Apple's Spreadsheet Application: Lasso

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

PCMag publishes (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2028393,00.asp) a ThinkSecret report about an upcoming spreadsheet application from Apple.

According to their sources, Apple is working on a spreadsheet component to iWork '07 to accompany Keynote 4 and Pages 3 updates. Codenamed "Lasso", the new spreadsheet is not expected to be as feature-packed as Excel, however, it is said to be a step up from the Appleworks spreadsheet module that was last updated in 2000:

Lasso's function editor will sport more than 200 hundred functions that will span a number of needs, from financial to statistical and possibly niche applications such as engineering, sources say.

Internet connectivity, Excel file-format compatibility, and an easy interface are listed as other features. Pre-built templates for common tasks, such as, personal finance, business, personal planning and more are also reportedly bundled.

Apple's Keynote and Pages applications are also expected to see updates and have been detailed in previous reports (Keynote '07 (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/07/20060717122553.shtml), Pages 3 (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/07/20060710104831.shtml)). ThinkSecret previously had provided some preliminary information on Apple's spreadsheet application which had been dubbed "Charts" at that time.

Over the past two years, Apple has introduced iWork updates at the Macworld San Francisco conference in January. The next Macworld Expo takes place (http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/) between January 8th and 12th, 2007 in San Francisco.

Update: This report is a republishing of a previous ThinkSecret report

[spicyapple]

Sounds good. :) What about Numbers? I pray they don't dumb it down like Pages, please!

[IJ Reilly]

Lasso? I don't get it.

Sounds good. :) What about Numbers? I pray they don't dumb it down like Pages, please!

Pages is great -- not dumbed down at all.

[EricNau]

iWork updates are always welcome in my book, but I'm not sure "Lasso" will ever be as successful as Pages or Keynote. With programs like Pages or Keynote, you don't need guaranteed interoperability, but with Excel it's different. With Excel, you are less likely to distribute it in printed form or orally in a presentation, rather you would distribute it electronically. Plus, when it comes to numbers, there is no room for error.

Excel truly is the standard in this case (actually doing a good job), and it will be very hard to convince users to switch.

.

[zap2]

Sounds good. :) What about Numbers? I pray they don't dumb it down like Pages, please!


Pages rock! Your crazy....also I hope lasso is not the final name

[ChickenSwartz]

I would have to say, taking on Excel is a pretty hefty task. Good luck.

[hyperpasta]

This is MONTHS old... PCMag is quoting a ThinkSecret report from earlier in the year. Too lazy to find a link myself. :)

It's ThinkSecret, so I don't believe it. I do think it will happen, but not because ThinkSecret is saying it will.

Lasso? I don't get it.

Code name.

Really, really old news Think Secret report here:

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607charts2.html

[ppayne]

I run a business. I send Excel files to customers. I **need** the files to be perfect, no voodoo at all, no weirdness with fonts or file conversion or print area. If it's even slightly voodoo-istic, I will not be able to use it since almost everything I do with Excel is loaded by my customers on a PC.

[EricNau]

I'm sure "Lasso" will be great, after all, Apple's calculator works flawlessly. ;) :rolleyes:

[SMM]

Sounds good. :) What about Numbers? I pray they don't dumb it down like Pages, please!

Agree. Although not horrible, 'Pages' did not do it for me either. How about MACcel. No, that sux too. Maybe Cellmate? That would appeal to those who refused to "Just Say No". Hmm, I am glad I never studied marketing.

[evilgEEk]

I like the iWork suite, and a spreadsheet program would be a great addition. I say bring it on! :D

[DTphonehome]

Lasso's function editor will sport more than 200 hundred functions that will span a number of needs, from financial to statistical and possibly niche applications such as engineering, sources say.

My God...that's like..20,000 features! (Thanks, Calculator!)

[ddrueckhammer]

Agree. Although not horrible, 'Pages' did not do it for me either. How about MACcel. No, that sux too. Maybe Cellmate? That would appeal to those who refused to "Just Say No". Hmm, I am glad I never studied marketing.

Pages is a great app. Text only documents even come out looking better than MS Word. I think people don't like it because it isn't an exact clone of Word. It reminds me of people who won't try a Mac because the OS looks different and scares them haha.

Seriously, if you don't like the inspector then right click on the toolbar at the top and customize it. You would be surprised just how much it can be made to look and function just like Word. If you don't want the templates to come up at start then you can turn that off too.

I think that the two big shortcomings that I find with Pages is the lack of a full mail-merge functionality, which will be fixed with the release of "Lasso" or Numbers or Charts or whatever it is and the lack of a built-in thesaurus as I really don't like to copy and paste from the system wide one. The thesaurus issue is supposed to be fixed with the next version of Pages as well.

[AidenShaw]

I'm sure "Lasso" will be great, after all, Apple's calculator works flawlessly. ;) :rolleyes:
C'mon, Eric - you're supposed to leave wisecracks like that to us trolls! :D

[SeaFox]

Lasso? I don't get it.

Yeeeeha! Time to rustle up some figures and bring our accounting 'on home!
:D

[ibook30]

I run a business. I send Excel files to customers. I **need** the files to be perfect, no voodoo at all, no weirdness with fonts or file conversion or print area....

Yep - if it works for everyone, it will be a success. iWork is shaping up to be a real challenge to the general publics idea of interoperability.

[EricNau]

C'mon, Eric - you're supposed to leave wisecracks like that to us trolls! :D
Sorry, after I thought that one up I just couldn't resist. :D

[Butler Trumpet]

I'm sure "Lasso" will be great, after all, Apple's calculator works flawlessly. ;) :rolleyes:

Haha! I remember that, that was an interesting problem it used to have

[iMacZealot]

Excel truly is the standard in this case (actually doing a good job), and it will be very hard to convince users to switch.

Go look at Pages; Word's been the "standard" for years and Pages can write Word documents. I'm sure if Lasso, Numbers, Charts, etc. will also be able to save in Excel documents. I believe AppleWorks can, and if this is a step up, and since the world has moved a little more, there should be no problem with Excel and Apple's new application.

I'm sure "Lasso" will be great, after all, Apple's calculator works flawlessly. ;) :rolleyes:

What was the problem with it again? I wasn't using a mac then.

[Rocketman]

Lasso? I don't get it.


I wonder if the development name was Visicalc?

Rocketman

[jellomizer]

As of right now I don't see iWork as a strong MS Office competitor. It is more of a competitor of MS Works (For home use). As far as I have seen it Keynote is the only product in the list that can compete with MS Office (Powerpoint). I would love to see a good competitor to MS Office. But look at the other competitors out there.
Word Perfect (No Modern Mac Port, And the other OS Versions have a lot of technical problems)
Open Office (Too wrapped up in being open source and making the developers look good and less on actually making it a good product)
iWork (Best Interface for most features but lacking in "Pro" Features)
Koffice, abiword (better then MS Write but not by much)
Googles Spreadsheet and Word Processor (Way to limited)
While MS Office still has it faults unfortunately it is still the best product out there.

If you are just writing papers for schooland you want to give your documents a little more style then iWorks is great. If you need to do serious work with heavy calculations and more advanced colarabration then office is still the only bet.

