[besson3c]

Haven't heard much about iWork for a long time... do you think it is been a success, or a failure? It doesn't seem to be discussed much, and I don't know too many users who are aware of it as an alternative to Word (or even care). Do you feel that it isn't viewed as an Office alternative? Does it need to be?

Would it fare better if it were free?

[Railroader]

Everyone I know that uses a Mac locally has switched over to Pages and Keynote. It simply easier to use and is compatible. But then no one I know does any complex tables or graphs in their text files.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

It has been a total sales bomb. Apple and manufactures are giving it away as incentives to buy Macs. Apple even installed 30 day demo's on all new macs to get the word out.

[Chuckit]

Failure. Most people still use AppleWorks (if anything), because that's what Apple is still including on all Apple computers. Apple is doing a wretched job advertising iWork.

If you ask me, they should have done it more similar to iLife. Release the apps for free and include them with new computers so people know what they are and start using them, then charge for them once you think it's a relatively mature product line that can stand on its own.

Oh, and the lack of a spreadsheet program makes a complete joke as a replacement for Office.

[Randman]

It should have been folded into iLife '05. I really like Pages, it serves as a nice gap when I don't need InDesign or Quark (and I'm a designer). Keynote is good though I don't use it that much.

[besson3c]

I know that there is a certain population that still uses Internet Explorer for the Mac. Like Word, some people seem to feel that they need these products and are not inclined to seek out and/or try an alternative unless they have good reason to.

There is also another population that has been really anxious for a viable Office alternative. The Slashdot crowd, for instance, is really enthused about the development of OpenOffice. Why isn't Pages discussed with this same crowd very much?

I have been hoping for a strong Exchange server alternative for a while now, but given my adove description of the blissfully ignorant user, perhaps it simply wouldn't be worth the time and money?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c

There is also another population that has been really anxious for a viable Office alternative. The Slashdot crowd, for instance, is really enthused about the development of OpenOffice. Why isn't Pages discussed with this same crowd very much?

Because Pages (a weak page layout program merged with a weak word processor) is hardly a competitor for Microsoft's Office suite? Also, Pages is irrelevant to most of the Slashdot crowd, since it won't run on PC.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Because Pages (a weak page layout program merged with a weak word processor) is hardly a competitor for Microsoft's Office suite? Also, Pages is irrelevant to most of the Slashdot crowd, since it won't run on PC.

What features does Pages lack as a word processor? It is my contention that the vast majority of what people need a word processor for is covered by Pages. Heck, the vast majority of what people need in a word processor has probably been covered for probably about a decade or more by various other products.

As for the Slashdot crowd, they seem to be very aware of Apple products and there are several Mac users posting to Slashdot. There is a pretty big geek population using the Mac, as far as I can tell.

[Superchicken]

I swear by Pages and Keynote , that said the problem is it's not on all new Macs by default. Probably in an effort to not piss off M$. But really With the release of iWork 06 they should start including it on all new Macs and stop shipping AppleWorks. After iWork 06 we should have a spreadsheet app and then there's no reason left to ever ship AppleWorks.

That said, things Pages really could use, a good Grammar check, I imagine this is coming but we'll just have to wait. Good formatting check, if I told potential Mac users that there's this great App that will make sure their papers are properly formatted so that at certain prof at Prov won't dock em a third of their mark, I imagine Apple sales at the college I went to would sky rocket. Seriously I doubt we'll see it but a formatting check that includes popular formats like Turabian, Chicago, MLA, APA, etc would be a KILLER feature for Pages. I think we'll see Pages mature more as a word processor in the coming years.
That said Keynote, only needs a few features, motion tweening/keyframing whatever you wanna call it, objects need to be able to move along a set path at determinable speeds etc. That plus core image/video support, (I don't think the current effects use image units) and more transitions are really all I can think of to keep pushing keynote, and probably bug fixes and junk like that. I really love keynote already and aside from the ability to do things like change slides on the fly, or reverse transitions and those sorts of things, I can't think of that many things that need to be added. Though really I'd love to see Apple compete with some of the apps that are often used for Worship in churches, a lot of those are much better competitors to Keynote than PPT.

