[pliny]

Steve Jobs introduction new application called "Pages" as new word prcoessor. Footnotes, etc. 40 Apple designed templates. Drag & drop rearrangement of templates. Very easy starting point. Phil Schiller invited on stage to demo new word processing application: Pages. Powerful and easy to use. Designed by Keynote team. Pages support PDF, AppleWorks, and PDF. iWork is the next-generation AppleWorks. Will ship on January 22 for $79.


Jobs introduces iWork, successor to AppleWorks. Built with Mac OS X and iLife in mind. Two applications: Keynote 2 (cinema-quality presentations, animated text, powerful animated builds, presenter display, self-running kiosks. Jobs says he used Keynote for everything. Flash output, PowerPoint, AppleWorks, and PowerPoint.

This is great stuff.

[nooon]

Great! Can't wait to get my hands on it.

[Colonel Panic]

Anyone know if there was any word on the degree interoperability with Word?

Bummer there is no spreadsheet. Would have really liked to see that. Odd that Apple will not be selling a spreadsheet, nor will one be bundled with the OS.

A friendly out of the box experience for new users was always the ability perform calcs like those needed for loan payments, home finance/budgets, etc. now that won't exist.

[lavar78]

iWork looks fantastic! We're basically getting a price cut on Keynote 2 and what looks to be a phenomenal word processor thrown in for free.

[trevorM]

Cant wait to get myself a copy. Its a pain in the ass to get to the apple store (Trafic, trafic, trafic!) but at least it is available. It looks so simple yet seems to pack plenty. It looks more design orientated though, as if it were like a publishing package, rather then a word processor that I can write a legal paper on....

Its compatible with everything you could imagine.. GIF, JPEG, PDF, PSD, TIFF, AAC, AIFF, Flash, Mov, MP3, TXT, MS DOC

[pliny]

This looks like a Cocoa app. I bet it runs pretty well too. I'm glad that it seems to be able to import and export to just about anything, including PDf, which many PC users think is the hardest thing in the world to do. On OS X it is simple.

$49 academic, I don't think it is being bundled in with the new MacMini.

[Douglashh]

Totally useless without a spreadsheet companion. Those of us who use spreadsheets would have to keep AW6 along with iWork - NOT gonna happen. Shame on you Apple.

[pliny]

I wouldn't day it's totally useless, the bundle's a word processor/light DTP application with a slideshow maker.

But yeah, there's no spreadsheet in it; I bet it will do fine what it does, though.

[Thinine]

I'll have to wait for the webcast to be sure, but I heard Steve said they were working on a spreadsheet program called Cells or Grid or something.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Douglashh:
Totally useless without a spreadsheet companion.

Well, no. There are many applications (Photoshop, Terminal, Disk Utility) that do not have a spreadsheet companion and are not totally useless. It's not useful for creating spreadsheets, but that's not really its purpose, is it?

[gregpins]

My only concern is the extent of compatability. I would much prefer being able to set a preference in both Pages and Keynote to always save as a Word file or a PowerPoint document. It feels very kludgy to have multiple copies of documents and to always have to import and export. Other than that, can't wait to get my hands on it.

[:dragonflypro:]

Track Changes, the single Word feature that MUST be supported over all else. Anyone have a notion on that?

T

[mrwalker]

Originally posted by Douglashh:
Totally useless without a spreadsheet companion. Those of us who use spreadsheets would have to keep AW6 along with iWork - NOT gonna happen. Shame on you Apple.

You could buy iWork '05 and the stand alone version of Excel 2004 for less than the cost of Office 2004 Standard Edition. As long as you're using iCal, Address Book and Mail you're not going to miss Entourage


-mrwalker

[Tsilou B.]

Originally posted by :dragonflypro::
Track Changes, the single Word feature that MUST be supported over all else. Anyone have a notion on that?

T

I don't think it will support something like that. It's the AppleWorks successor, not a replacement for Microsoft Office.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by :dragonflypro::
Track Changes, the single Word feature that MUST be supported over all else. Anyone have a notion on that?

T

Boy, I hate that feature. But I realize it's importance to some. Unfortunately, there's not enough product feature detail on the iWork pages to know if it's compatible or not. In fact, the mention of Word seems so low-key that it doesn't appear as if it's being presented as a competitor to Word. They either don't want to offend MS, or it's really not designed to mimic the more advanced features of Word.

[Douglashh]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Well, no. There are many applications (Photoshop, Terminal, Disk Utility) that do not have a spreadsheet companion and are not totally useless. It's not useful for creating spreadsheets, but that's not really its purpose, is it?

It is being presented as a replacement for AppleWorks and without a spreadsheet it's NO replacement for AppleWorks.