[ibook30]

Go look at Pages; Word's been the "standard" for years and Pages can write Word documents. I'm sure if Lasso, Numbers, Charts, etc. will also be able to save in Excel documents. I believe AppleWorks can, and if this is a step up, and since the world has moved a little more, there should be no problem with Excel and Apple's new application.

Hopefully, but Open Office can do a heck of a lot, and few have adopted it. For Free !!!

I agree that if Lasso, Numbers, Charts, etc. can save in a format that is pallatable to Excel - it will be more likely to succeed, but after second thoughts, I realize Apple will need what Open Office doesn't have: Marketing Dollars.

[syklee26]

when is .Mac update happening anyway?

[iMacZealot]

when is .Mac update happening anyway?

Umm doesn't that usually happen sometime in the spring? The last two or three have been at least but I doubt they'll be keeping the new mail in a bag too much longer.

[dsnort]

... I realize Apple will need what Open Office doesn't have: Marketing Dollars.

Maybe if they just bundle it with new macs......:D

[BenRoethig]

To be honest, I have my doubts about how many contacts Nick & Co have left. It doesn't take that far of a leap to come up with these conclusions without an Apple leak. In fact it takes a lot of common sense. The lack of a full consumer productivity app to replace Appleworks is a disgrace. Windows users are able to get light word processing, spreadsheet, database functions, and presentation functions from MS Works. iWork has more promise, but it's incomplete, costs extra, and with Pages the interface works much better with creative page layout type projects than it does word processing. So, what could be done to fix iWork? You need to make it complete with at least a spreadsheet app with a database being a definite plus. Apple dropped the ball in '06 so it has to come in '07. If it doesn't, someone really needs to be fired because it'll look like they're either clueless or incompetent. As for Pages, the easiest way to keep it as a good light page layout app, but make it a better word processor is to introduce some kind of mode. Click a tab and it transforms to a traditional word processor type interface.

[Cameront9]

I recently discovered Pages. I think it's a great app and well worth the money...but not as a Word Processor. I use Pages as a budget version of Adobe InDesign. When I want just straight text, I stick to Word.

Excel, however, is a different matter. The line of work that I'm in has just implemented an Excel solution to help our customers fine prices on items (over 4000 items)....This relies heavily on VBA scripting to work, and I've already had some incapatibilities that if it weren't for me (as the Mac guy) wouldn't have gotten solved and left Mac users behind.

So Numbers/Lasso/Charts/whatever will likely be fairly useless to me withouth VBA. And yes, I'm aware that MS is dropping Mac support of VBA, and yes, it does make me very angry..

[NewSc2]

Go look at Pages; Word's been the "standard" for years and Pages can write Word documents. I'm sure if Lasso, Numbers, Charts, etc. will also be able to save in Excel documents. I believe AppleWorks can, and if this is a step up, and since the world has moved a little more, there should be no problem with Excel and Apple's new application.

Sorry, but Excel running on Windows (and to a lesser extend, Macs) is by far the standard, and for good reason. It runs wonderfully, on fast and horrendously slow computers.

I've been using Google Spreadsheets to some degree, and while it's kinda cool with the whole online thing, it's slow, lags, and not as good as Excel. Nobody's going to go to a class to learn Google Spreadsheets, they're going to learn Excel in school.

[mahonmeister]

I've been waiting for a reason to stop using MS office but I don't see that happening even with this update. I really want to buy iWork but I feel like I'd have to relearn everything and end up with an inferior program.

I think it is sad how much Apple pushes the fact that Macs can run MS office. It's a slap in the face. Seeing that iWork only has two apps it's understandable they don't mention it in the commercials.

Btw, what was the glitch with Calculator? How do you screw that up?

[MrSmith]

What's this going to do to the NeoOffice project, I wonder? Neo exchanges Office file formats already, and it's Aqua so a pretty familiar GUI. For me, that free app is perfect. It'll be a shame if it loses support from the masses.

[Analog Kid]

Sounds good. :) What about Numbers? I pray they don't dumb it down like Pages, please!
If a word processor can even be dumbed down, it's been poorly designed... Pages is my wp of choice now for just about everything. I find Word too noisy-- I have never used more than half the functions in Word (even after putting in a good effort to "learn to use them effectively").


I agree with the crowd that thinks compatibility is important. There's two levels of compatibility though-- functional and superficial. If they can make it functionally compatible with a reasonable subset of Excel functions, then it will be enough for me to use and share files.

There are times though when superficial compatibility is critical-- where it needs to print and format on another machine just the way you wrote it. I run into this problem with Keynote-- I can export something to Powerpoint to use as a starting point for cleanup, but it's rarely presentable straight from export.

Maybe Cellmate?
I like it! Much better than "Charts" or "Numbers"...

[OdduWon]

If a word processor can even be dumbed down, it's been poorly designed... Pages is my wp of choice now for just about everything. I find Word too noisy-- I have never used more than half the functions in Word (even after putting in a good effort to "learn to use them effectively").


I agree with the crowd that thinks compatibility is important. There's two levels of compatibility though-- functional and superficial. If they can make it functionally compatible with a reasonable subset of Excel functions, then it will be enough for me to use and share files.

There are times though when superficial compatibility is critical-- where it needs to print and format on another machine just the way you wrote it. I run into this problem with Keynote-- I can export something to Powerpoint to use as a starting point for cleanup, but it's rarely presentable straight from export.
right on ms word gives me a headache. i go from pages to word for phys class and it takes me longer to do it in word. iwork is good but it could be better. numbers will be welcomed addition, now i don't have to use excel

[SMM]

Sorry, but Excel running on Windows (and to a lesser extend, Macs) is by far the standard, and for good reason. It runs wonderfully, on fast and horrendously slow computers.

I've been using Google Spreadsheets to some degree, and while it's kinda cool with the whole online thing, it's slow, lags, and not as good as Excel. Nobody's going to go to a class to learn Google Spreadsheets, they're going to learn Excel in school.

Excel sucks, it one of the worst programs for freeing memory back to the OS, it is an incredible resource hog and kills innovation for aspiring to professional applications. Other than that it is OK for a limited work scope.

Pages is a great app. Text only documents even come out looking better than MS Word. I think people don't like it because it isn't an exact clone of Word. It reminds me of people who won't try a Mac because the OS looks different and scares them haha.

Seriously, if you don't like the inspector then right click on the toolbar at the top and customize it. You would be surprised just how much it can be made to look and function just like Word. If you don't want the templates to come up at start then you can turn that off too.

I think that the two big shortcomings that I find with Pages is the lack of a full mail-merge functionality, which will be fixed with the release of "Lasso" or Numbers or Charts or whatever it is and the lack of a built-in thesaurus as I really don't like to copy and paste from the system wide one. The thesaurus issue is supposed to be fixed with the next version of Pages as well.

Sorry for not being clear. I use Pages and I like it very much. It is the NAME that is not ringing my bell.

[motulist]

1) Apple will add a spreadsheet program to the iWork suite, what an amazing revelation!

In a similar fashion I would like to announce some other astounding revelations of the same magnitude.

2) In november of this year, there will be an election, and the winner will be a republican or a democrat.

3) In december a horde of men with white beards wearing red and white outfits will start popping up in shopping outlets and all over the media.

4) At the break of dawn tomorrow the sun will rise up into the sky.


