When will we get an Apple Office suite?

[shakespeare]

I'm sitting here writing a paper in Word, and the lack of OS X's great typesetting features (autoligatures and stuff) is just driving me crazy. When will Apple get their stuff together and release a real competitor to Word? I am mad enough about this stupid Word that I'd pay big money for an Apple-made version! Any time soon?

[Freg3000]

Hopefully later this year. Whether it be called iWorks or iOffice or whatever is unknown. The "Document" program included should be a nice improvement hopefully. Maybe it will finally take on an aqua GUI (Appleworks......) and it won't require a new Mac just to barely chug along (Word.......).

Maybe MWNY. A new office suite wouldn't need a big grand entrance, and with Apple's reduced presence at the event, it might be a good time....if it's done.

[MacBandit]

Why won't AppleWorks work for you? If you're just writing a paper I don't see what you need word for.

I would definitely expect a new AppleWorks package sometime in the middle of this year.

[shakespeare]

I write papers rather intensely. Having a built-in dictionary is really lovely, and I find Word lets me control the layout of my pages better than Apple Works does. Even though it's not Apple, Word has a better interface. I just wish Apple would let me completely free myself from Microsoft!

I could be wrong about AW; I haven't actually had a copy for quite some time.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by shakespeare
I write papers rather intensely. Having a built-in dictionary is really lovely, and I find Word lets me control the layout of my pages better than Apple Works does. Even though it's not Apple, Word has a better interface. I just wish Apple would let me completely free myself from Microsoft!

I could be wrong about AW; I haven't actually had a copy for quite some time.

I don't know why you mentioned a built in Dictionary as AppleWorks has one. In fact OSX has one built in to any cocoa app that want to take advantage of it.

[shakespeare]

I don't mean a dictionary of correct spellings, I mean a dictionary of definitions. OS X doesn't have one of those, does it? And I do use OmniDictionary, which is wonderful, but when I can't be online, Word's built-in one is nice.

[kylos]

Apple's dictionary doesn't help at all. It's so small and doesn't catch many of my mistakes.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by shakespeare
I don't mean a dictionary of correct spellings, I mean a dictionary of definitions. OS X doesn't have one of those, does it? And I do use OmniDictionary, which is wonderful, but when I can't be online, Word's built-in one is nice.

The dictionary in sherlock works pretty well.

[MacsRgr8]

Originally posted by Freg3000

Maybe MWNY. A new office suite wouldn't need a big grand entrance, and with Apple's reduced presence at the event, it might be a good time....if it's done.

That's a good one.
WWDC is really casting an ENORMOUS shadow over the NY event (ab-so-lu-te-ly no problem ofcourse, assuming 10.3 and/or PPC 970). An announcement like this (AppleWorks 8, iWorks, iH8 M$ Office...?) would be perfect timing.

[maradong]

Originally posted by MacsRgr8
That's a good one.
WWDC is really casting an ENORMOUS shadow over the NY event (ab-so-lu-te-ly no problem ofcourse, assuming 10.3 and/or PPC 970). An announcement like this (AppleWorks 8, iWorks, iH8 M$ Office...?) would be perfect timing.
lol
but , - you are right.

[jpolk]

Well, in theory, iWorks is supposed to be Appleworks improved. I still want to see iCal improved upon. Entourage is still a superior program.

No, wait, stop stoning me! Help! I didn't mean to blaspheme! Ack!

[pEZ]

Originally posted by jpolk
Well, in theory, iWorks is supposed to be Appleworks improved. I still want to see iCal improved upon. Entourage is still a superior program.

No, wait, stop stoning me! Help! I didn't mean to blaspheme! Ack!

No, I totally agree. I really don't treat them as Microsoft, because the Mac business unit is a really good group of people. IMHO, Entourage can eat Apple Mail and iCal for breakfast. I think Mail.app does HTML mail quite poorly and iCal, well, its "notification feature" made me nearly miss an important meeting because it didn't notify me.

Just my 2¢.

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I wouldn't rely on Word too much... It's grammar check gives a false sense of security, as more than half the time it doesn't catch major errors. I like the setup and the interface of AW6 better than word(just my opinion).

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by XnavxeMiyyep
I wouldn't rely on Word too much... It's grammar check gives a false sense of security, as more than half the time it doesn't catch major errors. I like the setup and the interface of AW6 better than word(just my opinion).


I think this is a given for most of us familiar with Word as such has not been mentioned or even a requested part of the hopefully soon be released iWorks by anyone here.

I also agree for the normal college student AppleWorks is a far better and less cofusing program then Word.

[Gidman]

I really think that the continued success of Office for Mac, (and Office X is far superior to any of the previos PC versions) is vital to the conitnued integration of the Mac. I for one, would be unable to use a mac were it not for office X.

The seamless integration between me and other folks in my office amd at the magazine for which i write is vital.

In fact, I think the combination of the OSX and Office X is extremely good.

Gid
(sorry)

[mstecker]

... with Word, Works, etc. is that they encourage mixing up content and formatting. I don't know how many times someone has asked me to "help them" with their Word document, and the help that they turned out to need was help fixing the formatting hell that they had gotten themselves into. It's too easy to embed hidden formatting changes, style changes, spaces, tabs, etc.

If Apple wants to do something really bold, they'll do something like Framemaker, or the old NeXT product Pages and create a writing program that divorces content from layout.

To give an example. If I want a word to be emphasized, why would I ever want to put it in italics? What I really want is to tell the program that the word should be emphasized, and let some global parameters decide what to do with emphasized text.

I know that this can be done with styles, but there's no enforcement of it, and it's just too easy to hit the command-i and fire up italics.

The world will be a much much much better place when someone finally gets this right.

Another huge opportunity is that output produced with Word, at least by default, just looks lousy. It may be that its kerning and hyphenation algorithms aren't as sophisticated as those in products like Frame, but if anyone is a graphic designer, they know what I mean. If there's one thing that Apple knows, it's how to make things look great.

[Gymnut]

In my day when you wanted the definition of a word you cracked open that thing called a book that usually had a cover with the writing in big bold letters, "DICTIONARY". Let's not be lazy people. I'm just kidding. :D