Then again I'm a bit of an Apple Software fan boi. Still I LOVE Keynote and Pages, they've helped me impress a lot of people.

[Hawkeye_a]

I have Keynote 1 and never use any other presentation product. I want to get iWork, but in my opinion it's an incomplete product. iWork should be Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Secretary(or something)(Mail, iCal and iSync all tied up neating into a single application ala Entourage)
I cant justify paying for an incomplete product , even though it's far cheaper than Office. I wouldnt mind putting it on my Christmas list if they can finish the product as a true competitor to Office. They better hurry up as well, cause office is only getting better, and i suspect M$ will have a new version when Vista hits the shelves.

[Superchicken]

Why not just use iCal Mail and iSync? You won't see a redundant e-mail app as part of iWork, what you will see is Mail.app continue to get better and support more advanced features that will continue to keep it on the heels or surpassing entourage in usefulness.

That said Numbers I can almost garuntee you will be coming out in the next version. I am kind of surprised they launched the quite without it but I imagine it might have still needed some work.

[Hawkeye_a]

Yeah thats acceptable as well. I just want them to 'bundle' these free Apps into iWork, so you get a complete updates suite of office/work applications and u dont have to go elsewhere to download and install them.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Superchicken

I swear by Pages and Keynote , that said the problem is it's not on all new Macs by default. Probably in an effort to not piss off M$. But really With the release of iWork 06 they should start including it on all new Macs and stop shipping AppleWorks. After iWork 06 we should have a spreadsheet app and then there's no reason left to ever ship AppleWorks.

That said, things Pages really could use, a good Grammar check, I imagine this is coming but we'll just have to wait. Good formatting check, if I told potential Mac users that there's this great App that will make sure their papers are properly formatted so that at certain prof at Prov won't dock em a third of their mark, I imagine Apple sales at the college I went to would sky rocket. Seriously I doubt we'll see it but a formatting check that includes popular formats like Turabian, Chicago, MLA, APA, etc would be a KILLER feature for Pages. I think we'll see Pages mature more as a word processor in the coming years.
That said Keynote, only needs a few features, motion tweening/keyframing whatever you wanna call it, objects need to be able to move along a set path at determinable speeds etc. That plus core image/video support, (I don't think the current effects use image units) and more transitions are really all I can think of to keep pushing keynote, and probably bug fixes and junk like that. I really love keynote already and aside from the ability to do things like change slides on the fly, or reverse transitions and those sorts of things, I can't think of that many things that need to be added. Though really I'd love to see Apple compete with some of the apps that are often used for Worship in churches, a lot of those are much better competitors to Keynote than PPT.

Then again I'm a bit of an Apple Software fan boi. Still I LOVE Keynote and Pages, they've helped me impress a lot of people.

You sure like the expression "that said..."

I'm glad you recognize that you're an Apple fanboi, and an argument could be made that I'm one too, but I disagree with your assessment of what Keynote needs. In fact, I think the absolute sign of an amateur speaker is somebody who overuses those silly transitions in their presentations (my opinion is shared by many entrepreneurial/business types). I'd rather Apple focus on making creating presentations easier and more effectively, rather than adding fluff. Perhaps the whole presentation software thing has gone as far as it can?

As far as the grammar and formatting checker, I think there is a certain danger in being overly dependent on these sorts of tools. Perhaps writing well just isn't that big of a priority to students these days, but to me most students who fall into this category sound like idiots the way they write (I was just recently a student myself, so this is fresh on my mind).

Please don't pick apart my thread by pointing out any spelling/grammar mistakes, I'm just making a very general point. I'm not claiming to be perfect.

In many ways, I often think that the word processor has gone about as far as it can too. I often wonder why Apple bothered making Pages. It basically just seems like a souped up TextEdit with templates, and some additional features such as table of content creation, styles, etc. (actually, I'll make an exception to my idea of the stagnation of word processor evolvement by saying that Pages' table of contents generation is brilliant. Perhaps Word does this too, but it so it isn't as simple or elegant as Pages' implementation).