[cpac]

Originally posted by Douglashh:
It is being presented as a replacement for AppleWorks and without a spreadsheet it's NO replacement for AppleWorks.

yes and no.

No it's not a full blown spreadsheet, but many of the most common things people do with spreadsheets are covered:

(1) entering data so you can create a chart/graph
(2) entering tabular data (i.e. lists)

I think Apple realized that EVEN MORE THAN WITH MSWORD, people who use spreadsheets, use Excel, and rely on the extensive feature set of that application, and on having compatibility with other users who rely on excel. Moreover, Excel always was a good application (which cannot be said of Word).

Students and home users generally don't have a lot of use for spreadsheets (beyond tables and charts per above), or at least very little use as compared to those who would use word processing and presentation software.

The bottom line is that there just isn't/wouldn't be much of a market for a non-excel spreadsheet.

[cambro]

I agree. Excel is very good at what it does, is rather advanced and is definitely the best of MS Office on the Mac.

Does anybody know if Endnote Citation is going to work with Apple's Notes? Word 2004 (and the whole Office 2004 trilogy) really sucks compared to Office X. If Apple's Notes really is a viable replacement/alternative to Word for non-gimmicky stuff (I mean come on, who is going to use all those gimmicky templates very frequently), then this would be huge...for my work flow anyway!

[bmedina]

It must have some ability to enter tabular data with calculations and generate charts based on that. Keynote already does (though I haven't tried it), so I see no reason why that capability would be missing from Pages.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by -Q-:
In fact, the mention of Word seems so low-key that it doesn't appear as if it's being presented as a competitor to Word. They either don't want to offend MS, or it's really not designed to mimic the more advanced features of Word.

I think Apple doesn't want to position Pages as a direct competitor to Word. It seems to be less of a Word competitor and more of a page layout/word processor hybrid � more concerned with style than Word is.

I actually think this is a good strategy. Pages looks much more interesting to me than Word does.

[pliny]

iWork is probably a good choice for people who want to spend little money ($49 academic!) and have a good word processor/light DTP app that can open Word files and save as Word for when they need it to.

Likely nothing is going to displace Office; there are far too many seats on the PC and Office:Mac lets those who need to, play well with Office PC.

Alot of people just use their word processor to do the tables and light dtp and such that they want/need (like cpac said) and aren't interested in using what is expensive or they don't know/want to know, or what they can't get when they are buying their computer.

So this little bundle will fit several holes I think and will probably do ok.

I thought it'd be bundled with new machines but guess it is going to be a separate buy.

[PowerMatt]

Keynote 2 Question

In this new version of Keynote, if I select a slide number with my keypad will it use the slide transitions I have selected? This was my major concern with Keynote (1). Additionally, if I use the up arrow to select the previous slide, will it use my selected transitions? I can't really ascertain what some of the new features are until I play with it.

Any response, no matter how sarcastic, will be appreciated.

[hudson1]

Those who really need a heavy duty spreadsheet app generally don't put as high emphasis on GUI and those kinds of things (compared to word processing, presentation, DTP). Therefore, there's little that should keep people away from the freeware spreadsheet alternatives which may not be as good as Excel but are certainly more full featured than the AppleWorks module. NeoOffice/J, OpenOffice.org, (can't remember the other one out there -- Gnumeric?) are all very capable.

[Miniryu]

Originally posted by cambro:
I agree. Excel is very good at what it does, is rather advanced and is definitely the best of MS Office on the Mac.

Does anybody know if Endnote Citation is going to work with Apple's Notes? Word 2004 (and the whole Office 2004 trilogy) really sucks compared to Office X. If Apple's Notes really is a viable replacement/alternative to Word for non-gimmicky stuff (I mean come on, who is going to use all those gimmicky templates very frequently), then this would be huge...for my work flow anyway!

I'm glad there is no spreadsheet. Excel is the best spreadsheet program so far, hands down. If Apple included one with iWork I wouldn't use it- so I'm glad they opted to leave it out and keep it affordable (I now plan to buy it for the ed price: $49)

[Ozmodiar]

Originally posted by cpac:
Students and home users generally don't have a lot of use for spreadsheets (beyond tables and charts per above), or at least very little use as compared to those who would use word processing and presentation software.

Are you kidding? Maybe home users don't have a lot of use for spreadsheets, but students certainly do. Someone else on this forum mentioned that they, as a student, have twice as many Excel files as Word documents and I am the same way. I'm not saying Apple should develop a spreadsheet app, I'm just saying that there is a much broader need for one than you are giving credit for.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Ozmodiar:
Are you kidding? Maybe home users don't have a lot of use for spreadsheets, but students certainly do. Someone else on this forum mentioned that they, as a student, have twice as many Excel files as Word documents and I am the same way.

