speaking about "mind boggling". ]
- desktop apps
- mobile apps
- browser apps.
- how they work together (on different devices, between ecosystems, cross-platform collaboration)
- cost of ownership
If Apple put their effort on it (and apparently they really do), their productivity app will soon close their gap in desktop apps competing with MS, and their collaboration/online gap competing with Google. Exciting times. Considering they come with every device, the cost of their hardware becomes more and more compelling as you get:
- premium device (fit and finish, materials used, refinement, design)
- fully operational device for consumers and most prosumers including software (creativity, productivity)
- smooth ecosystem
- excellent after sales support
What else would you need?
But now? Forget it. Major step backwards.
The mobile apps... Well I haven't used them, because of missing password protection up until this new release (and if I have to use the new crippled versions on Mac OS to get the cross-platform functionality, screw that). But I bet they're not too bad for mobile apps.
Yup. It's a disaster on so many levels. The interaction design, usability and UX is a major step back and on top of that they left out so many features... You'd thought they learned from the Final Cut Pro X launch, but no.
Anyway our company actually used iWork as a standard, but we are moving on to Office (even though we do not want to). We just can't rely on Apple's roadmap anymore and we can't keep using iWork '09 and hope the new version will 'get there'.
I've got 6,000.00 contact cards in my Contacts app, yet when I need to use a Template to create a simple business letter, I have to switch apps and hunt and peck to copy and paste the multiple fields that I routinely use in correspondence (Name, address, date of birth, fax numbers, email etc etc.)
What's the point of having templates if you cannot use the device's computing power to elegantly merge the fields from Contacts? For the life of me I cannot understand how most reviewers never mention this? Most reviewers must be in professions where they do not have to produce "real world" correspondence. (When all you do is email, you don't have to insert many of the things you need for paper correspondence.
I would love to do away with more formal correspondence, but in my industry as an attorney, most of the folks I deal with every day -- State Farm is a perfect example -- do not use email. They are still using fax machines! Try preparing a proper fax cover sheet on Pages for iOS, or the new Pages for Mac Mavericks. Takes forever! With my old Pages (2009), which thankfully still works, I simply drag and drop the recipient's contact card on the the template and PRESTO, all the necessary fields have been populated and I'm off and running. That's why you have a computer. The new Pages feels more like a glorified typewriter.
I have found the new Pages, Numbers and Keynote to be awesome upgrades from the previous versions. I am not a power user, but do use these apps for my work daily (not keynote very much). The transition with all my spreadsheets and pages documents was seamless. The integration is best of class. Whatever I update on my iPhone or iPad is instantly updated on my computer at home.
Wonderful job, Apple! You guys are the best!
I am sure Apple will get all the features (that some are crying about) back as soon as they can be made stable enough across all devices...