Just stream of consciousness thought here, I still think it is sort of bizarre how so many people were fantasizing about Apple developing an Office killer, and now nobody seems to care about iWork. Just my perception, YMMV.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a

I have Keynote 1 and never use any other presentation product. I want to get iWork, but in my opinion it's an incomplete product. iWork should be Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Secretary(or something)(Mail, iCal and iSync all tied up neating into a single application ala Entourage)
I cant justify paying for an incomplete product , even though it's far cheaper than Office. I wouldnt mind putting it on my Christmas list if they can finish the product as a true competitor to Office. They better hurry up as well, cause office is only getting better, and i suspect M$ will have a new version when Vista hits the shelves.

I also think that Office evolvement has stagnated too. Does anybody care about the latest Office features anymore?

[- - e r i k - -]

I love Pages and Keynote. For what they do they are most excellent products. Pages certainly stands to improve. It's just that they are such generic low-level programs. Honestly, who really gets excited by a word processor/page-layout and a presentation-program?

Bundle them with iLife and get over it Apple

[Hawkeye_a]

Originally Posted by besson3c

I also think that Office evolvement has stagnated too. Does anybody care about the latest Office features anymore?

I agree, im still on Office v.X and havent bothered upgrading to Office 2004 or whatever. i use Word and Keynote for any assignments, projects or presentation. And Excel for keeping track of my accounts.

[von Wrangell]

It desperately needs a spreadsheet app with it. I try to use it as much as I can because I really like it but like I said, a spreadsheet app is a must.

And I agree with Hawkeye that it would be good if Mail, iCal and iSync would be merged into one app.

[Link]

I love keynote! It's used in every single speech/presentation I do in class

And so far, all I've gotten were compliments regarding those

[Doofy]

I'd quite like to have a go with Pages. But I have absolutely no need for Keynote.
I expect that this is the case with the vast majority of people.

[Link]

Yeah, generally I don't -- but just get into a speech class and you'll do so many speeches you get sick -- especially over the summer lol! Having keynotes can make things a bit better

[RAILhead]

I use Pages all the blessed time, too. Keynote, not so much -- never really -- because all my presentations have to be in PowerPoint (so I just build them there).

My newly switched parents like Pages too, because my Mom likes to use the templates when she writes letters.

Maury

[Maflynn]

Haven't used it, not sure if its a success or a bust. If apple comes out with a viable spreadsheet application then I'll revisit iWork. My needs are for a spreadsheet app and not a word processor.

Mike

[Randman]

Originally Posted by RAILhead

I use Pages all the blessed time, too. Keynote, not so much -- never really -- because all my presentations have to be in PowerPoint (so I just build them there).

Build your presentation in Keynote then export to PowerPoint. I've done that just as I often export something from Pages to Word so I can have some extra editing options, then I copy and paste it back if I need to.

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by Randman

Build your presentation in Keynote then export to PowerPoint. I've done that just as I often export something from Pages to Word so I can have some extra editing options, then I copy and paste it back if I need to.

That extra work isn't worth it, especially since the export to PP option ends up requiring me to make modifications so it displays properly on PCs.

Maury

[budster101]

What about Mariner Calc? Spreadsheet product for $50? (It was $20.00 at one time...)

iWork plus that is a MS Office Killer. Access < Blows >

http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=14

[starman]

I still use Office.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by budster101

What about Mariner Calc? Spreadsheet product for $50? (It was $20.00 at one time...)

iWork plus that is a MS Office Killer. Access < Blows >

http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=14

Is that Calc in any way related to Visi Calc, the first electronic spreadsheet that came out for the Apple ][?

If it is, that software would dethrone Microsoft as the longest supported software title for the Apple platform.

[SVass]

Actually, Flight Simulator (if it is still around) might qualify as the oldest Apple software title.

