8 Comments

1. 

   bobolicious Mac Enthusiast Joined: Aug 15, 2002

   Jul 03, 2013 at 09:04 am

   Do we all really want our work sitting on and dependent upon Apple's servers and web access ?
   Appleworks & iWeb are recent examples of proprietary (if excellent) options where dependence faces real limits moving forward...

2. 

   Gazoobee Forum Regular Joined: Feb 27, 2009

   Jul 03, 2013 at 10:39 am

   The thing I'm interested in is not mentioned here which is ... does Pages for iCloud have the full feature set of Pages for desktop?
   
   One of the most frustrating aspects of using Pages for iOS for me is the fact that after all this time is still doesn't have feature parity with the original desktop version. For instance Pages for iOS does not allow ligatures to be used, and does not allow for hyphenation either. These are two things that most every writer uses for almost every document, but they still aren't there.
   
   So is this, like Pages for iOS, just another incomplete "page-holder" app that will be finished sometime in the future? Or is it a real useable app?
   
   More importantly, even if both this and the iOS app *gain* feature compatibility, when (the f*ck) is Apple going to actually give us an update to the original that adds in some functionality? For example, Pages is a template based app that gives you virtually no control over templates. It uses style's extensively, but denies you the ability to control your styles in any significant way. It also has some terrible choices in terms of UI that have never been re-thought, and cannot be changed, like the mysterious blue sidebar that appears on the left of all documents that use smaller than A4 type paper, that cannot be removed or moved out of one's way.
   
   If Pages is really supposed to be Apple's alternative to Word, when are they actually going to get serious about making it a decent word processor? Currently they are the only word processor you can get for iOS, but if iOS is successful, that won't always be the case, will it? Do we really have to wait for a competitor just to get a decent basic product?

3. 

   pairof9s Senior User Joined: Jan 03, 2008

   Jul 03, 2013 at 11:30 am

   Originally Posted by Gazoobee
   
   ...If Pages is really supposed to be Apple's alternative to Word, when are they actually going to get serious about making it a decent word processor? Currently they are the only word processor you can get for iOS, but if iOS is successful, that won't always be the case, will it? Do we really have to wait for a competitor just to get a decent basic product?

   
   
   Not sure what you're implying here but if you truly mean there are no word processors for iOS other than Pages, you'd be wrong. Try QuickOffice, Documents To Go, iA Writer, and dozens of other doc writers of various degrees, many which sync across devices and save in Word format.

4. 

   SierraDragon Mac Elite Joined: Mar 22, 2004

   Jul 03, 2013 at 12:04 pm

   Exactly how "web-based" will the app be? Will the app continue to function locally on a device even when internet connection is broken?

5. 

   cartoonspin Fresh-Faced Recruit Joined: Sep 23, 2003

   Jul 03, 2013 at 06:32 pm

   No, that is why it is a web app. It needs connection to the internet.
   
   It is so funny to hear all the complaints as the industry has already passed folks in making free apps available. Next we will hear how folks like their $600 desktop apps instead of free web apps. If you don't like the web apps, pay for the full blown apps. If you don't like a particular app, use another one.

6. 

   Charles Martin Mac Elite Joined: Aug 04, 2001

   Jul 03, 2013 at 07:05 pm

   My feeling on this -- it's just a guess -- is that when this comes out of testing, the software-based iWork suite will be updated to match the changes/features/improvements. So good news for everyone who likes iWork, I think (Apple will *not* be making the mistake MS and Adobe are making, I believe).
   
   To address Gazoobee's points:
   
   1. Putting aside for the moment that ligatures are not needed in *word processing* and only become important in *layout/DTP* mode, yes you're correct. I think the root problem here is that you are perhaps misunderstanding Apple's initial view of Pages for iOS -- I think it was intended as a companion to Pages, not a replacement (at this point). As with Numbers and Keynote, they don't have the full feature set (which is in part a simple limitation of the platform they are on) and I believe are intended to allow you to work on documents while on the go that are then finished or more powerfully tweaked on the Mac version. That's always been my interpretation of it. With the web app and subsequent updates perhaps we'll get more, but I suspect that Pages for iOS will always be the "little brother" of Pages (etc).
   
