[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Dare we say it, but Microsoft will love it -- iWork sales have become so sluggish that Apple is literally inventing ways to pull sales of the product out of the doldrums.

After an initial modest response, sales of the software have been described as nothing short of "horrible." Most retail stores AppleInsider spoke to conceded to only moving a handful of copies each week, if that.

In addition to authorizing catalog resellers and some of its stores to offer free copies of iWork to customers who are disgruntled over other issues, the company will be including a free 30-day trial of the productivity suite with each retail copy of Tiger in hopes that it may rejuvenate interest.

Furthermore, Apple has quietly launched a discounted iWork family pack for $99. Meanwhile, online retailer Amazon.com has taken its own initiative, offering an additional $10 rebate when iWork is purchased alongside Tiger.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1043

[CharlesS]

Well, how many people besides us fanatics know that iWork exists anyway?

If they would bundle it with all new Macs instead of AppleWorks, it would probably help...

[OptimusG4]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Well, how many people besides us fanatics know that iWork exists anyway?

If they would bundle it with all new Macs instead of AppleWorks, it would probably help...

Here's hoping that including a trial version will help.

[alex_kac]

I really like Pages. Keynote is pretty good, but has a few crippling issues especially with the lack of any free viewer on Windows and Mac. Without that, its useless to a lot of folk.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I was hearing how stores were giving away Pages for free as a good customer service thing and I was baffled. Guess I know why now.

[Millennium]

If they want sales to pick up, I have one word for them: spreadsheet.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Millennium

If they want sales to pick up, I have one word for them: spreadsheet.

Yeah, I hear you. When I first heard about iWork, my thought was "that sounds pretty nice; I might consider getting that around version 2.0 when they include a spreadsheet."

[gururafiki]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Well, how many people besides us fanatics know that iWork exists anyway?

If they would bundle it with all new Macs instead of AppleWorks, it would probably help...

Originally Posted by Millennium

If they want sales to pick up, I have one word for them: spreadsheet.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I think advertizing is a problem.

If they bundle it with every mac I would think the sales would drop actually as they aren't selling anything

[Hi I'm Ben]

iPhoto was garbage for a long time, at least i think so. I think Pages will eventually be decent. It doesn't have enough umph right now i think.

[Smeggy]

I love Pages as it is. It could use some improvements, but it's great like it is. I use it for all my academic writing requirements and any personal writing I need to do. iWork is perfect for, I don't require a spreadsheet.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

I think advertizing is a problem.

If they bundle it with every mac I would think the sales would drop actually as they aren't selling anything

Just like iLife never gets any sales.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Just like iLife never gets any sales.

Has Apple released the sales numbers for iLife?

[CaptainHaddock]

They definitely need to get the word out. Once you've used Keynote, you see what a pile of crap Powerpoint is.

Oddly enough, though, the local Mac seller in my remote little city sold out its first shipment of iWork within days (I got the last copy).

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

I think advertizing is a problem.

If they bundle it with every mac I would think the sales would drop actually as they aren't selling anything

That depends on a lot of things. In any case, however, though the 1.0 sales might not increase, 2.0 sales almost certainly would, as people upgraded. If there's one bad habit that Apple has learned to do even better than Microsoft, it's pay-through-the-nose upgrade cycles.

[Krusty]

Well, other than the obligatory QT Pro, iWork is the only Apple Software I've put down good money for. It's done what I needed it to do with some style (as billed). Just 2 days ago I made a 5 page report on something that included pictures etc., used a Pages template, and exported to pdf. Though it didn't look like a truly professionally "designed" document, it looked about 1000x better than the documents usually passed around at my company on such topics and took me next to no time to compose.

As a make-it-look-pretty-darn-good-quickly type program, Pages is a winner, IMHO. Of course, iWork is hardly a "suite" at this point. Spreadsheet + Database needs to be thrown into the mix (and just forget about HTML export at this point) before this is a worthy, modern successor to Appleworks.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

Oddly enough, though, the local Mac seller in my remote little city sold out its first shipment of iWork within days (I got the last copy).

That is always normal. The Mac fans always scoop things up right away. It was next to impossible for me to get ahold of my Cube when it first came out.

[mchladek]

Ah ... so this explains why my university is bundling iWork & iLife for $50.

[OptimusG4]

Originally Posted by mchladek

Ah ... so this explains why my university is bundling iWork & iLife for $50.

That and the online Apple store was doing a bundle with iWork, iLife, and Tiger.