I was wondering why any home user would want iWork (or Office) instead of Appleworks. Admittedly Appleworks doesn't do tables of contents automagically; but, its spreadsheet, painting, drawing, and database modules are quite usable for normal home activities. With "print to pdf" or its OSX replacement, The output is readable on most machines at no cost as opposed to the random incompatibility of dot doc formats that MS likes to visit upon us with their "updates". Assuming schools will become reasonably competent, spreadsheets are more important and useful than grammar checkers which are notoriously wrong. sam

[Superchicken]

The sign of an amateur? Buddy I less than a month ago made a slide show presentation for our church of a bunch of youth group photos... I can promise you the variety of transitions I was able to use helped a lot! There are different mediums where butt loads of cool transitions are great. As well if you're doing a LOT of presentations as I might be doing this year, it'd be nice to be able to have different ones with both custom graphics and transitions that aren't the exact same in every piece.
For example last year I did a stages of the cross service at school and I was doing the projector setup. And there was on slide that was especially touching, and the droplet transition was PERFECT for there, for most others I just used cross dissolve.
Sure Apple doesn't need a lot of dumb transitions, I don't need my slide to fold into a balloon and float away, but some more wateresk transitions would be very welcome. There are lots that in the right case could make a nice accent to a slide show. Sure people will butcher them by over using or something... but you don't think the cube is already abused?
As well Keynote is no where near feature complete. Things like transitions for things other than going forward, for example I hit command 3 to go to slide three, I still might want some sort of transition if only a cross fade. Remember Keynote and PowerPoint aren't exclusively used in stagnant slide shows that never get moved around in, and never have to fit a mood other than a speech.

As for my formatting checker for Pages, I think making sure margins and fonts are proper, as well as something that would even bring up a sheet that would let you fill in any information for your foot note would be great. There's been lots of times I've had to write a paper for a Prof and they want it in a format that I don't normally use, and I don't have time to go buy a book about the format and poor over it just so I can find out exactly how my foot note should look if I'm citing an online journal where the other isn't stated, or something like that.

[suvsr4terrorists]

Transitions are for amatuers. Sorry. Same goes for movie editing. Too many cheesy transitions= crap. Crossfade is pretty much all you need.

Transitions are the animated gifs of presentations. They're tacky and overused. Subtlety is more effective, tasteful and ... better.

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by SVass

I was wondering why any home user would want iWork (or Office) instead of Appleworks.

Power Macs don't ship with AppleWorks, and a LOT of "home" users buy Power Macs.

/just sayin
//Maury

[Millennium]

iCal, Mail, and Sync need not -indeed, must not- ever be tied up into an app. Rather, each should get better individually, and continue to integrate well with one another. This is the Mac Way: the way of non-bloat. The way of each app doing one thing and doing it well. The way of each app having the interface most appropriate for its task. The way of separate apps coming together to do greater things than they could alone.

[Superchicken]

Transitions are like Flash, they can be annoying and tacky, however they also can be used tastefully and truly add to what they're being used for. Anyone who doesn't understand that is a freaking idiot.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Superchicken

Transitions are like Flash, they can be annoying and tacky, however they also can be used tastefully and truly add to what they're being used for. Anyone who doesn't understand that is a freaking idiot.

Well said. Can anyone say "Star Wars"? Lucas used some weird transitions to great effect.

[SeSawaya]

I use pages ocasionally but Apple works much more. For starting page layout from scratch I simply cant get pages to work very effectivly. now with Apple works in drawing mode, you can do virtually anything you could do in Pagemaker from back in the day. I dont know I just need a simple but GOOD page layout program. Any suggestions?

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by Superchicken

Transitions are like Flash, they can be annoying and tacky, however they also can be used tastefully and truly add to what they're being used for. Anyone who doesn't understand that is a freaking idiot.

Of course. And anyone who doesn't understand that these programs give too much power without trying to impart any sense of design is similarly idiotic.

The fact is, PowerPoint and its ilk are the worst things to happen to information presentation in the past twenty years, if not longer, because they've taken presentation design out of the hands of people who actually know what they're doing. Nowadays, people think a simple list of bullet points with a flaming logo makes an adequate presentation, and the field of communications has suffered immeasurably as a result.