What on earth are all these spreadsheets for? Most of the students I know can barely even use Excel. Unless you're studying in a specific field that needs spreadsheets (in which case it would not apply to "students in general), I don't see why a student would have a pressing need for spreadsheets very often.

[OwlBoy]

iWork!

No esssss!

-Owl

[Krypton]

It appears that new Macs are still shipping with AppleWorks 6, including the Mac mini

[mdc]

i just ordered iWork and iLife'05 with the educational discount.

getting keynote 2 for $49 is a deal in itself, the fact that it comes with pages is great. even at $79 it is still cheaper than keynote 1.

i am one of those students that has about 2 excel documents (maybe 1), and about a million word documents. i wonder if pages can replace word for me, i am sure it can. export everything to .pdf if the .doc does not work nicely.

got a big presentation in 11 weeks, keynote 2 will have its time to shine.

i have a question. on the apple store it says delivered by january 22nd. i wonder if this includes the people who took the free shipping.

[monkeybrain]

Originally posted by Krypton:
It appears that new Macs are still shipping with AppleWorks 6, including the Mac mini

This seems like a stupid strategy. They should bundle iWorks with every new Mac for a couple of years, then everyone will switch to using it. They would still charge for updates obviously, so they'd make more money in the end probably.

[threestain]

As a student, I myself have about 4 or 5 speadsheets files, and about a bajillion spreadsheets. Same with all my peers. I think if you need a spreadsheet as a student you're going to have lots of files and require excel. For the majority of us though, you very rarely see things in spreadsheets and have even less use for them.

Bear in mind that comes from a 5th year med student who's just finished a BSc in medical imaging, and I've never used a spreadsheet for uni work

[cpac]

Originally posted by Ozmodiar:
Are you kidding? Maybe home users don't have a lot of use for spreadsheets, but students certainly do. Someone else on this forum mentioned that they, as a student, have twice as many Excel files as Word documents and I am the same way. I'm not saying Apple should develop a spreadsheet app, I'm just saying that there is a much broader need for one than you are giving credit for.

I'm not kidding at all, as I think the posters above have indicated, your average student may write a lot of papers, but they aren't generally preparing balance sheets or other documents which require excel (that aren't covered by tables and/or graphs/diagrams).

Business school and perhaps also accounting students might be an exception, but if you're in either of those fields, you're going to need to be using excel anyway.

[Love Calm Quiet]

I'm looking forward to a review that explains how import/export to PowerPoint works with the new KeyNote 2. Anybody actually taken this software for a test drive and looked at the menus & imp/exp dialogues?

[videian28]

pages looks very interesting to me as well, simple and powerful, anyone happen to know if there will be a demo to try?

I know there was not for Keynote and that probably kept more people from it due to the $100 price.

I just like to try before I buy, I have Office X on my desktop and Office 2004 on my laptop already

[x user]

Well, as a student this seems like very stupid move to me. I need Excel, given that, how am I going to buy iWork and EXCEL for less than the student price of office? Not going to happen, I guess I keep using AW6 and Office.

[nebben123]

Originally posted by x user:
Well, as a student this seems like very stupid move to me. I need Excel, given that, how am I going to buy iWork and EXCEL for less than the student price of office? Not going to happen, I guess I keep using AW6 and Office.

Um, are you missing the obvious?

IF YOU NEED EXCEL THEN USE EXCEL.

Damn people, this isn't that hard. I can't believe all these people who say they need spreadsheets. Unless you're a business or accounting major... WHAT FOR??? I've taken computer science, music recording, upper level math, bio/chem, horticulture, and numerous other college-level classes (not to mention the basics like english, history, etc). And the ONLY time I've ever used a spreadsheet was in a "intro to computers" class in HIGH SCHOOL.

Really, what is with all these spreadsheets? If you're in a field where there are lots of spreadsheets being used, then go with Excel cause it's the standard anyway and it's pretty damn good on the Mac. Stop bitching that Apple didn't include a spreadsheet app in iWorks.

If you like Pages, use it. If you have to do a spreadsheet, use Excel. Is it really that hard? And if you can't afford to buy MS Office (what is it like $200 with a student discount) then you probably don't NEED it.

Ben

[squilla]

Originally posted by nebben123:
Um, are you missing the obvious?

IF YOU NEED EXCEL THEN USE EXCEL.