;) You don't have to be nostradamus to guess the prediction in this story's headline, but joking aside, the details are rather interesting.

[bigwig]

Why use OpenOffice on a Mac? NeoOffice Aqua is the way to go on a Mac.

As for "Lasso", I assume that isn't the final name; OmniPilot Software, maker of the Lasso programming language (which is supposedly popular on Macs) would probably complain.

[EricNau]

Go look at Pages; Word's been the "standard" for years and Pages can write Word documents. I'm sure if Lasso, Numbers, Charts, etc. will also be able to save in Excel documents. I believe AppleWorks can, and if this is a step up, and since the world has moved a little more, there should be no problem with Excel and Apple's new application.
There are still two problems:

1) While Pages and Keynote may be exported to Word and Powerpoint, it is not flawless. When working with word documents and presentations small changes may not matter significantly, but when dealing with numbers, there is ZERO room for error.

2) Pages and Keynote (and it seems the "Lasso") are all targeted at the non-experienced computer user. Unfortunately, for the most part, that is the exact opposite audience who use spreadsheets.

[thejadedmonkey]

2) Pages and Keynote (and it seems the "Lasso") are all targeted at the non-experienced computer user. Unfortunately, for the most part, that is the exact opposite audience who use spreadsheets.
I use excel to view my schedule. So do all my friends. I also use it for basic accounting.

[Coca-Cola]

Pages two needs some work. However, think how awesome Pages three will be.

[MrSmith]

...think how awesome Pages three will be.
(.)(.)

:D (British in-joke)

[jobberwacky]

Plus, when it comes to numbers, there is no room for error.
Excel truly is the standard in this case (actually doing a good job).
You trust Excel? (Or for that matter Mesa or Google Spreadsheets?)

Try this:
In a new spreadsheet, give the cell A1 the value of 0.2
In A2 enter the formula '=A1*6-1' (the calculated value will also be 0.2)
Then copy this formula to A3 down to ca A40.

For every cell you should get 0.2 as a result, since 0.2 (the result of the cell above) times 6 minus 1 is 0.2. Right?

Right? Try it in Excel, try it in Mesa, try it in Google Spreadsheets.

And then repeat after me:
"I will never again blindly believe in spreadsheet calculations"

[edit: corrected typo, thanks MrSmith! - repeat after me "I will never again blindly believe jobberwacky postings ;-)]

[MrSmith]

:confused:

0.2*5=1
1-1=0

[jobberwacky]

:confused:
0.2*5=1
1-1=0
Grmpf, that should have been 0.2*6-1
Thanks for the hint and sorry for the typo. The text in my message above is now corrected.

[MrSmith]

Wow! NeoOffice loses it at line 20. Even with parentheses like this: '=(A1*6)-1'

:confused:

[twoodcc]

well this sounds good to me. this will give people one more reason to use iwork instead of office. can't wait to get it :cool:

[jobberwacky]

Wow! NeoOffice loses it at line 20. Even with parentheses like this: '=(A1*6)-1'
:confused:

Well, it does claim to be MS-Office compatible, doesen't it? :D

[MrSmith]

Can anyone explain why that happens?

Also, out of interest, at what line do the other spreadsheets go nutty?

[KiDo]

isnt lasso an excisting server kinda app? i heard about it before my mom used it i think for her website..can they use the same name? Numbers sounds nice, Cellmate, lol, dont think thats gonna happen :P

[jobberwacky]

Can anyone explain why that happens?

Also, out of interest, at what line do the other spreadsheets go nutty?
The short answer is: accumulation of rounding errors.

It's obviously a bit sad that the internal algorithms of spreadsheets can't even get such simple calculations as the ones in the above examples truly right.

But the underlying problem is that they are basically ignorant of the underlying maths. They do not understand that a whole number multiplied by 0.2 can never result in a number with more than one digit after the decimal point.

For reliable number-cracking you need something like Mathematica (this is not meant to be an ad, although I happily confess that I saw this Excel stunt being performed by a guy named Wolfram).

UPDATE: I just checked the spreadsheet functionality of Pages. It's no better than its competitors.

The same thing also happens if you use numbers of the type 'float' in many programming languages.

The above-mentioned example in PHP:

$j=0.2;
for($i=1; $i < 30; $i++) {
$j=6*$j-1;
echo $j, " ";
}

Run it and see the gibberish being spat out.

[Analog Kid]

The short answer is: accumulation of rounding errors.

It's obviously a bit sad that the internal algorithms of spreadsheets can't even get such simple calculations as the ones in the above examples truly right.

But the underlying problem is that they are basically ignorant of the underlying maths. They do not understand that a whole number multiplied by 0.2 can never result in a number with more than one digit after the decimal point.

For reliable number-cracking you need something like Mathematica (this is not meant to be an ad, although I happily confess that I saw this Excel stunt being performed by a guy named Wolfram).

UPDATE: I just checked the spreadsheet functionality of Pages. It's no better than its competitors.

The same thing also happens if you use numbers of the type 'float' in many programming languages.

The above-mentioned example in PHP:

$j=0.2;
for($i=1; $i < 30; $i++) {
$j=6*$j-1;
echo $j, " ";
}

Run it and see the gibberish being spat out.
The problem stems from binary representation of decimal numbers. 0.2 can't be represented perfectly in binary. You can add a little intelligence to the formula to avoid the problem. Use:

=ROUND(A1*6,1)-1

and everything works fine. If you think you might change the numbers, you can slacken the constraint with:
=ROUND(A1*6,32)-1
The problem is in the last bit, which isn't visible in the spreadsheet display.

A better mantra would be "I will always think about what it is I'm doing before trusting the computer to think for me". ;)

[winmacguy]

iWork updates are always welcome in my book, but I'm not sure "Lasso" will ever be as successful as Pages or Keynote. With programs like Pages or Keynote, you don't need guaranteed interoperability, but with Excel it's different. With Excel, you are less likely to distribute it in printed form or orally in a presentation, rather you would distribute it electronically. Plus, when it comes to numbers, there is no room for error.

Excel truly is the standard in this case (actually doing a good job), and it will be very hard to convince users to switch.

.
Excel is one of the few programmes from Microsoft that I actually like even if it is a bit bloated. It does numbers and it does them well. I am forced to do page layout in word during the day for a large client and I word have to say that it is the worst format to edit.

[Butters]

(.)(.)

:D (British in-joke)

hehe :D

[iMikeT]

I hope this actually happens.

[marco114]

I use OmniPilot's Lasso: http://www.omnipilot.com/

And I'm quite pissed at Apple for using a name for an existing product. It will most definitely cause customer confusion. Both deal with data and manipulation and storage of data and numbers. This is bad news.

If they use the name as the product, I am 100% positive that OmniPilot will have a good case on it's hands.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I use OmniPilot's Lasso: http://www.omnipilot.com/

And I'm quite pissed at Apple for using a name for an existing product. It will most definitely cause customer confusion. Both deal with data and manipulation and storage of data and numbers. This is bad news.

If they use the name as the product, I am 100% positive that OmniPilot will have a good case on it's hands.
Repeat after me: CODENAME for a NON-EXISTING PRODUCT!

