“Apple’s Pages software is set to receive a number of significant improvements when version 3 rolls out early next year as part of iWork ’07, sources have told Think Secret. Among the most notable will be the introduction of two new modes, Word Processing and Layout, that will each be optimized for their respective tasks as opposed to Pages’ current handling of both types of documents with one common set of templates and tools,” Ryan Katz reports for Think Secret.
“iWork ’07 is expected to be released in January 2007 and will include Pages 3, Keynote 4, and a brand-new spreadsheet application,” Katz reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “me” for the heads up.]
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RUMOR: ‘Charts’ spreadsheet software coming to Apple iWork in ‘07 – July 05, 2006
And the pressure builds against Adobe…
But I rather see a iOffice package that will put the pressure on Microsoft, take some of their money instead.
Looks like Apple is just a opportunist bully.
Shame. The big fun of Pages now is that I can actually type faster than the symbols appear onscreen.
Apple: always taking the fun away.
With the addition of spreadsheet, looks like Apple is taking on Microsoft Office, not Adobe. I doubt that the Pages layout improvements is going to be geared at high-end DTP like InDesign (or even the late lamented PageMaker).
I was going to look into MarinerPac, but I may hold off till iWork ’07 comes out. If Pages can open Word documents and the spreadsheet handle Excel, I may be able to say good-bye to Office, especially since I’ve been getting a lot of spinning beachballs under Rosetta on the Intel iMac…
This isn’t pressuring M$ or Adobe. They are two powerhouses, juggernauts, that have powerful tools for power users and corporations. Apple is offering software that makes it easy and affordable for the general consumer to design, create, and share their ideas and information with other people. If anything, it’s pressure on smaller developers who’s wares are more modestly priced than M$ or Adobe’s that will feel the most pressure from these offerings. They are the ones whos meagerly priced apps won’t be a necessity to accomplish the simple tasks that will be allowed by more powerful applications included in basic OS upgrades or simple Apple packaging.
vendor tries to induce public to purchase new version with “significant improvements.” this is news?
I, for one, welcome our new productivity overlords.
“Before the beginning, there was this turtle. And the turtle was alone. And he looked around, and he saw his neighbor, which was his mother. And he lay down upon his neighbor, and behold! she bore him in tears an oak tree, which grew all day and then fell over — like a bridge. And lo! underneath this bridge there came a catfish. And he was very big. And he was walking. And he was the biggest he had seen. And so were the fiery balls of this fish, one of which was the sun, and the other, they called the moon.”
Excerpt from “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus,” from Firesign Theater (1971)
MW: future. Welcome to the Future!
don’t believe this rumor, but if true, then this would be going after adobe, maybe not in this release, but it would be the start of putting out an app that would eventually take on indesign. it would be very hard to release something that would be ‘primetime’ with little or no bugs, with a first version release of a page layout program, but by version 2 i would say that apple could easily develop an app that could take on indesign.
and i hope they do.
although to be honest id rather have a dedicated page layout program from cupertino.
A spreasheet? I believe that when I see it. Spreadsheet is a biz app. I doubt that Apple is targeting biz with iWork. MS Excel kicks butt. It may be the best of all Office Mac apps.
Justme2, I am a Pages 1.0.2 user, I can save (export) to Word and I can open Word documents now with Pages. Excel, well that is another thing. But it is on its way!
If Apple really is consumer-focused, a spreadsheet program would handle what consumers SHOULD do, balance their checkbooks and budgets– I’d guess like when Keynote and Pages open, a window would pop up with some general formats we all might need.
I already have used Pages (and Keynote actually) as a page layout program because I have no real knowledge about such work and it allowed me to do it without any trouble.
But the other side of this is that Katz could be trying to irritate Apple by getting Adobe’s panties in a bunch. Ulterior motives, maybe? I mean seriously– “New product will be improved.” Woo.
I wonder if the new spreadsheet app will be called Numbers or Charts.
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The spreadsheet app is supposedly going to be called “Charts.”
From ThinkSecret report earlier this week:
Long rumored—or at least, assumed—to be in development, sources say Apple is not planning on positioning Charts as a competitor to Microsoft’s Excel, but rather as a more consumer-friendly spreadsheet application that can handle the needs of home users and small businesses but not pretend to execute any of the more advanced functions of Excel.
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607charts.html
I don’t see the “Adobe” link at all. Pages has a bit to go before it’s as feature-rich as Word. Sure, it can do most of what your typical home user needs doing – and a few things they’ll never bother with – but there’s a lot of “professional” stuff they haven’t bothered with … no surprise. They need to get iWork up to a level beyond where the soon-to-be-late/lamented AppleWorks is – for SoHo – before they actually discontinue that trusty old app. That means a spreadsheet, and maybe a database. They don’t have to be Enterprise-ready, but SoHo-class works for me. The database could be MySQL with an typical Apple/OS X GUI … doesn’t have to be “all new, all invented here”.
Re: loki capret
You hit the nail square on the head. When I just read your post the light switch when on. I stopped reading other posts because it was game set match-bravo!
“Significant improvements”: Perhaps a drop-down font selector box in the toolbar somewhere? Maybe?
Seriously, I have no idea what the UI guys at Apple have been smoking to not put a drop-down font selector in the toolbars of ANY Apple developed application I have ever seen. With over 5 years of Mac OS X and counting, this missing feature is becoming a criminal offense. Please please PLEASE Apple. Let’s see in Pages 3 what should have been in the Alpha.
I agree with DLMeyer:
iWork’s biggest competitor is AppleWorks. Currently AppleWorks does more, faster and better than iWork in many areas, but the iWork family edition has helped me produce fantastic presentations that PowerPoint (which I also own) cannot do and excellent reports for my daughter.
AppleWorks is still tops for vector drawings and laying out images – iWork cannot touch it here. AppleWorks is weak in paint, spreadsheets and presentation. I will keep using Office since I hate converting formats, but hope iWork can eclipse all my AppleWorks needs.
Bring back the old ClarisWorks functionality – ClarisCAD, MacProject, HomePage (maybe not, but had easy FileMaker web links), ClarisDraw, ClarisOrganiser (maybe no longer needed) & Claris Impact plus a universal HyperCard for education. Plus buy out Inspiration and include it in iWork – a fantastic app with no equal. There is still life in these old ideas.
Let’s hope this is true.
Keynote is a good app, and Pages is a good layout tool for simple needs.
However, Pages is *rotten* as a word processor. And maybe it isn’t meant to be one and Apple just didn’t a poor job marketing it as a layout tool.
“I said, Live it or Live with it.”
According to Shaw Wu these unannounced improvements are delayed. Stock will tank.
Ah crap, Drunk Cheney! You broke the President! Hey everybody, Drunk Cheney broke the President! Too bad Porgy Tirebiter and Nick Danger are retired. Now please deflate your shoes and follow the yellow line.
Apple is not taking anything away from Adobe. Just like Apple, nobody holds a candle to what Adobe creates. As a Graphics Director I swear by Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, and now Flash and Dreamweaver, in addition to their video media packages. And I think that Apple realizes that they have a much bigger foe in MS. Apple and Adobe are cut from the same cloth – creating premium software (and hardware, in Apple’s case)
Why DOES the porridge bird lay its eggs in the air?
Just fix AppleWorks.
Now all we need is for Ralph Spoilsport to chime in.
I saw my name in the glass. Rapma. But I was looking for the same old place.