Comments on: Apple thinks ‘iWork Pro’ with newly acquired patents

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 23:50:08 +0000

What you want exists: Office for Mac.
Seriously, though, the key sticking point in your wishlist is being able to both *modify* documents and *save* – flawlessly.
This would by definition mean that any such application would not only need to precisely replicate the feature set of Office, but it also could not add any features or niceties of its own such as some fancy way of, say, working with text borders, since these could not be reliably saved in a file that could then be guaranteed to open with Office itself.
Add to this the final nail in the coffin of the known history for Microsoft to make changes in the file format that is compatible with older versions of Office, but intentionally breaks compatibility with third-party applications.
There is no engineering or financial rationale behind sinking all this effort into such a project which would be doomed from the start. You’re playing the game by their rules! You’ll never be a better Office than Office.
Instead, and what Apple has already been doing: you need to compete by offering something *different*, and if necessary undercut on price (though more-often-than-not Apple aims instead for the premium end).
THAT’s how you “kill” Office, and point-of-fact that’s how iWork HAS killed Office. Look at Microsoft’s historical pricing before and after iWork, particularly on the Mac. In the monopolistic absence of any competition whatsoever they could simply charge whatever the heck they felt like. Not so anymore: now it actually has to be *competitively* priced, and Microsoft has repeatedly shown that it cannot compete in the open market…

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 23:22:53 +0000

tbone, I am a big iWork aficionado, and so I can immediately think of a very important area for improvement, even without looking to any external application for comparison:
Numbers performance.
Nuff said, right?

By: Derek Currie

Derek Currie — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 04:57:05 +0000

Sure iWork. And everything else 3-D in the OS XI GUI. I’m tellin’ ya!

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 18:01:01 +0000

Did you mean to write Office 2003? Because the “ribbon” sucks.

Other than that, the feature set in MS Office blows the doors off of iWork.

By: Speedplay

Speedplay — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:30:19 +0000

Cubert, I agree wholeheartedly! Perhaps Apple could bring back AppleWorks, which was one of the easiest to use software applications it ever produced with features including the ability to draw. Wouldn’t it be great to see an application in iWork that is dedicated to publishing (dare I mention Publisher, since I detest MicroStupid products). Have you noticed that since Apple has developed the refresh the OS every year mentality, that software companies now only update their programs, while some companies have stopped making programs. For instance, when is the last time you saw a clip art program with at least 100,000 or more images? Such programs used to be common. As someone who generates a lot of flyers and newsletters, I’ve found it difficult to find and save clip art images for my needs. Although I use Pages to create flyers and newsletters, it lacks easy to use features such as creating default fonts unless a template is generated. In any event, I hope Tim Cook’s obsession with the iPhone and iPad can be put aside long enough for him to direct Apple back to its roots: the Mac and quality software other than the OS.

By: Karen

Karen — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 02:10:55 +0000

You’re absolutely right–Word is insufferable. iWork is good and our small business prefers it over Office, but iWork needs some love from Apple to make it great. Collaboration features, especially, are essential.
P.S. Numbers is GREAT if you don’t need pivot tables (I don’t).

By: Cubert

Cubert — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:35:58 +0000

Keynote – simple 3D animations; easier object motion paths; additional object effects like glows and bezels, etc; and of course, the usual additional transitions, effects, and templates.
Numbers – the biggest missing Excel feature – pivot tables.
Pages – some improvements to the “writing mode”; additional templates (many things are lacking); ligatures.

By: vanfruniken

vanfruniken — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:29:45 +0000

On iPad?

By: GeoX

GeoX — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:10:59 +0000

Along with the 128GB storage, the ability to view high detail renderings of parts in ships, airplanes, motors, etc will save hauling around technical manuals that are sometimes volumes long. This will be big for a certain segment of business.

By: Pedr GarNic

Pedr GarNic — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:06:43 +0000

If Apple could make iWork open any Office document (Word, Excel or Power Point) to iOS or MacOS, read, make modifications, save and back to an Office compatible app without a hitch, they would kill Office… just a thought.

By: aspirationalwhitegirl

aspirationalwhitegirl — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 23:52:23 +0000

I must live in a different World I nd many others I know absolutely hate Word it’s a nightmare and like oing 10 rounds wth Mike Tyson to try to produce a usable layout that is a coddle in a dtp programme. I have moved to pages where less is more I can actually position things reasonably as I wish and where he user interface at least has a modicum of logic to it. In fact the other day for a project impossible to place an image that actually butted properly in Word I had to produce it in Pages save it in Word format and re import the image to solve.the problems with Word a total nightmare. Worse thing was that as a designer I had to do this because the office staff of an American multi national that this junk is specifically designed for couldnt actually do it themselves because its far to complex for them. Anything that allows me to finally dump Office into the Void it deserves to exist in is fine by me. Pages even with its limitations is a joy o use by comparison.

By: Jeff II

Jeff II — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 23:40:44 +0000

Other than the headline, where is “iWork Pro” mentioned either by MDN or in the original article?

And how does the Maya patent purchase relate to iWork?

Just curious and possibly blind.

By: 8^þ

8^þ — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:39:24 +0000

simple layout of MS Office 2007…

Thanks for the chuckle.

By: Bandit Bill

Bandit Bill — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 21:14:39 +0000

Use the Page Layout template instead of the Word Processing template, when you first create the document.

By: tbone

tbone — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:55:13 +0000

And how again does this equate to any of the nonsense being spewed here?

By: tbone

tbone — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:54:07 +0000

And what features would you want to add to diminish its light weight and economical design?

By: tbone

tbone — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:53:22 +0000

It’s already here. It’s called BBEdit.

By: AAPLGuy

AAPLGuy — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:51:44 +0000

My thoughts exactly

By: troy

troy — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:39:44 +0000

“they sold user interface patents to Apple”
See SAMSUNG? this is how its done, you BUY the patents, no just take it and pretend you didn’t knew they were valid.

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:34:55 +0000

We can only hope. Office is the only reason I keep a partition of Windows on my Macs. The ONLY reason.

By: hannahjs

hannahjs — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:21:48 +0000

Another nail in the coffin of the “iPad is for consumption, not creation” meme.

By: Greg M

Greg M — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:15:22 +0000

Maybe “Pro” will mean “sucks less”

Office is a great suite but I hate microsoft so I’ve switched to LibreOffice.

By: Really

Really — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:11:48 +0000

I’d love to see an enterprise workflow offering from Apple.

By: fricfrac

fricfrac — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:00:05 +0000

+ …erm…lots!

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:57:45 +0000

I am a huge apple fan, but I hate iWork. I miss all the tools and simple layout of MS Office 2007. I can’t easily format papers the same way I could in office. Pages is more like TextPad (a rich text editor) than Word. I had a really hard time trying to force myself to switch on multiple attempts, and it just sucks.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:46:59 +0000

iWork cover the basics very well. Bringing advanced collaboratiion software really shows how Apple is taking the enterprise market seriously. I think that it’s a good move. I also think it sends a great message out to IT managers who need reasons to add iOS to their band of options.

By: Petey

Petey — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:42:15 +0000

I want iWeb pro!

By: Cubert

Cubert — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:36:16 +0000

I’d settle for just an iWork update period! It’s been 3 freakin’ years!

By: llibsetag

llibsetag — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:34:44 +0000

iWork Pro! Yes!