[dernhelm]

I'm sure "Lasso" will be great, after all, Apple's calculator works flawlessly. ;) :rolleyes:

Apple has a calculator? :D

[furious]

(.)(.)

:D (British in-joke)

5318008 upside down! upside down! :p

[Hattig]

And in Perl, you can run this directly from Mac OS X Terminal:

perl -e '$j = 0.2; $k = 6; for ($i = 0; $i < 30; $i++) { $j = $k * $j - 1; print $j . " "; }'

It is just one of a handful of ways that show that if you don't think when you program a function then you can end up with something that doesn't work simply because of limitations within floating point units within computers today. One solution is to use decimal mathematics for decimal numbers (the other being to think about your algorithm to increase numerical accuracy). This is quite slow (relatively) on processors without decimal hardware, however the forthcoming Power6 does incorporate a decimal mathematics unit, that can handle 36 digit numbers according to the new IEEE 754R standard:

http://www.tecchannel.de/imgserver/bdb/350900/350948/E7C7E6358A45FECA368A6D5724976899_1000x700.jpg

Java includes a decimal mathematics class:

import java.math.BigDecimal;

public class Decimal
{
public static void main(String [] args)
{
BigDecimal b1 = new BigDecimal("0.2");
BigDecimal b2 = new BigDecimal("6.0");
BigDecimal one = new BigDecimal("1.0");
for (int i = 0; i < 30; i++)
{
b1.multiply(b2);
b1.subtract(one);
System.out.println(b1 + " ");
}
}
}

The output of this is consistently 0.2. It's a big more longwinded in Java but that's because there is no base type for decimals, unlike integers and doubles.

[MrSmith]

5318008 upside down! upside down! :p
:confused:

:D

Just realized: it should be 5378008 :cool:

[Hattig]

:confused:

:D

Just realized: it should be 5378008 :cool:

By 'upside down' he means rotated 180 degrees, as if it was typed on a calculator display which was then viewed upside down.

[MrSmith]

By 'upside down' he means rotated 180 degrees, as if it was typed on a calculator display which was then viewed upside down.

I know... :rolleyes: :)

[furious]

I know... :rolleyes: :)
1 represent the i

i before e except after c

[mi5moav]

LASSOO THE BOOBIES

7, 1, 0, decimal point, 7, 7, 3, 4, 5. Turn your lasso spread sheet upside down.

what about all the hexadecimal options?

[MrSmith]

1 represent the i

i before e except after c

Apologies. I was thinking of 55378008.

[ziwi]

Charts does sound like a better name, but perhaps they are a little light in the graphical representation of numbers to pull off such a name. Lasso does not hold any math properties as a name for me...I wonder what the final name will be.

[Yannick]

Wow! NeoOffice loses it at line 20. Even with parentheses like this: '=(A1*6)-1'

:confused:

Try with =ROUND(A1;1)*6-1 and the problem is gone. ;)

[Yannick]

Why use OpenOffice on a Mac? NeoOffice Aqua is the way to go on a Mac.


Personally, I use both "OpenOffice.org 2.0.3" and "NeoOffice 2.0 Aqua beta 3" (based on OOo 2.0.3). Both have advantages and limitations.

NeoOffice's advantages:
- it uses native fonts (OOo uses fondu to extract the fonts and be able to use them, which duplicates them. Furthermore, when you want to use the document with Neo or OOo on windows, a 1 full page document may appear on 2 pages with 1 or 2 lines on the top of the second)
- it is more Mac friendly

OpenOffice.org for Mac using X11 has also some advantages:
- it opens quicker (I ran test on both on my PB G4 15" 1.5 GHz 1.5 GB RAM: OOo opens in 26 secondes the first time when even X11 is not launched, then OOo reopens in 6 secondes. Neo opens in 32 secondes the first time, then in 14 secondes after it has been closed)
- it uses less memory (OOo+X11: 87.15 MB real memory and 736.68 virtual. Neo: 218.35 MB real memory and 997.63 virtual)
- presentations transitions are way better handled than Neo (generally OOo tends to be faster than Neo, maybe due to this Java dependance?)
- it is the official OpenOffice.org, more up-to-date, is QAed, and the future of it doesn't rely only on two persons (as committed as they are, they are only human) but on a team.

NeoOffice is more "aquafied" than OpenOffice.org which needs X11 right now, so a lot of people prefers it over OpenOffice.org. But in a few months OpenOffice.org for Mac should go native (an alpha version is expected in Jan or Feb).

It is indeed too bad that there are two separate projects, wasting in a sense time, energy and donations. It is the result of licence differences, technical approach differences, and miscommunication.

[jobberwacky]

Try with =ROUND(A1;1)*6-1 and the problem is gone. ;)
That's true. But which spreadsheet user is aware of this? This should be resolved by the app, not by the user.

[biggerbearbrian]

Wow! NeoOffice loses it at line 20. Even with parentheses like this: '=(A1*6)-1'

:confused:

Actually, if you change the decimal place in Excel to 7, it begins to lose it at row 12

[IJ Reilly]

There are still two problems:

1) While Pages and Keynote may be exported to Word and Powerpoint, it is not flawless. When working with word documents and presentations small changes may not matter significantly, but when dealing with numbers, there is ZERO room for error.

2) Pages and Keynote (and it seems the "Lasso") are all targeted at the non-experienced computer user. Unfortunately, for the most part, that is the exact opposite audience who use spreadsheets.

Oy veh. Do I ever dislike hearing remarks like this.

1) As has been pointed out probably a hundred times before, document exchange even between different versions of Word is not "flawless."

2) While you're at it, you might as well say that the Mac is "targeted at the non-experienced computer user." A lot of people do, you know. That's what you get for making it easier to use, right?

[Yannick]

That's true. But which spreadsheet user is aware of this? This should be resolved by the app, not by the user.

You are totally right. And by the way, every user should be aware that computers don't know much about numbers. ;) Computers are limited, they have a limit on the integers they can handle. So, only with integers they miss an infinite quantity of numbers. Then when you start looking at rational and irrational numbers, you realize that computers knows pretty much nothing. The actual probability to pick up any real number (rational or irrational) who exists and to have it known by the computer is 0. :eek: In other words, it's a little bit like the computer knows about the trees of one garden when you have on earth so much more trees in all the forrests. Still, computers are great tools, and help us calculate things which would take hundred of years without them. :D

[~Shard~]

Good news, let's hope these rumors are true. This would help round out the iWork suite even more, and I may actually consider purchasing it if this is the case. For now, I'll hang onto my Office v.X though... :cool:

[Daringescape]

Pages on my G4 ibook and even on my G5 dual 2ghz with a gig of ram is ridiculously slow - like molasses. If this spreadsheet program is this slow I will never use it.

[digitalbiker]

Pages on my G4 ibook and even on my G5 dual 2ghz with a gig of ram is ridiculously slow - like molasses. If this spreadsheet program is this slow I will never use it.

I will give double emphasis on that!!

I tried to produce a nice document in pages for a set of astronomical objects in a viewing manual. It is roughly 55 pages long and includes 110 different figures.

It was an absolute nightmare to put together! I spent days locking, unlocking, moving, re-organizing, trying to get pages to do some of the simplest of tasks properly.