   2. Control over templates: this has not been my experience, but I haven't tried modifying templates in the iOS version. On the desktop version I can modify templates, styles and so forth quite extensively, at least to what I require. Pages for iOS doesn't yet support custom templates (but perhaps it will soon).
   
   3. I have *no idea* what you are talking about with a "blue sidebar." I just created an odd-sized document in Pages (on Mac, saved to iCloud), opened it in Pages for iOS, no blue sidebar. I think that's something on your end. There is a blue border around documents you are trying to resize the printable area of, but that doesn't seem like what you mean.

7. 

   benj Fresh-Faced Recruit Joined: Mar 22, 1999

   Jul 03, 2013 at 08:09 pm

   I would just like to open my textedit docs. Why is iCloud so funky? photostream hardly instills confidence, Match likes to burp on artists, everything is proprietary rather than accessible anywhere. This is counter-cloud behavior.

8. 

   Gazoobee Forum Regular Joined: Feb 27, 2009

   Jul 05, 2013 at 01:37 am

   It seems everyone misunderstood me and for some reason the ability to reply to posts is not enabled (possibly it's tied to some tracking cookie I'm blocking). So to clarify:
   
   - Ligatures are not just for layout, they are part of 'word processing." For instance whether ligatures are used strongly affects the auto-capitalisation in a very bad way. I'm a writer. I use ellipsis's all the time.
   
   - re: "pages for iOS is a companion app" ... this is my exact point. It's not treated as a stand alone app for the new platform, it's treated as a *less* than full-featured companion app. Meanwhile, Apple claims the opposite.
   
   - not mentioned, but also ... hyphenation is a very basic feature of all word processing apps, so far unavailable in Pages for iOS. I had hyphenation when I was using Word for DOS in the 1980's, it was a part of basic word processing then, and still is today.
   
   - by control over templates, I meant the ability to make and alter templates. This cannot be done without huge effort in any version of pages, but pages for iOS doesn't allow any alteration of templates or including of new ones AFAIK.
   
   - by control over styles I meant being able to make a document that contains the styles that I want to use and yet doesn't contain a long long list of styles that I never want to use. Currently impossible in any version of Pages.
   
   - the "blue sidebar" only occurs in Pages for OS X. If yo curette a document that is less than A4 width, the program inserts a blue space to the left of the document to "fill in" to the A4 size. This is not negotiable, unremovable, and will show up (in grey instead of blue) even in full screen mode. I have no idea why it does this, it gets in my way, and it ruins my focus.
   
   Because I use the iPad mini, I habitually use A6 paper size because it's the exact same size as the iPad mini screen and generally contains the same amount of words as the average paperback page so it's easy to see how many pages the final document will be without reformatting. It seems to be some random decision by the designers for some unknown purpose, but it's really irritating to me (more so because it seems to have no purpose).
   
   In short ... like any other word processor I want to be able to choose my paper size, I want to be able to create my own templates (currently only "blank" is of any interest or use to me), create my own styles, and I want to be able to get rid of all the other styles and other templates that I will never, ever, use.
   
   Finally, to the fellow that doesn't think Pages is the only word processor on iOS, you are wrong. There are some limited document editors that link to the cloud (QuickOffice, Documents toGO), but they use MS Word format so they are both no help with Pages as well as being limited editors and not stand alone word processors. There are also a plethora of "Notes" type applications for dumping text, most of which are pretty bad (I've tried them all), with iAWriter possibly being the best of that lot. iAWriter is not a true word processor however in that has limited formatting capabilities (by limited I mean less than Word for DOS which I'm going to use as a baseline), and suffers from the fact that the author of the app is some kind of old fashioned dude who purposely eschews touch controls and touch based editing for arrow keys. You can't place the cursor easily or properly in iAWriter for example like you can in Pages. You can't use italics or bold and you certainly can't use colours. iAWriter is a notepad type of thing more than it is a "Word processor."
   
   Pages doesn't even use the same format for documents on iOS as it does on the desktop and it doesn't do it for a reason. They are different apps and one is just a subset of the other. Anyone who uses Pages on a regular basis knows that it seriously needs attention. It hasn't been updated in any significant way since before the iPhone and iPad even existed.