Damn people, this isn't that hard. I can't believe all these people who say they need spreadsheets. Unless you're a business or accounting major... WHAT FOR??? I've taken computer science, music recording, upper level math, bio/chem, horticulture, and numerous other college-level classes (not to mention the basics like english, history, etc). And the ONLY time I've ever used a spreadsheet was in a "intro to computers" class in HIGH SCHOOL.

Almost any situation in which you work with statistics can use spreadsheets, often more conveniently than (or in addition to) the expensive statistical packages. Most disciplines in the social, life and earth sciences use tabulations of data with arithmetic on the columns and/or rows. That's without using charts, and ignoring simple listings that don't require arithmetic computation.

Really, what is with all these spreadsheets? If you're in a field where there are lots of spreadsheets being used, then go with Excel cause it's the standard anyway and it's pretty damn good on the Mac. Stop bitching that Apple didn't include a spreadsheet app in iWorks.
If you like Pages, use it. If you have to do a spreadsheet, use Excel. Is it really that hard? And if you can't afford to buy MS Office (what is it like $200 with a student discount) then you probably don't NEED it.

Good idea. So here's the obvious that's being missed: If you need Excel, get the student edition of MS Office ($149), which includes Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Then you can save $49 by not buying iWork.

And if you can't afford to buy MS Office (what is it like $200 with a student discount) then you probably don't NEED it.

And if you can't afford to buy the treatment for your illness, then you're probably not sick.

Luckily, the swearing and bullying (which you must need, since you're a student) is free.

[iluvmymactoo]

iWork is a definite step forward for Apple IMO. I bought it as well as iLife '05 and a 1gig iPod Shuffle

At last I can give MS the flick from my iBook. I bought Office but only use word so Pages will replace it perfectly for me.

Thanks Apple

[Tsilou B.]

Question for someone who's at MacWorld

Does Pages support subscript and superscript? I cannot find these options in the character palette on the screenshots.

[jamesl]

IS it likely that Apple may add a later addition to iWork, ie a spreadsheet application like Cells or Grids? Or maybe they will launch it as a standalone application?

IF they were to launch an addition to iWorks, how soon could they lauinch it?

When is the next time apple will be launching major new products?

[Miniryu]

Originally posted by nebben123:
Um, are you missing the obvious?

IF YOU NEED EXCEL THEN USE EXCEL.

Damn people, this isn't that hard. I can't believe all these people who say they need spreadsheets. Unless you're a business or accounting major... WHAT FOR??? I've taken computer science, music recording, upper level math, bio/chem, horticulture, and numerous other college-level classes (not to mention the basics like english, history, etc). And the ONLY time I've ever used a spreadsheet was in a "intro to computers" class in HIGH SCHOOL.
Ben

What type of Math is "upper level math"? Obviously you have never taken an engineering class, or any type of reserach/science orientated class, or social science class. I'm a psych grad student and I use Excel all the time. If psychologists have a use for it, them I am sure many other science disciplines must as well. Statistics, anyone?

[CatOne]

Originally posted by Miniryu:
What type of Math is "upper level math"? Obviously you have never taken an engineering class, or any type of reserach/science orientated class, or social science class. I'm a psych grad student and I use Excel all the time. If psychologists have a use for it, them I am sure many other science disciplines must as well. Statistics, anyone?

Just because you use it all the time doesn't mean it's generally necessary.

I have a BS in Physics and a Masters in EE, and I got by just fine without ever using Excel. Now, granted, I finished grad school 11 years ago, but I did buy a Word/Excel bundle back then (got it for like $89 student price... Word 5.1 the last nice version ;-) and I used word, but never Excel. I guess a calculator worked just fine. I did do some calculus approximation (brute force integrals) but I wrote my own little computer programs for that... like 5 lines of basic code worked great.

[threestain]

also, to be frank, none of my friends (who have done/are doing degrees in physics, maths, biology, biochemistry, medicine) needed to use excel.

but then maybe its different in america

[cpac]

Ok - so some people are going to use excel for statistical analysis. I know at Dartmouth we were required to use dedicated statistics software (Stata?).

Bottom line is still: if you're in a field that uses excel regularly, you probably need to have Excel itself, not just any old spreadsheet application.

Basically it boils down to:

1 - some people *need* excel
2 - if you *need* excel, another spreadsheet application is no substitute
3 - if you don't *need* excel, you probably don't need a spreadsheet application at all (you're probably only using it for tabular data/graphs which are covered by iWork).

Now if I'm wrong about that somewhere, please state where. I just honestly believe there were not/are not a significant number of people that both (1) need/would use/would pay for a spreadsheet application, AND (2) do not need excel.