In the end, I have a nice looking document that takes literally 5 mins to open, 10 secs to scroll a page, and I am afraid to touch it, to edit it, as it might "explode" if I do.

I have a PB G4 17in. 1.67Ghz, 1 GB ram.

I really know that most of the people here are mac fanatics when they actually endorse "Pages". It is the slowest, worst, piece of cr*p Apple ever produced. I have the UB iWork 06 version now and it still sucks!

I like keynote but it still lags in presentation features behind powerpoint. It is also a problem to interact with the 99% of business users out there who use PP. I know that it exports to PP and I know it goes to pdf, QT, etc. But you have to actually perform these operations with an actual group of business users to realize the probelms it presents.

9 times out of 10, exporting to PP screws up everything but the most elemental of slide shows. QT exports don't quite look presentation quality, are dificult to interactivily control, and generate huge files that are difficult to email.Exporting to PDF, makes static slides, and is more for printing than for presentation. There is no free Keynote client for windows and mac users like there is for PP.

All in all, iwork , (still a cheap name), is not ready for primetime. It is OK to experiment with, play with, and to generate simple documents. But it is not any kind of a replacement for the professional who works in an integrated MS office environment.

[Uragon]

First, there's a reason why it's iWorks, it's not i(t)Works, 'I' means 'you' have to work it out. Second, if 'lasso', still doens't work well, well you have something to hang around your ........:D

Over and above, I welcome the good rumour...

[IJ Reilly]

I really know that most of the people here are mac fanatics when they actually endorse "Pages". It is the slowest, worst, piece of cr*p Apple ever produced. I have the UB iWork 06 version now and it still sucks!

Not everyone agrees, do they? Many Mac "fanatics" prefer Word. This one prefers Pages.

[Hattig]

Not everyone agrees, do they? Many Mac "fanatics" prefer Word. This one prefers Pages.

I like Pages for small documents (<20 pages). It has very crisp text display and it is quite nippy in use. The exposed features are quite comprehensive in a single-user environment and the application is quite fun to use. I have yet to try Mellel's word processor however, that is meant to be very good.

It certainly doesn't have the quirks of Word, but it has its own quirks that can be very annoying. For example it wants to be Page Oriented, but then acts like a word processor within each Page, allowing you to have multi-page Pages (that the page template doesn't apply to). WTF?! I admit I didn't get iWork 2006, the upgrades didn't seem worthwhile. Hopefully iWork 2007 will be more tempting.

OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice/J are slow clunky embarrassments to open source. AbiWord, Gnumeric, etc, are far nippier (although the former is barely a word processor).

KeyNote is, of course, awesome. However there needs to be a KeyNote viewer application for Windows (and Mac), PowerPoint export isn't ideal, and QuickTime is a bulky tradeoff.

[Max on Macs]

iWork updates are always welcome in my book, but I'm not sure "Lasso" will ever be as successful as Pages or Keynote. With programs like Pages or Keynote, you don't need guaranteed interoperability, but with Excel it's different. With Excel, you are less likely to distribute it in printed form or orally in a presentation, rather you would distribute it electronically. Plus, when it comes to numbers, there is no room for error.

Excel truly is the standard in this case (actually doing a good job), and it will be very hard to convince users to switch.

.
You should note however that the Excel format is very simple to save/load and there really isn't much room for error in loading/saving Excel formatted documents. This is not the case with Word and PowerPoint, hence the sometimes inaccurate conversions.

[clintob]

(1) In regards to Excel, the program has become the industry standard kind of by default more than anything. If you look back through it's "history", Excel really hasn't changed much since the beginning. Sure, the interface is better, and the introduced more comprehensive Macros and other crap that just makes it confusing for most users, but the structure and base features are exactly the same. Frankly, the only features that are worrysome when sending Excel documents via email are the Macros, and those don't even work properly from computer to computer, let alone across different programs (ie. Excel to "Lasso"). So, long story short, I'm very excited to see what Apple comes up with and really don't think interoperability will be an issue at all.

(2) In regards to Pages, and the complaints I've seen on here about it, let's not forget that in the world of software, iWork is a BABY. MS Office has been around forever, whereas Pages is only a few years old. And frankly, it already works light years better than Word could ever dream to. If you've ever attempting to do anything in Word other than type, you know it is so chock full of bugs and quirks that by the end of your project you'd rather write it out free hand.

So bring on Lasso, and Pages '07. I can not WAIT to delete office from my Mac and be done with everything that has that dirty M-word on it forever.

That is all.

[IJ Reilly]

I like Pages for small documents (<20 pages). It has very crisp text display and it is quite nippy in use. The exposed features are quite comprehensive in a single-user environment and the application is quite fun to use. I have yet to try Mellel's word processor however, that is meant to be very good.

It certainly doesn't have the quirks of Word, but it has its own quirks that can be very annoying. For example it wants to be Page Oriented, but then acts like a word processor within each Page, allowing you to have multi-page Pages (that the page template doesn't apply to). WTF?! I admit I didn't get iWork 2006, the upgrades didn't seem worthwhile. Hopefully iWork 2007 will be more tempting.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If you start with a blank page, Pages works just like any other word processor. Mellel takes a very interesting approach. I spent some time with it in an earlier version but decided to move to Pages when it came out. Unfortunately, anything that doesn't look and act just like Word is not going to be an acceptable alternative for many people.

[Thomas2006]

I can understand people's impatience with Apple for not having a complete AppleWorks replacement already, but if you look at their long term plans for iWork it makes perfect sense. If you start out with a solid foundation it is easier to make improvements so follow my thinking:

"iWork '03"
Keynote 1

iWork '05
Keynote 2 - improvements
Pages 1 - introduced and is a cross between a word processor and a page layout program. Handles the basics of both well but lacks "pro" features

iWork '06
Keynote 3 - improvements
Pages 2 - gets table cell formulas, sorting, number formatting (preparation for spreadsheet app), comments (colaboration), thumbnail view (page finding, ordering, deleting), address book support (mail merge), endnotes, automatic text correction, and general improvements to features already there.

iWork '07
Keynote 4 - improvements
Pages 3 - gets modes which separates word processing tasks/items from page layout tasks/items (reduced clutter), ability to create custom formulas.
Spreadsheet 1 - can import/read Excel data, save as/export to Excel file, basic reporting, there will be a way supply the charts in Keynote and Pages with data, plus whatever Apple adds

iWork '08
Keynote 5 - improvements
Pages 4 - word processing and page layout tasks are improved to the point where they are looking like two separate apps
Spreadsheet 2 - general improvements, reporting feature gets most improvement by being able to "drill" down through pie charts.

iWork '09
Keynote 6 - improvements
Pages 5 - improved to the point where it is only a word processor now.
Page Layout 1 - "New" app that has broken away from Pages and is now the "iApp" of DTPs. This could happen in iWork '08.
Spreadsheet 3 - Gets ODBC support
Database 1 - most likely SQLite, or equivalent, with a sweet front-end. Hopefully, it will be a true RDBMS and not something like what came with AppleWorks.
Reports 1 - (ie Crystal Reports) This is a stretch but if not a separate app then more of an "engine" that is used by the spreadsheet and database apps.

I do not use Keynote which is why I only entered "improvements" next to it.

