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DFP: Apple's iWork software needs some work

updated 06:40 am EST, Tue January 25, 2005

iWork could use some work


Apple's , according Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Wendland: "The hype surrounding the new Mac mini and iPod Shuffle released last week by Apple Computer has largely obscured a new $79 software package from the company called iWork. And that's probably appropriate, because neither the Keynote2 presentation software nor the new Pages word processor are as full-featured as one would like....Of the two iWork programs, Pages is the most interesting. It's really a tool for creating newsletters, stationery, brochures and the like more than a word processor. Oh, you can write letters and documents and even save them to the Word format, but for anyone who does a lot of writing, this is not the main word processor you'd want to use. At best, Pages is a poor man's version of the Microsoft Publisher program for Windows."


by MacNN Staff

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  1. Roehlstation

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

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    01/25, 06:54am | report spam | Reply |

    maybe so....

    But Keynote blows Powerpoint away in the area where it counts. ON SCREEN PRESENTATION.

  1. macbuzz

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    Joined: Jun 2004

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    01/25, 07:00am | report spam | Reply |

    DFP

    I read the whole article. The points he makes are valid, and he isn't quite the villan that the clips above make him out to be. Only criticisms of the article. No mention of seamless integration w/ the iLife apps, as well as the fact that it costs US 79 vs US 404.95 for M$ Office 2k3 Pro.

  1. beb

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Jan 2002

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    01/25, 07:59am | report spam | Reply |

    Office

    Eventually, Pages will have an update. Then hopefully, there will be the spreadsheet application—whatever that'll be called. Thing I never understood is why Apple doesn't include a "Filemaker Lite" type app for Mac systems. Better yet, there should really be some sort of web-publishing system that's head and sholders over the FrontPage/Microsoft Server Extensitons & ASP fiddley bits.

  1. JeffHarris

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 1999

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    01/25, 08:20am | report spam | Reply |

    Re: Office

    AppleWorks does include an integrated database module. It's easy to use, but very limited. The real problem is that Apple never made it's file format compatible with Filemaker Pro. So if you had a database and wanted to easily move up to Filemaker, it was a rough transition.

    A real fear I have with any Apple application is that once an app is released and there are a few obligatory bug fixes, these applications tend to waste away and eventually become irrelevant.

    For examples:
    Think about iCal... it's not too much different, featurewise, as it was the day it was released.

    Which reminds me of Claris Organizer. A great personal info manager in it's day, with just the right balance of ease of use and power. Then it sat and sat until it was eventually sold to Palm as the Mac Palm Desktop, but still sits in limbo, essentially the same it was when version 2 was released in, what, 1994?

    There was MacDraft or was it MacDraw? Same story.

    And ClarisWorks turned AppleWorks. A great application, gone terribly stale.

    iWork desperately needs a spreadsheet.

  1. bobolicious

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    Joined: Aug 2002

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    01/25, 08:33am | report spam | Reply |

    duplication

    ironically the legacy apps are more powerful in many ways ie organizer & claris cad than the current ones... macwrite & clariscad were iconic apps for ease of use...

    glad 2 c apple focussing on integration - just wish 'upgrade' included more backward compatibility ie applworks -> fmp & palm desktop -> address book...

    eg transition from palm desktop to address book/ical is brutal if you depend on existing mac only features while some new ones tempt with promise...

  1. genevish

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Jan 1999

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    01/25, 09:06am | report spam | Reply |

    I wonder

    Has the author used MS Publisher? What a piece of c***... It makes horrible print files and crashes constantly.

  1. sbdaigo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2001

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    01/25, 09:22am | report spam | Reply |

    I First Thought Bad-BUT

    You know, I thought the same as many here that Pages and Keynote were not as good as MS - but for me, I know MS Office - that is a huge difference that caused me not to like them. So I took time to learn a bit of the curve. For me, you have to “Think Different” in iWork.

    First off, I thought, what is up with no dialoge box for font changing. How stupid! But I started to take time with the font dialoge box (command + T) and the power of that little window is something! I never took time to learn it. The favorites section saves so much time.

    Then pages has “Styles” that you can set up your own blank templates with heading and fonts the way you use them, that was nice. And it is fast and works.

    For Keynote I have to agree with Roehlstation- it is powerful on the screen and again, if you take the time for the curve, many will be surprised.

    For both packages, for me SpellCatcher X is a must. It adds so much to both apps. There is more to say, but that is a bit.

    I believe that - The best is yet to come!

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

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    01/25, 09:32am | report spam | Reply |

    Re: office

    A real fear I have with any Apple application is that once an app is released and there are a few obligatory bug fixes, these applications tend to waste away and eventually become irrelevant.

    Or, like Appleworks. Or Sherlock. Or, oh, you named a boatload of others. Apple is the king of hype, king of 'new apps', and the king of 'OK, we gave them a new app, on to the next thing!' At least with MS, they might make c*** and all, but they actually keep most of their products on upgrade cycles, adding features people want/need, and making them just overall better. Except for the outright flops (Bob), they at least don't just let half their products languish.

  1. technohedz

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2000

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    01/25, 09:42am | report spam | Reply |

    iwork 1/2

    Keynote 1 seemed everybit as good as powerpoint for most things and on screen was great Keynote 2 IMHO blows powerpoint away. Pages....just sucks. 'ok keynote guys, we need something new to add..take some of the cocoa stuff, textedit, and the horrible keynote ms/ wizard thing and make a word processor'. Why do you think they only charge $79 for both. People might have balked at keynote 2 w/ no upgrade plan or complained about serial numbers at 79.00, or even the lack of a familly pack for a 'appleworks replacement', since there isn't any improvement to appleworks on the horizon, but w/ a free new app to focus the complaints on it's all good. You can export a pages template w/o modification to word and it looks messed up in office. Macwrite was better. The pages icon is great, the toolbar ones are terrible. This doesn't need an eventual upgrade. This is the worst piece of software to come from Apple since they dumped 9 and it needs an upgrade now or more bad press will show up.

  1. Horsepoo!!!

    Banned

    Joined: Jun 2003

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    01/25, 10:07am | report spam | Reply |

    Author hasn't used iWork

    It's clear the author hasn't even used MS Publisher or even iWork for that matter...he's just taking bits and pieces from what he heard mixed a bit of bias to create a poor journalism piece.

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