[poulh]

Originally Posted by mchladek

Ah ... so this explains why my university is bundling iWork & iLife for $50.

That's a really good deal! What school? And is this a general education discount?

[mchladek]

Originally Posted by poulh

That's a really good deal! What school? And is this a general education discount?

The general educational discount is $60 for iLife and $50 for iWork. So you're pretty much getting iLife for free when purchasing iWork.

It's at the University of Missouri-Columbia. They have very good student discounts and license agreements. I was able to get the full version of MS Office for $70 and they usually offer licenses of OS X for $15, which will hopefully be happening soon for Tiger.

[Zimphire]

Originally Posted by Hi I'm Ben

iPhoto was garbage for a long time, at least i think so. I think Pages will eventually be decent. It doesn't have enough umph right now i think.

Yup, iPhoto was slow and buggy.

Now it's great.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Keynote 2 is very much impressive and iWork is worth every � just for that. Pages is.. a dash to basic so far. Keynote is a seriously professional presentation app. Is Pages an equally professional document processor?

[Kerrigan]

I am a history student, so the main part of my work involves writing, and Pages is the most frustrating word-processor that I have ever used. I'm sure that it is useful for people who need to make nice layouts and that sort of thing, but for typing an essay, it is dreadfully frustrating. Everything about it just seems off. The toolbar doesn't give you easy access to size & font controls, you can't see the borders well enough, the automatic numbering/bullet feature is irritating, and so forth. Honestly, you can't call pages a word processor. I don't know what it is, but it's not a word processor. I will stick to Word/NeoOffice for now.

[chabig]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

Dare we say it, but Microsoft will love it -- iWork sales have become so sluggish that Apple is literally inventing ways to pull sales of the product out of the doldrums.[/url]

Think back to the mid 80's. Windows 1 and Window 2 didn't sell very well either. And look where Windows is today...

[Mediaman_12]

The pages demo CD (that now comes with Tiger) should have been thrown in with ALL new Mac sales from the day of launch. This would have helped increase iWorks profile to new Apple customers.
I think Pages is great, My life has been much quieter since I moved my mother from a combo of Word (for simple text pages) and an old copy of Quark (3.11 in Classic, for more 'complex' document layouts).

[Stogieman]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

Has Apple released the sales numbers for iLife?

I don't think Apple ever released the sales numbers for iLife 05. However this
zdnet article mentions that Apple sold 400,000 copies of iLife 04 in Q2 of 2004. About $20 million (That's assuming everyone paid the full $50 price and didn't use the edu discount).

[poulh]

Another problem for pages is msft sells 3 copies of office for $150... now i know you aren't supposed to buy it, but no one stops you. its basically the price for home users since a business would get in trouble.

[mitchell_pgh]

I think Apple isn't approaching the applications the right way. There is nothing wrong with the application, but they do need to bundle it with all new Macs. They need to build a base before they can charge that much IMHO.

I also feel it should be $40...

[pyn]

Originally Posted by Kerrigan

I am a history student, so the main part of my work involves writing, and Pages is the most frustrating word-processor that I have ever used. I'm sure that it is useful for people who need to make nice layouts and that sort of thing, but for typing an essay, it is dreadfully frustrating. Everything about it just seems off. The toolbar doesn't give you easy access to size & font controls, you can't see the borders well enough, the automatic numbering/bullet feature is irritating, and so forth. Honestly, you can't call pages a word processor. I don't know what it is, but it's not a word processor. I will stick to Word/NeoOffice for now.

actually i never use the toolbar...i just keep the inspector open and sometimes use the fonts panel when i need to change a size... lists are easy to setup...

but it is a **** in the neck to delete a page? HOW DO YOU DELETE A ****ING PAGE?! and it's pretty ****ed when it comes to outlines or note taking...

wee need that cells app!! i hate launching excel to make spreadsheets...if there was a new member to the iWork family i could just TRASH MSOFFICE04 for EVER!!!

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by pyn

but it is a **** in the neck to delete a page? HOW DO YOU DELETE A ****ING PAGE?!

Were you not around for the big discussion of this ? The update to Pages 1.0.1 has added a "Delete Page" command to the Edit menu.

[AC Rempt]

I only bought MacWrite Pro after using the free version MacWrite that came with a machine I bought (can't remember if it was bundled or if the machine was used). I got used to using iPhoto when it was free as well.