[BenRoethig]

I can understand people's impatience with Apple for not having a complete AppleWorks replacement already, but if you look at their long term plans for iWork it makes perfect sense. If you start out with a solid foundation it is easier to make improvements so follow my thinking:

"iWork '03"
Keynote 1

iWork '05
Keynote 2 - improvements
Pages 1 - introduced and is a cross between a word processor and a page layout program. Handles the basics of both well but lacks "pro" features

iWork '06
Keynote 3 - improvements
Pages 2 - gets table cell formulas, sorting, number formatting (preparation for spreadsheet app), comments (colaboration), thumbnail view (page finding, ordering, deleting), address book support (mail merge), endnotes, automatic text correction, and general improvements to features already there.

iWork '07
Keynote 4 - improvements
Pages 3 - gets modes which separates word processing tasks/items from page layout tasks/items (reduced clutter), ability to create custom formulas.
Spreadsheet 1 - can import/read Excel data, save as/export to Excel file, basic reporting, there will be a way supply the charts in Keynote and Pages with data, plus whatever Apple adds

iWork '08
Keynote 5 - improvements
Pages 4 - word processing and page layout tasks are improved to the point where they are looking like two separate apps
Spreadsheet 2 - general improvements, reporting feature gets most improvement by being able to "drill" down through pie charts.

iWork '09
Keynote 6 - improvements
Pages 5 - improved to the point where it is only a word processor now.
Page Layout 1 - "New" app that has broken away from Pages and is now the "iApp" of DTPs. This could happen in iWork '08.
Spreadsheet 3 - Gets ODBC support
Database 1 - most likely SQLite, or equivalent, with a sweet front-end. Hopefully, it will be a true RDBMS and not something like what came with AppleWorks.
Reports 1 - (ie Crystal Reports) This is a stretch but if not a separate app then more of an "engine" that is used by the spreadsheet and database apps.

I do not use Keynote which is why I only entered "improvements" next to it.


I hope for Apple's sake it doesn't take until 2009 to get a database app. iWork '07 better be able to do everything Appleworks and MS Works can and like those application it better ship on consumer machines free of charge.

[clintob]

Why on Earth would you expect Apple to ship iWork with it's machines for free? iWork is not MS Works - it's already far superior, and it's still a baby. In one or two more revisions, iWork will be a better overall suite of Apps than Office (which frankly, isn't saying much). It's unreasonable to expect Apple to give that away for free.

[BenRoethig]

Why on Earth would you expect Apple to ship iWork with it's machines for free? iWork is not MS Works - it's already far superior, and it's still a baby. In one or two more revisions, iWork will be a better overall suite of Apps than Office (which frankly, isn't saying much). It's unreasonable to expect Apple to give that away for free.

I don't know maybe because prior to January every consumer machine shipped since about 1990 has come with a consumer productivity suite and maybe I don't apple to lose sales because of sure stupidity. And yes iWork is like MS works. It is not an office suite, it was never meant to be, and it never will be one. It is the replacement for Appleworks. Hence the name iWork instead of Work Pro. Apple is smart enough to realize that it can't beat Microsoft in the office environment.

[IJ Reilly]

Why on Earth would you expect Apple to ship iWork with it's machines for free? iWork is not MS Works - it's already far superior, and it's still a baby. In one or two more revisions, iWork will be a better overall suite of Apps than Office (which frankly, isn't saying much). It's unreasonable to expect Apple to give that away for free.

For the same reason the iLife suite is bundled with every Mac system -- to get people using them, and in the habit of buying the upgrades. I don't understand why Apple thinks this strategy works for iLife but not for iWork. Very short-sighted.

[clintob]

I don't know maybe because prior to January every consumer machine shipped since about 1990 has come with a consumer productivity suite and maybe I don't apple to lose sales because of sure stupidity. And yes iWork is like MS works. It is not an office suite, it was never meant to be, and it never will be one. It is the replacement for Appleworks. Hence the name iWork instead of Work Pro. Apple is smart enough to realize that it can't beat Microsoft in the office environment.

For the same reason the iLife suite is bundled with every Mac system -- to get people using them, and in the habit of buying the upgrades. I don't understand why Apple thinks this strategy works for iLife but not for iWork. Very short-sighted.

(1) Not even close to every machine ships with a productivity suite... in fact, if you look closely at what you're paying for when you buy most PC machines, those products that "ship standard" with your fancy new PC are built into the price. Most customizable online shops (Dell, et al.) allow you to remove that software and lower the price. So obviously, they are not free.

(2) iWork is undoubtably being groomed as a direct competitor to Office. There's no disputing that. It CURRENTLY is a replacement for AppleWorks, because it's still young and undeveloped in places, but it would be insane for Apple not to try and pursue part of the Office marketshare. It's an untapped resource, and frankly the Office programs are not very well constructed (with the exception of Excel). Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint are pretty lousy, and while Access is solid, it's certainly not leaps and bounds better than (PageMaker) <-- EDIT: Sorry, meant FileMaker.

(3) Bundling software, and then looking for profit on the backend with upgrades is a reasonable answer to the question. There's something to be said for that. But in the end, I think you're comparing Apples and Oranges. While at current, iWork is undeveloped, it is (as I said) being groomed to be a full suite of productivity Apps. iLife is a wonderful package of Apps, but they do not replace Pro Apps. iPhoto is garbage compared to Aperture or Photoshop. Pages is certainly not garbage compared to Word, and Keynote is already a much better App than PowerPoint. So I think there's a flaw in the argument here...

[IJ Reilly]

(1) Not even close to every machine ships with a productivity suite... in fact, if you look closely at what you're paying for when you buy most PC machines, those products that "ship standard" with your fancy new PC are built into the price. Most customizable online shops (Dell, et al.) allow you to remove that software and lower the price. So obviously, they are not free.

(2) iWork is undoubtably being groomed as a direct competitor to Office. There's no disputing that. It CURRENTLY is a replacement for AppleWorks, because it's still young and undeveloped in places, but it would be insane for Apple not to try and pursue part of the Office marketshare. It's an untapped resource, and frankly the Office programs are not very well constructed (with the exception of Excel). Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint are pretty lousy, and while Access is solid, it's certainly not leaps and bounds better than (PageMaker) <-- EDIT: Sorry, meant FileMaker.

(3) Bundling software, and then looking for profit on the backend with upgrades is a reasonable answer to the question. There's something to be said for that. But in the end, I think you're comparing Apples and Oranges. While at current, iWork is undeveloped, it is (as I said) being groomed to be a full suite of productivity Apps. iLife is a wonderful package of Apps, but they do not replace Pro Apps. iPhoto is garbage compared to Aperture or Photoshop. Pages is certainly not garbage compared to Word, and Keynote is already a much better App than PowerPoint. So I think there's a flaw in the argument here...

This impresses me as distinctions without much a difference. The iLife suite now consists of several well-developed applications all of which are bundled. They didn't necessarily start out mature but they grew into maturity. (iPhoto was never conceived as a replacement for Photoshop btw.) Apple got Mac users accustomed to using them and can now successfully charge for upgrades. They could do the same with iWork.

[skunk]

I agree that they'd be better off bundling iWork while it only consists of Pages and Keynote, as a taster for the eventual suite-scale upgrade. I have absolutely no use for Keynote anyway, so as far as I'm concerned, the money is just for Pages, which is not much of a sweetener compared with the Educational version of Office.

