“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
@ Voyager,
The drop-down font menu is dated. OS X’s font panel is much more efficient if you actually know how to use it. It has search, favorites, etc., all at your fingertips, and always visible, unlike a menu.
I’ve been using Pages a lot recently and it has worked fine on my 1.5 GHz. Powerbook. However, I would like to be able to mix and match templates (ie. page 1 from one template and then switch to a different template for page 2, etc.) That would be cool! Although, you should probably already be able to do that with a 2.0 piece of software.
Coolfactor,
But you need the screen real estate for it to work well. I don’t have that on my 15 inch Powerbook. So it is REAL annoying to work with the font menu in both Pages and Keynote. Although, I love both programs.
iWork is evolving into the next gen AppleWorks. After adding the spreadsheet module, it will have Word Processing, Page Layout, Presentation, and Spreadsheet. The following year, Apple can add a database module and rename it AppleWorks. Afterall, the original “AppleWorks” was the popular “8-bit” office suite program for the Apple II platform.
The previous (Mac) AppleWorks was a good solution for users with moderate needs. Most users don’t even use 1/10th of the features found in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. With a new spreadsheet module, iWork should also fit this bill nicely (especially if a new database module is added later). Apple is not competing with MS or Adobe here.
As I’ve said before, I’ve project managed million-dollar installations using AppleWorks. It loads fast and has a small footprint on the laptop computer.
Where’s the drawing app for Pages? I’ve done great as-built engineering dwgs with Appleworks, clients have repeatedly asked what I used (expecting some expensive CAD software).
A combo MacPaint and MacDraw app with layers would be a great addition to iWork.
Since Adobe has swallowed Macromedia, is there any serious competition to Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator?
I agree with Ken.
Going after Office or Indesign is quite a task for market. However, a simple, effective, and intergrated application would allow Apple to get back with a total software solution on the mac. A person would not need to buy Office or a company at that.
It just makes sense as a user and revenue generated on yearly upgrades.
Bottom line!
Try this Apple:
Enable Pages to open M$ Publisher Files.
You thought of that, right?
Real people still use Publisher? I bet they think Pagemaker is neat. And FrontPage is really cool. The world just doesn’t have enough dancing gophers and font vomit.
Looks like Apple is just a opportunist bully
—
Huh?
You guys are crazy.
MS PUBLISHER?! WHAT? Who uses that?!? Talk about niche markets..
This isn’t about ATTACKING Office.. I have Office for Mac and Apple GAVE ME iWork for free.. (I swear.. Maybe it was a screwup, i don’t know) with my new MacBook.
The sex appeal of iWork is Keynote… Pages is almost unusable just because if i export to the clumsy MS Word, everything turns to shit. That’s Words fault, not Pages’.
Pages simply does things that are too cool, look too nice, and are too complex for Word.. and Word just pukes them up.
And to share things with people, it’s gotta be in MS word format.
iWork is JUST about giving Mac users a great tool..
it’s another 80 for Apple every year (potentially)
Listen. Apple wants be the Home PC for everyone. Windows can have the Business world. And linux gets all those servers.
In these terms.. Apple makes alot of sense.
Having said that, I like the logic of people who say, fuck PC gaming get a console…
Except gaming in general.. is for.. BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
iWork SOHO:
TextEdit 2.0 — WP
Pages — Layout/Drawing
Keynote — Presentation
Pixels — Painting
FileMaker Lite — DB
Numbers — SS
‘High-end’ enough for real SOHO, low-end enough to placate Ballmer. And ‘open’ file formats, too.
OH, please! Pages is not even close to competing with Adobe products. Pages is for people who do not want to buy a huge, expensive, complex layout program that has a ton more bells and whistles than they will ever need just to do a simple flyer, or basic newsletter.
Non-pro’s and home users need SOMETHING to work with that is in an affordable price range. And Adobe’s products will just keep getting more complex and costly (same with Quark). Not complaining. That’s all we use is Adobe and love it. But it’s not for everyone anymore, it’s a professional’s program these days, not for the V.P.’s secretary who’s told to produce the company’s Christmas Party invite this year.
If Apple really wanted to ‘wow’ the competition, it would include iWork free with iLife, and include both (full versions) on all new Macs. Sure, it’s great to be able to make music, videos, podcasts, websites and stuff all out of the box, but an equal amount of people who do that also have to make resumes, give presentations, and make some kind of spreadsheet. Wouldn’t it be grand if you can do not only everything you want, but also everything you need, right out of the box?
Mac gaming can be awesome if one gets good software.
PC gaming is faster because M$ allows the game to take over the machine.
Plus the entry into PC gaming is easier as Apple doesn’t offer a cheap expandable tower.
If you have enough money to 3D competive game on a Mac, your usually too old and your reflexes are shot to hell anyway.
Overall PC gaming is dying in favor of faster, cheaper, more powerful, dedicated gaming boxes.
But it’s easier to make a profit from a Mac or PC game because there is no gaming machine “tax” or cd’s to press and distribute.
Set up a website with cc and downloads and that’s it.
Thanks for the input, Pages User — I’ve been playing around with Mariner Write, and it didn’t seem to recognize some things in my Word docs; I had to reinsert quote marks in one entire file (though others came out fine, oddly enough). I’ve still got the demo copy of Pages sitting here on the Intel, so I could give it a try.
Now I need to find an email/calendaring program that works as well as Entourage…
Oh, and maybe if Charts or whatever is successful, it’ll lead to an educational version of iWork that’ll be included on the 17″ Education iMacs — that would be cool…
I would love to dump Word. Boy, would I love to dump Word.
And the general paradigm of Pages is simply wonderful. It is a great re-thinking of the word processor, empowering people to create documents with impacts.
For two years, with each release of Pages, I have held out hope, only to be massively disappointed by the slowness, unforgivable bugs, and the missing basic functionality.
So I find myself now at year 3, and new promises of a better Pages.
I really hope the Apple is going to hit a home run with the next version. Add the 10-15 key missing features, fix the quirky UI problems, and stomp out the bugs and make it fast as sin.
Word stinks. I really hope Pages finally allows me to dump Word once and for all.
“Where’s the drawing app for Pages?”
I’ve done some nice “drawings” using PowerPoint. I’m not a Keynote user, but I imagine you can use it as a object-oriented drawing app.
My only real problem with Pages is that I don’t like all the windows you can end up with – fonts, inspector etc. I like to have everything on screen in one single window. That’s me though.
When I began my 40 page master’s thesis last year, I chose to do it in Word, even though I have Pages. I figured that since Word integrates with EndNote and it is a more “serious” word processor, this choice was best.
Toward the end of the projec the automatic footnotes numbering kept getting more and more screwed up. Nothing I did to coax the numbers into a good order seemed to work. Finally I tried opening the file in Pages. It opened perfectly with all the footnote numbers fixed and all the images and captions perfectly placed. Even when I re-exported it as a Word doc, the numbers there were correct. Now I use Pages for all my word processing.
Testify, Brother Dexter!!!
I just used Pages for the first time the other day and I’m impressed. I needed to write a report for a conference I had just attended. Word and I have never gotten along so I thought I’d give Pages a try. Love the templates! And I love that you can export to pdf, html, and doc format. Now if Apple allows the next release to export to ODF format as well, I’m totally convinced.
@ coolfactor
Yes, I understand all that. But I work on fairly small screens as well, and even if I didn’t, having loads of windows open to provide lots of flexibility and power is often not as efficient as having those controls right in the toolbar, with more powerful windows being optional.
Just my 2 cents. I’ve heard lots of others say it too.