[Amorya]

Originally posted by squilla:
Almost any situation in which you work with statistics can use spreadsheets, often more conveniently than (or in addition to) the expensive statistical packages. Most disciplines in the social, life and earth sciences use tabulations of data with arithmetic on the columns and/or rows. That's without using charts, and ignoring simple listings that don't require arithmetic computation.

In Psychology, we only tend to use stats packages. SPSS is the one of choice for my uni. Any of my Methods lecturers would cringe in horror if someone suggested using Excel fro anything relating to data analysis!

Originally posted by Miniryu:
What type of Math is "upper level math"? Obviously you have never taken an engineering class, or any type of reserach/science orientated class, or social science class. I'm a psych grad student and I use Excel all the time. If psychologists have a use for it, them I am sure many other science disciplines must as well. Statistics, anyone?

See above. Not all psychologists do... in fact, aside from if you can't afford SPSS and your uni don't provide it, I can't see why on earth you would use Excel over SPSS. And SPSS isn't even very good!



Amorya

[pliny]

Originally posted by jamesl:
IS it likely that Apple may add a later addition to iWork, ie a spreadsheet application like Cells or Grids? Or maybe they will launch it as a standalone application?

IF they were to launch an addition to iWorks, how soon could they lauinch it?

When is the next time apple will be launching major new products?

Let's all gather around the crystal ball....

[itai195]

Originally posted by cpac:
Bottom line is still: if you're in a field that uses excel regularly, you probably need to have Excel itself, not just any old spreadsheet application.

Agreed. As mentioned above, Excel really is the only great application in the MS Office suite, and buying a copy of Excel 2004 and iWork is cheaper than buying the standard MS Office suite. I didn't realize students used Excel so much though... I went through an engineering program and I hardly ever used it in college. I've used it much more since then for calculating things like monthly expenses and budgets, but any old spreadsheet program would probably be suitable for me. If you need Excel then buy it separately. And if you're a student, eh, you should have to do your work the old fashioned way

Personally, I did get a copy of Office 2004, but Pages has me intrigued. It seems much more like the kind of word processor that I -- and if I may project, probably most consumers/students -- want to use. Word has a lot of power features that some folks really need, but most folks are annoyed by. Keynote 2 I'm not as sure about... PowerPoint compatibility is essential to me, and I never used Keynote 1. Keynote's value looks to be in all the nifty animations it can do, but are those exported into PPT format? I never use my Mac for presentations.

[nebben123]

Originally posted by Miniryu:
What type of Math is "upper level math"? Obviously you have never taken an engineering class, or any type of reserach/science orientated class, or social science class. I'm a psych grad student and I use Excel all the time. If psychologists have a use for it, them I am sure many other science disciplines must as well. Statistics, anyone?

I've had up to Calculus III and Combinatorics (which is based on statistics). Never had to use a spreadsheet. Is that upper level enough for you?

All I'm saying is that if you're in a field that needs Excel, you can probably afford it. $149 is peanuts in the overall cost of a college education. I mean, some books cost more than that! There's no need to bitch at Apple for not making a spreadsheet, when Excel is perfectly fine. A LOT MORE people need a basic word processor than need a spreadsheet, so I can see the logic in their decision. However, I think in the next year Apple will release at least a rudimentary spreadsheet app to compliment Pages since AppleWorks had one. Just give them time.

Ben

[Douglashh]

Originally posted by cpac:
Ok - so some people are going to use excel for statistical analysis. I know at Dartmouth we were required to use dedicated statistics software (Stata?).

Bottom line is still: if you're in a field that uses excel regularly, you probably need to have Excel itself, not just any old spreadsheet application.

Basically it boils down to:

1 - some people *need* excel
2 - if you *need* excel, another spreadsheet application is no substitute
3 - if you don't *need* excel, you probably don't need a spreadsheet application at all (you're probably only using it for tabular data/graphs which are covered by iWork).

Now if I'm wrong about that somewhere, please state where. I just honestly believe there were not/are not a significant number of people that both (1) need/would use/would pay for a spreadsheet application, AND (2) do not need excel.

I've written several fairly complex applications for my business using AW6 Spreadsheet. I don't want Excel, I just wanted a basic spreadsheet like AW6 only updated to make use of OS X.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by itai195:
As mentioned above, Excel really is the only great application in the MS Office suite, and buying a copy of Excel 2004 and iWork is cheaper than buying the standard MS Office suite. I didn't realize students used Excel so much though... I went through an engineering program and I hardly ever used it in college.

In chemical engineering, we used Excel quite extensively (I graduated 6 years ago). Still, I think an important thing to note is that anyone who really needs it probably already has it. Since it's not a program that needs much (if anything) added to it, I'd advise students to buy iWork and keep using the Excel they have now.