[IJ Reilly]

I agree that they'd be better off bundling iWork while it only consists of Pages and Keynote, as a taster for the eventual suite-scale upgrade. I have absolutely no use for Keynote anyway, so as far as I'm concerned, the money is just for Pages, which is not much of a sweetener compared with the Educational version of Office.

No use for Keynote? I find that doing bullet-point presentations on what I would prefer for dinner is a very effective way of going hungry.

[skunk]

No use for Keynote? I find that doing bullet-point presentations on what I would prefer for dinner is a very effective way of going hungry.Wow, I hadn't thought of that! The Keynote Diet Plan. Reverse psychology is so effective. :D

[BenRoethig]

(1) Not even close to every machine ships with a productivity suite... in fact, if you look closely at what you're paying for when you buy most PC machines, those products that "ship standard" with your fancy new PC are built into the price. Most customizable online shops (Dell, et al.) allow you to remove that software and lower the price. So obviously, they are not free.

(2) iWork is undoubtably being groomed as a direct competitor to Office. There's no disputing that. It CURRENTLY is a replacement for AppleWorks, because it's still young and undeveloped in places, but it would be insane for Apple not to try and pursue part of the Office marketshare. It's an untapped resource, and frankly the Office programs are not very well constructed (with the exception of Excel). Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint are pretty lousy, and while Access is solid, it's certainly not leaps and bounds better than (PageMaker) <-- EDIT: Sorry, meant FileMaker.

(3) Bundling software, and then looking for profit on the backend with upgrades is a reasonable answer to the question. There's something to be said for that. But in the end, I think you're comparing Apples and Oranges. While at current, iWork is undeveloped, it is (as I said) being groomed to be a full suite of productivity Apps. iLife is a wonderful package of Apps, but they do not replace Pro Apps. iPhoto is garbage compared to Aperture or Photoshop. Pages is certainly not garbage compared to Word, and Keynote is already a much better App than PowerPoint. So I think there's a flaw in the argument here...

The only ones who even remotely have iWork tagged as an office competitor are those hardcore mac users despise anything that doesn't have the Apple logo on it. It is a consumer application. If iWork is not shipped with every Mac, nine times out of ten they're going to buy some version of office because that's the standard that everyone knows. I used Claris then Appleworks until it got too far behind pretty much because it came with my Mac.

I agree that they'd be better off bundling iWork while it only consists of Pages and Keynote, as a taster for the eventual suite-scale upgrade. I have absolutely no use for Keynote anyway, so as far as I'm concerned, the money is just for Pages, which is not much of a sweetener compared with the Educational version of Office.

For those in an Office or College setting, there isn't going to be much defending against Office student and teacher. Most computer tasks are built around office. Add in the option of a more familiar interface option for word processing and light duty spreadsheet and database apps, iWork and the Mac would have a lot going for it over PCs with MS Works.

[IJ Reilly]

The only ones who even remotely have iWork tagged as an office competitor are those hardcore mac users despise anything that doesn't have the Apple logo on it. It is a consumer application. If iWork is not shipped with every Mac, nine times out of ten they're going to buy some version of office because that's the standard that everyone knows. I used Claris then Appleworks until it got too far behind pretty much because it came with my Mac.

Nonsense. Pages is perfectly capable of serving as a everyday word processor outside of "consumer" environment, and Keynote whacks the poop out of PowerPoint for presentations.

[BenRoethig]

Nonsense. Pages is perfectly capable of serving as a everyday word processor outside of "consumer" environment, and Keynote whacks the poop out of PowerPoint for presentations.

And if you need to use those pages or keynote projects at work or in school?

[pyramid6]

And if you need to use those pages or keynote projects at work or in school?

Exactly. I hate Office. It's bloated and 90% of it's features are wasted on me, but everyone uses it. :(

[gauchogolfer]

And if you need to use those pages or keynote projects at work or in school?

I used Keynote in school and currently use it at work, giving scientific presentations on a monthly basis at the least. There is not a huge need for it to be interoperable with PPT for me, although I can import what I need from colleagues and make it look much nicer in my Keynote talk. From what I've seen, Office needs to become interoperable within itself before people whine too much about compatibility between iWork and Office.

[heisetax]

iWork updates are always welcome in my book, but I'm not sure "Lasso" will ever be as successful as Pages or Keynote. With programs like Pages or Keynote, you don't need guaranteed interoperability, but with Excel it's different. With Excel, you are less likely to distribute it in printed form or orally in a presentation, rather you would distribute it electronically. Plus, when it comes to numbers, there is no room for error.

Excel truly is the standard in this case (actually doing a good job), and it will be very hard to convince users to switch.

.


That's why nobody has succeeded to replace Excel in over 22 years of trying. That last word is something that hasn't always happened, trying. I use Excel to write my Income Tax Prep Program. So far only Excel will work for me.

Bill the TaxMan

[IJ Reilly]

And if you need to use those pages or keynote projects at work or in school?

Define "need to use." I use Pages for all of my reports, and output to PDF for presentation to my clients. If they need a Word version, I export it as Word. Never had a single complaint. I present in Keynote quite often, sometimes saving the slides in PDF form. Never had a complaint there either; in fact the Keynote presentations in particular get rave reviews.

I don't get why people manufacture so many impediments that don't exist to using something other than MS Office. I would loathe the thought of being chained to MS Office, or anything else for that matter, for the rest of my life.

[jsalzer]

And if you need to use those Pages or Keynote projects at work or in school?

Easiest question I've answered all day. Use a laptop.

DVI to VGA converter - and you can now use Keynote anywhere. Airport, and you can print your Pages doc anywhere.

Then you have a Mac and iWork wherever you go - despite the OS preference of your work or school.

;)

For those talking about "collaboration tools" - I never have understood the fascination (possibly from lack of my own knowledge). In the school arena, we all know that one person in the group ends up writing the paper or putting together the slideshow. Let's face it - the rest of the group just mooches.

And, if my lonely Mac and I want to collaborate something that I wrote with rest of my Windows-crippled office, they get a PDF. They can either send me general comments or print out a copy and mark it up. It keeps others from mucking with my originals.

Not that I'm paranoid about other people touching my documents. :cool:

[ddrueckhammer]

Define "need to use." I use Pages for all of my reports, and output to PDF for presentation to my clients. If they need a Word version, I export it as Word. Never had a single complaint. I present in Keynote quite often, sometimes saving the slides in PDF form. Never had a complaint there either; in fact the Keynote presentations in particular get rave reviews.

I don't get why people manufacture so many impediments that don't exist to using something other than MS Office. I would loathe the thought of being chained to MS Office, or anything else for that matter, for the rest of my life.

Exactly, I use Pages and Keynote at School for my Engineering classes all of the time. I never have any problems but if there were a problem then I would save the document in .PDF in Pages or Keynote or possibly as a quicktime movie in Keynote. I just don't get what problems besides missing font problems people have I guess....

That does remind me that Pages needs an equation editor though. I have been using MathType to copy and paste equations into Pages or Omnigraffle if I am doing a schematic and would like an equation editor in both of those programs. Omnigraffle could use better dimensioning tools before it will be a full Visio replacement too.