Bundle the damned thing until it gets nice and polished.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

I think Apple isn't approaching the applications the right way. There is nothing wrong with the application, but they do need to bundle it with all new Macs. They need to build a base before they can charge that much IMHO.

I also feel it should be $40...

They should bundle an LE version, just as iMovie is, in a sense, an LE version of Final Cut.

[Wiskedjak]

The office suite market is a rather tough one. Even products that have been it forever (read: WordPerfect) have a difficult time competing with Office. Why? Compatibility; most of the time when people use an office suite product, it's to send that product to someone else, and 99 times out of 100, that person is going to have Office on their computer ... it's rather unlikely that they'll have iWork, which means they'll have to import your work, or you'll have to export it, and that means it's likely something will be lost in the process.

[lngtones]

I think most people don't and won't understand Pages. Styles are little abstract and if there's anything people hate is abstract. Beautiful but abstract.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Millennium

If they want sales to pick up, I have one word for them: spreadsheet.

That's it, right there !

And honestly, I'm not sure if pages is not a little too much a page layout program, and too little a word processor.

-t

[k2director]

Besides improving the apps themselves (especially Pages), Apple should give them away for the first year or two. Just eat the development expenses, and chalk it up to creating as big an installed base as possible. Then, when enough people are actually using the apps, start charging a reasonable amount of money.

How successful would iPhoto, iMovie, etc. been had Apple charged $$ for them right out of the gate? Not nearly as successful as they have been. Creating a word processor and presentation app when Office is so entrenched is an uphill battle. You need to make it VERY VERY easy for people to try out the product--and I don't mean for just 30 days.

[CaptainHaddock]

And honestly, I'm not sure if pages is not a little too much a page layout program, and too little a word processor.

While it could use some streamlining in the word processing category, I think Page's page layout abilities are vital. I can't count how many times I've watched people struggle to do page layout - brochures, invoices, etc. - in Word. This program is for those people, and they're everywhere. Apple just has to smooth out the rough edges and get the word out.

Honestly, I think Steve Jobs saw how many people were (mis)using Word and other word processors, and had a stroke of genius. Pages has the capacity to become a killer app for the Mac platform.

[Spook E]

I bought Pages as I wanted to get away from Word, but quickly switched back after feeling that it constantly fought me with it's usability.

In 2.0 could we please have some decent toolbars so I can use it with some sort of decency, use the Mail plastic UI and rip some of the functionality out of OpenOffice (notably tables, a half way decent speeling and grammer checker etc)

[Busemann]

Originally Posted by Spook E

a half way decent speeling and grammer checker

This is another area where Word excels. In addition to having a fairly decent grammar checker, it also has built-in dictionaries for several more languages than Pages. Even AppleWorks has better language support

[JLL]

Pages is not meant to compete with Word.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally Posted by JLL

Pages is not meant to compete with Word.

I wish more people understood this. It's a whole new application. It's a hybrid between Word and Quark with the average user in mind.

Is it meant to compete with Word or Quark/InDesign... no way. It is designed for the guy/gal that's interested in putting together a little family/club newsletter, postcard that wants something easier to design with than Word, but easier to use than Quark/InDesign.

[AC Rempt]

I can understand that Apple doesn't intend it as competition for Word, but I don't think they're doing a good job getting letting the general public know that. When I talk to people about Pages, they ask me what it is, and I never have an easy answer at hand. Apple needs to make it clear.

If Pages is not supposed to be competition for Word, if it's not supposed to be a word processing program, then Apple needs to define Pages market space.

And I hope that one day soon, Pages does rival Word. What i need more than a page layout program is a robust word processor that's elegant and easy and that takes full advantage of all of the Apple's tech. Seamless integration with the OS.

[Randman]

I wish Apple would just fold iWork into the iLife package. Better value for money and that might switch some people over. As much as I love Apple, sometimes it does too much nickle-and-diming people to death.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

Is it meant to compete with Word or Quark/InDesign... no way. It is designed for the guy/gal that's interested in putting together a little family/club newsletter, postcard that wants something easier to design with than Word, but easier to use than Quark/InDesign.

Strangely, I don't find Pages to be significantly easier to use than InDesign, which is itself a pretty user-friendly app. And this is coming from a Quark man who should have been completely culture-shocked to death by InDesign.

And I think it would sell a lot better if Apple would just bundle it either with new computers or with OS releases. There is no better advertising than to bundle a program in with the system. I doubt AppleWorks would've been used at all if Apple hadn't shoved it in users' faces.