Many Mac users “can find acceptable substitutes for Office. Or they can purchase superior programs that still offer enough Office compatibility to get by,” David Morgenstern blogs for ZDNet.
“Keynote continues to be the best presentation tool on the market. It’s been that way since its introduction and the update in iWork ‘08 just continues its progress. I was impressed with a demonstration following the iMac introduction earlier this week. And it reads and writes PowerPoint files,” Morgenstern reports.
“Looking at the iWork applications, they appear to start conceptually with the rich, finished document and then work backwards toward the data entry and construction. It seems to me that most productivity applications start with the data and data entry and then suddenly discover that we want to print highly formatted documents,” Morgenstern reports.
“Pages recognizes that customers want to create polished documents with images, 2D graphics and flexible typography; and then it presents the combination of easy templates, tools and content integration that make it easy for the ordinary users to accomplish,” Morgenstern reports.
“This is also well expressed in Apple’s Numbers. The grid and formulas are always present, but the primary goal in this spreadsheet is helping users understand the data they are manipulating and then communicate this data in some kind of output,” Morgenstern reports.
“At the introduction event, I spoke with Alan Eyzaguirre, iWork product manager, [who said], ‘You launch the app and [the average user] should just be able to use it. But we also have all these pros. For them, a click on the Inspector opens up all these controls they need for their documents.’ This has been the Mac paradigm from the beginning, yet the result still seems fresh. Some things haven’t changed in 10 or 20 years,” Morgenstern reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Do you really enjoy Microsoft-induced security problems and bloated, old, overpriced code on your Mac? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Many Mac users think they need Office, but really don’t. Give Apple’s free 30-day iWork ’08 trial a try and see for yourself.