[brsboarder]

atleast its competition

[jose fuertes s.]

Pages needs an urgent update 'cause when you are working with more than 29 pages, including hi resolution photographs...is so damn slow!:mad:

[szsiddiq]

there are still things about pages that erk me...keynote, though is hands down much better than powerpoint

[kresh]

I think that the two big shortcomings that I find with Pages is the lack of a full mail-merge functionality, which will be fixed with the release of "Lasso" or Numbers or Charts or whatever it is and the lack of a built-in thesaurus as I really don't like to copy and paste from the system wide one. The thesaurus issue is supposed to be fixed with the next version of Pages as well.

Not sure if you knew this shortcut, if you do please forgive this redundent post. I didn't know of this shortcut for the first year of my using OSX.

The thesaurus is available to any Cocoa app.

It's easy:

1) Hover over the word in question with the mouse

2) press "Apple Key" + "Control Key" + "D"

3) Dictionary window pops up.

4) Bottom left of pop-up window, select thesaurus.

It is so super simple. I use it nearly every day. Oh yeah, the dictionary.app must be in the applications folder, if you have moved it the shortcut no longer works.

[uNext]

i love macs i love the simplicity but theres nothing out there
that will topple microsoft office period.

[Play Ultimate]

i love macs i love the simplicity but theres nothing out there
that will topple microsoft office period.

As of now, you are correct.
However, don't forget Lotus 1-2-3, dbase IV and others had there day in the sun as well.
At this point, Apple does not need to "overthrow" Office, just provide as alternative.

[clintob]

i love macs i love the simplicity but theres nothing out there
that will topple microsoft office period.

I actually don't think this is true anymore. It was a year or two ago, but Apple is making such unbelievable headway in market share, I truly believe if they were to release a much-improved Pages/Keynote and bundle it with a true spreadsheet App, they would have a very large majority of Apple users signing up willingly.

Office for Mac is a horrendous, unstable, and ridiculously poor application. Word is awful, Excel can't run half the Macros that are made in the PC version, and Entourage is laughably easily to corrupt. I think with some clever engineering and a little good faith (ie. bundling the software with OS X or at least keeping the price very low) Apple could really put a dent into Office for Mac use very quickly.

[Play Ultimate]

I actually don't think this is true anymore. It was a year or two ago, but Apple is making such unbelievable headway in market share, I truly believe if they were to release a much-improved Pages/Keynote and bundle it with a true spreadsheet App, they would have a very large majority of Apple users signing up willingly.


Apple's marketshare is still too low for that to have any effect on Office sales. What will disrupt Office is the move toward internet based apps. I still believe that Office will dominate for awhile.
However, a down-tick or two of marketshare will have a dramatic effect on the stock price and on computer users perceptions about Microsoft's monopolistic dominance.
The Microsoft dam is starting to leak.

[clintob]

Apple's marketshare is still too low for that to have any effect on Office sales. What will disrupt Office is the move toward internet based apps. I still believe that Office will dominate for awhile.
However, a down-tick or two of marketshare will have a dramatic effect on the stock price and on computer users perceptions about Microsoft's monopolistic dominance.
The Microsoft dam is starting to leak.

Absolutely. I didn't mean Apple's current marketshare can dent Office sales on the whole. I meant that Apple users - Office for Mac users - they will switch in droves if iWork includes a decent spreadsheet app. I think it's virtually a lock.

But yes, the dam is starting to leak. Getting the majority of Mac users off Office and on to iWork is the next step in the process of removing MS from our lives completely. And not a moment too soon.

[Eraserhead]

Absolutely. I didn't mean Apple's current marketshare can dent Office sales on the whole. I meant that Apple users - Office for Mac users - they will switch in droves if iWork includes a decent spreadsheet app. I think it's virtually a lock.

But yes, the dam is starting to leak. Getting the majority of Mac users off Office and on to iWork is the next step in the process of removing MS from our lives completely. And not a moment too soon.

Microsoft should be very worried about Mac users switching to iWork, (more than the value of the sales) as it means that they then only have 1 monopoly rather than two, and if iWork get's OpenXML support then it'll be 100% compatible with Office too.

[madmaxmedia]

I run a business. I send Excel files to customers. I **need** the files to be perfect, no voodoo at all, no weirdness with fonts or file conversion or print area. If it's even slightly voodoo-istic, I will not be able to use it since almost everything I do with Excel is loaded by my customers on a PC.

To be honest, I think the only way to achieve 100% Excel compatibility is to, well, use Excel.

I mean for ordinary personal stuff I'm sure cross-compatibility will be no problem. But if you are running a business in which you are constantly sending and receiving Excel files, I'd probably just bite the bullet and continue to use Excel.

It may be somewhat easier to achieve good results with Excel than Word though, since spreadsheets typically are less focused on style and formatting.

[ITASOR]

To be honest, I think the only way to achieve 100% Excel compatibility is to, well, use Excel.

I mean for ordinary personal stuff I'm sure cross-compatibility will be no problem. But if you are running a business in which you are constantly sending and receiving Excel files, I'd probably just bite the bullet and continue to use Excel.

It may be somewhat easier to achieve good results with Excel than Word though, since spreadsheets typically are less focused on style and formatting.


And not only Excel, but to 100% guarantee things look the same, you need to use the PC version (if you're dealing with PC customers) and you need to make sure you use a font that they have, the same screen resolution they are running, etc.

[madmaxmedia]

And not only Excel, but to 100% guarantee things look the same, you need to use the PC version (if you're dealing with PC customers) and you need to make sure you use a font that they have, the same screen resolution they are running, etc.

That's a good point. I have no problems myself, but it's not 'mission critical' stuff where I'm emailing reports to customers, etc. I have a Mac and my co-workers have PC's, and we have had no problems with inter-office compatibility.

[drmac88]

Sounds good!

[dpaanlka]

Pages needs an urgent update 'cause when you are working with more than 29 pages, including hi resolution photographs...is so damn slow!:mad:

Pages is a page-layout (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_layout_program) app. Word is just a word processor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor).

I really don't get what the confusion is about Pages vs Word. Of course Word is fast, but Pages is way more flexible. Period.

[andrewmulligan]

Pages isn't the best for Word Processing. I'll either use TextEdit or Word. I think that it's nearly impossible for Apple to compete with the MS Office Suite. Kudos to them for trying and if they succeed with it for the Mac Market, then good for them. Still, I'll get Office 2007 as soon as it comes out and use that.

[IJ Reilly]

Pages is perfectly fine for word processing, which I know from experience as I been using it for that purpose every day for nearly two years. Most of the people who say otherwise either haven't learned to use it or would have preferred that Apple produce a Word clone. Some of are very happy that they did not go that route.

[dpaanlka]

Pages is perfectly fine for word processing, which I know from experience as I been using it for that purpose every day for nearly two years. Most of the people who say otherwise either haven't learned to use it or would have preferred that Apple produce a Word clone. Some of are very happy that they did not go that route.

I must Second that.

Office isn't even installed on my PowerBook anymore, and I've been using Pages and Keynote quite successfully on campus (where lots of classes and professors want lots of word and powerpoints all the time) for two semesters now and am glad I made the switch. I'm excited to hear about Lasso.