[suvsr4terrorists]

Originally Posted by Railroader

Well said. Can anyone say "Star Wars"? Lucas used some weird transitions to great effect.

That isn't what makes his movies good (though I'd argue his last few movies have been utter garbage).

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Railroader

Well said. Can anyone say "Star Wars"? Lucas used some weird transitions to great effect.

That's a good example. The most extreme use of transitions was TPM, and that movie was stupid and looked stupid for actually using a clock-wipe.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Superchicken

The sign of an amateur? Buddy I less than a month ago made a slide show presentation for our church of a bunch of youth group photos... I can promise you the variety of transitions I was able to use helped a lot! There are different mediums where butt loads of cool transitions are great. As well if you're doing a LOT of presentations as I might be doing this year, it'd be nice to be able to have different ones with both custom graphics and transitions that aren't the exact same in every piece.

Helped with what? If you were putting together a slideshow of pics, of course some transitions helped. Photo slideshows are designed to convey more of a multimedia experience, their closest cousin being an actual movie. I was commenting on professional presentations used to convey a message of some sort (e.g. a class lesson, a business meeting, a sales pitch, etc.) The little droplet effect in a presentation like this in this context would just scream amateur/hello Kitty. A slide show of youth group photos is almost entirely the polar opposite of what I was referring to.

If you are going to lead off with "Buddy" (which sounds defensive), at least make sure you are arguing for something relevant to what was being discussed. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

Sure Apple doesn't need a lot of dumb transitions, I don't need my slide to fold into a balloon and float away, but some more wateresk transitions would be very welcome. There are lots that in the right case could make a nice accent to a slide show. Sure people will butcher them by over using or something... but you don't think the cube is already abused?

I'm saying that this technology is used to convey meaning. It is a tool. The rotating cube draws attention to the technology and says "look what I can do with my computer". In some settings, this is fine. In many, it isn't.

As well Keynote is no where near feature complete. Things like transitions for things other than going forward, for example I hit command 3 to go to slide three, I still might want some sort of transition if only a cross fade. Remember Keynote and PowerPoint aren't exclusively used in stagnant slide shows that never get moved around in, and never have to fit a mood other than a speech.

This is moving into a new argument (usability), but how would you propose adding something like this in while maintaining elegance and simplicity? Are people supposed to program key mappings or something? Don't links handle this already?

As for my formatting checker for Pages, I think making sure margins and fonts are proper, as well as something that would even bring up a sheet that would let you fill in any information for your foot note would be great. There's been lots of times I've had to write a paper for a Prof and they want it in a format that I don't normally use, and I don't have time to go buy a book about the format and poor over it just so I can find out exactly how my foot note should look if I'm citing an online journal where the other isn't stated, or something like that.

It's ironic that you should complain about not following correct format, yet you misuse the word "poor" (you meant "pour"). I'm not trying to pick on you, but this illustrates my basic point: to sound intelligent it is still necessary to learn proper grammar and sentence construction (if you recall, my argument against grammar checking was that people might grow too dependent on these tools).

As far as formatting a document, I don't see a problem with going through the process of learning how to format a document properly, even if it won't be terribly practical outside of school. It's good practice. Formatting documents is important, learning to do it by hand gives the user more direct control and awareness of what is being done, rather than being completely dependent on software to handle this for them.

I'm not against software automation, but only when people aren't completely dependent on this. Same goes with doing arithmetic by hand vs. calculator, etc.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Millennium

iCal, Mail, and Sync need not -indeed, must not- ever be tied up into an app. Rather, each should get better individually, and continue to integrate well with one another. This is the Mac Way: the way of non-bloat. The way of each app doing one thing and doing it well. The way of each app having the interface most appropriate for its task. The way of separate apps coming together to do greater things than they could alone.

It's also the Unix way.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Superchicken

Transitions are like Flash, they can be annoying and tacky, however they also can be used tastefully and truly add to what they're being used for. Anyone who doesn't understand that is a freaking idiot.

