I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office.
Mainly used Numbers. Could never get used to it, I'm much more effective in Excel.
I mainly used Keynote and really liked it, but I'm slowly switching over to PowerPoint. Keynote keeps dropping features and – unforgivably – dropping compatibility with older versions. This means I can't open older presentations anymore! I have a hard time taking 'business' software seriously when every upgrade might mean I lose data. So, as annoying as Power Point is, it is all I'm left with.
*grumble*
A perfectly valid complaint, one I hope you have on file with Apple.
Like a lot of users I learned Excel on a PC before switching to Macs. When I was running my smile business I kept Excel on the Mac to reduce a learning curve. Now that I'm retired I use Numbers when I need a spreadsheet. Pages or Word is selected based on the complexity of the documents.
There are, I believe, opportunities for growing the Suite in desirable areas. For Numbers I would love to see a "Wizard" for more than a simple mortgage amortization. Especially needed is one that allows for extra payments to be entered on a monthly basis. (The very old MS Works had that and it was simple, but very informative.)
Apple could still add a simple database because Bento has been pulled from the market. It wasn't overly powerful, but it could be very helpful on simple projects.
Not as powerful as the MS Suite, but with that said, the Apple Products work. The visual appearance is great. I am still trying to get Numbers to do the things I could do in Excel when I worked in a large corporation. However, I suspect most people only thought they could use Excel and Word.
It is difficult to figure out some of the software that has "Inspectors" on a small screen. 21" or larger helps a lot. 13" or small is crippling, but you can do it. The one Apple Product I really like is Filemaker Pro Database. I have used it since it was owned by Nashoba which was many decades ago. Filemaker Pro 15 has just been released. Never quite mastered Access, but FileMaker is exceptional.
I tried to use iWork for a while. Ended up forking over the money for MS Office.
I wanted to like Numbers and Pages. Unfortunately, as a lawyer, these programs are incompatible toys in a world where Word and Excel reign supreme. In addition, I simply don't have the time to re-learn how to do word processing and spreadsheets. So I'm still with Office 365.
I am more than happy to see that Apple is at least still WORKING on these Apps. I use Pages and Keynote on a daily basis – and could not agree more that Apple urgently need to give those apps a proper update. In particular Pages need to get all the features back – and gain a few more. It is almost embarrassing as it is. And Keynote was industry leading, but PowerPoint is catching up a lot. So give these apps some great improvements, simply start with all the suggestions you get from the users!
Comments
There are, I believe, opportunities for growing the Suite in desirable areas. For Numbers I would love to see a "Wizard" for more than a simple mortgage amortization. Especially needed is one that allows for extra payments to be entered on a monthly basis. (The very old MS Works had that and it was simple, but very informative.)
Apple could still add a simple database because Bento has been pulled from the market. It wasn't overly powerful, but it could be very helpful on simple projects.
It is difficult to figure out some of the software that has "Inspectors" on a small screen. 21" or larger helps a lot. 13" or small is crippling, but you can do it. The one Apple Product I really like is Filemaker Pro Database. I have used it since it was owned by Nashoba which was many decades ago. Filemaker Pro 15 has just been released. Never quite mastered Access, but FileMaker is exceptional.