“Let us speculate that Microsoft’s recent decision to formally promise to support Office for the Mac for at least the next five years is not an example of Bill Gates’ altruism,” Garry Barker reports for The Sydney Morning Herald. “Rather, some suppose, it was a device to slow further development of iWork, Apple’s new word processor and presentation suite. This may be totally unfair to Microsoft, and as a long-time user of Office:mac I have to say I find it an excellent suite, worth the money and I would like support for it to continue. On the other hand, some mild surprise was expressed in the more geek-strewn corners at Macworld Expo last month when iWork ’06 appeared without the third component some had expected, a spreadsheet. Rumours, and they are nothing more, suggest that Apple is working on an Excel competitor with a codename of either Cells or Numbers.”
“As we expect from Apple software, iWork ’06 is stylish and stronger than Office in its ability to manage graphics, type and layout… in its second incarnation, Pages can provide pretty much anything average users of a word processor might require, as well as a lot of layout stuff, some of which you might be able to do in Word, but the achieving of which would turn you into a mental pretzel. The package contains 40-odd handsome templates to produce professional-looking, modern or traditional newsletters, flyers and even, I would think, a small magazine,” Barker writes. “Keynote, now in its third version, is a full generation ahead of PowerPoint with many more effects such as the pretty water droplet transition you see in Dashboard and a heap of themes (I detect the influence of iDVD here). Like Pages 2, it can be closely integrated with the iLive ’06 suite so that photographs and video clips can be easily added to a presentation.”
Full article here.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Boston Herald: Apple’s iWork ’06 upgrades ‘really sweet’ – January 31, 2006
Apple announces iWork ’06 with 3-D charts, advanced image editing tools & spreadsheet-like tables – January 10, 2006
RUMOR: Apple working on spreadsheet application called ‘Numbers’ for iWork – June 16, 2005
Washington Times: Apple’s iWork should make Microsoft’s Bill Gates a ‘bit uncomfortable’ – January 18, 2005
Until a spreadsheet and robust email/contact management programs are added, it will continue to be a joke. Everyone is talking spreadsheet, but what about something comparable to Entourage or Outlook? Mac Mail app is not much better or full-featured than MS Outlook Express for 1998. Holding back iWork’s potential is clearly to appease Microsoft. One stinking choice for an Office Suite from Microsoft remains of our greatest obstacles to freedom. iWork ain’t no stinking suite; it’s TWO apps, one of which hardly anyone at home would use. It makes no sense. This is all about the freaking Microsoft chess game. I don’t see Apple doing anything great with iWork anytime soon. Oh, and the new table calculation thingee integrated into Pages? Give me a break!!! Right now iWork is dead in the water, but alas, I will buy it anyway being the good little Machead I am I am.
Hey Macslut and all you Apple freaks:
I have been using NeoOffice for two years and this suite does a good job of replacing Office:mac. If you are looking for a simple spreadsheet, word processor, etc. NeoOffice can do the job. It is OpenOffice written for OS X interface, and doesn’t require X11 or XDarwin to run.
Check it out if you haven’t already:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15797
Even if Apple does get around to releasing Numbers, they still need to integrate these programs with iCal, Mail, Address Book, iLife and iSync.
So don’t expect it this year.
I’m with the conspiracy crowd. I even said it right here in these forums only a few days after Steve Job’s keynote address – Apple kept a spreadsheet out of iWork ’06 just to appease Microsucks. The availability of a Macintosh version of Office is the single biggest make-or-break point in a potential Windoze switcher’s mind. The average Winblows user out there has far lower computer skills and knowledge about computers than the average poster on MDN’s website and Apple knows it. They would choose to NOT switch just because they can’t have their little security blanket – Office. Sad but true.
P.S. Why are the words “Windows” and “Microsoft” so easy to rip and riff on?
Examples: Windoze, Winblows, Microsucks, Micro$oft, Micropenis, etc.
What do PC-heads call Apple? Apple-Schmapple???
We win that battle, too.
I want HyperCard!!!!! Bring back HyperCard!!!
“What do PC-heads call Apple? Apple-Schmapple???”
Crapple.
Yes, Excel is actually a very good program (phrase calibration: Word is poor, PowerPoint is bad, Windows suxx, *Excel is very good*).
However, it can use a better scripting environment and a better graphical representation of how all the entered formulas link to other cells, and since those are the two weaknesses, SJ should look to the FileMaker team to write a spreadsheet app. FileMaker is simply incredible, in the way that OS X is incredible. The only way not to like it is if you’ve invested too large a fraction of your life learning the twisted logic of another paradigm.
As good as Excel is, those FileMaker guys have the deep understanding of both functionality and elegance necessary to reinvent the concept of spreadsheet. They definitely think different.
Improv! “One More Thing” from Steve’s past-
http://infocom.cqu.edu.au/Staff/Michael_O_malley/web/mooses_review_page_lotus_improv.html
“Lotus released a product that was so amazing, so revolutionary, so innovative, and so easy to use, that it made all other spreadsheets redundant dinosaurs overnight.”
http://www.zisman.ca/Articles/1993/Improv.html
” Lotus gave Steve Job’s futuristic black box a
spreadsheet for the future… Improv”
Improv was a Cocoa app written for the NeXT by Lotus in 1991, pushed by an enthusiastic Steve Jobs for his cubical black workstation. Does IBM own it now? If not, who does? This is what Numbers ought to be. C’mon Apple1 Back to the future!
More here:
http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/feb99/0164.html
http://www.techuser.net/goodideas1.html
Apple can produce a Office killer in a heartbeat that will kick butt on both platforms in under 5 years.
However it’s Apple’s nuclear weapon, pressure is mounting for Apple to enter the buisness market, and eventually they will like a flash flood, consuming everything in it’s path.
But now is not the time.
Hi. It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
I am from Morocco and too poorly know English, give please true I wrote the following sentence: “Supersearch recommends the best airlines, airfare consolidators and travel sites for your itinerary.”
Thank you so much for your future answers
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