No, there are certain mediums and settings which determine what is appropriate. A webpage is a medium of its own that sometimes leverages various "analog" concepts (e.g. VCR buttons, the OS X stamp icon, etc.), but it also displays many digital/new media/multimedia concepts (e.g. Flash).

If you are representing a piece of paper digitally, it wouldn't make sense for it to rotating cube, would it? Do your papers rotating cube? Likewise, a Powerpoint slideshow is often used to replace an overhead projector, or project paper documents (graphs, charts, etc.). In this setting, the freaking idiots are moreso those who don't use these mediums appropriately.

[SVass]

I am even more confused. I have given and listened to many, many presentations covering complex technical subjects. Transitions are virtually irrelevant except to indicate that the next item in the agenda will be addressed. Of course my involvement was only in presentations that attempted to convey information. Attempts to provide entertainment might utilize fancy fades.

Actually, the drawing module of ClarisWorks provided an adequate platform for technical presentation development. BTW, I have a desktop Power Mac and my wife has a Power Book and we both prefer AppleWorks. I have Office 2004, Word Perfect, NeoOffice, etc and I don't use them except for very special tasks. sam

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Of course. And anyone who doesn't understand that these programs give too much power without trying to impart any sense of design is similarly idiotic.

The fact is, PowerPoint and its ilk are the worst things to happen to information presentation in the past twenty years, if not longer, because they've taken presentation design out of the hands of people who actually know what they're doing. Nowadays, people think a simple list of bullet points with a flaming logo makes an adequate presentation, and the field of communications has suffered immeasurably as a result.

My stance is much closer to yours than Chicken's, but I think this might be just a wee bit extreme. These transitions are appropriate in Steve Jobs' presentations because his presentations are very multimedia, and intentionally trying to attract attention to technology.

I don't think the tools themselves are the problem, but the way people use (and misuse) these tools.

The medium is the message.

[besson3c]

To those looking for a drawing module:

You are aware of OmniGraffle, aren't you? It might not suffice for everything, but for diagramming and developign wireframes and stuff, it is great!

Of course, GraphicConverter also has a drawing module, I believe.

[Chuckit]

GraphicConverter is awful for drawing. Its shapes and lines aren't smooth, and once you release the mouse, they're stuck there forever. It's fantastic for converting graphics, but I really wish it did have a "drawing module."

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by besson3c

It's also the Unix way.

Indeed it is; in fact, it originated there. However, saying that something is "the Unix way" on a Mac board tends to scare people. It's just as accurate to say it's the Mac way, but it doesn't have the nasty CLI implications.

[olePigeon]

I think keeping the programs separate, but allowing them to communicate with each other better is the way to go. Not just communicate with each other, but allowing other applications to do the same.

That way you can have a mishmash of whatever programs you want and they can still talk to each other (at least on an acceptable level, of course single vendor integration will have features that are only part of their own software.)

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

GraphicConverter is awful for drawing. Its shapes and lines aren't smooth, and once you release the mouse, they're stuck there forever. It's fantastic for converting graphics, but I really wish it did have a "drawing module."

I think he should release a GraphicConverter plugin for Photoshop.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by besson3c

I don't think the tools themselves are the problem, but the way people use (and misuse) these tools.

The tools are the problem because they focus too much on what the presentation looks like, rather than on what's actually being presented. If they made the user consider information first, the presentations they made would be much more effective. This is the problem with WYSIWYG systems (What You See Is What You Get)- they've become WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is). People don't think about meaning anymore, and these programs are directly to blame.

This does not mean that all the flash and glitter doesn't have its place, but the way these tools work pushes those things to the forefront, when they should be secondary if not tertiary concerns.

[budster101]

They have to make some interesting transitions... have any of you watched a PP presentation?
People are falling asleep!! What information can you put in them to make a "Real Estate Marketing PP" interesting? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I've made them, and the graphics are the only thing to grab them and make them pay attention!
Transitions? .... meh... but they do keep a modicum of interest in a few.