Does anybody know what software Apple Corporate employees use to keep the business running?
This, my friend, is a very good question.
Does anybody know what software Apple Corporate employees use to keep the business running?
I wonder if iWork has to "catch up".Office has moved leaps and beyonds iWork a long time ago and it seems there's no catching up.
I wonder if iWork has to "catch up".
It's for a different target group. MS Office has to be suitable for big companies, iWork wouldn't stand a chance there. The iWork target group are mostly small, Mac-centered businesses and private individuals.
I'm using iWork on my Mac and iOS devices on a daily basis and am very happy with it. There's no other Office suite that can match it on the iPad/iPhone. But I wouldn't use it at work.
So iWork is pretty much a niche product (like all of Apple's products) and I hope that Apple keeps serving that niche still for a long time.
I love iWork. The ease of use with Pages allows me to use it as not only a word processor but a graphic design canvas. I love making work look great, and its because of Pages when I hand stuff in people ask how to make it look so good.
That was really cocky, but if I had Word I really wouldn't be motivated to make anything look nice. Pages just has a lot more for me, I don't really need collaboration features or anything. So does Keynote.
Job Description
The Numbers team is hiring a dynamic software engineer with the drive and desire to deliver beautiful and engaging applications on the Mac and iPad platforms. Apple's Productivity Applications team has delivered ground-breaking applications on both the Mac and iPad platforms, including Numbers, Keynote and Pages for the iPad, as well as iWork and iWeb for the Mac.
Key Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:
5+ years experience in designing, building and delivering software applications
Proficient in C programming
Proficient in object oriented analysis and development (Objective-C, C++ or Java)
Understanding of current standalone and distributed application architectures and design patterns
Excellent problem solving skills
Solid design and usability sense
Excellent communication and collaboration skills
Mac OS X and/or iOS development experience a plus
Description:
As a member of the Numbers team, you'll be able to shape the future direction of spreadsheets by working closely with our software engineers and designers. Your responsibilities will range from helping to define and implement new features, to refining our intuitive user interface, to building highly scalable and memory efficient data structures and algorithms to manage our complex application document model. You will be expected to employ solid engineering practices, including building and presenting engineering specifications, accurately estimating the implementation effort while identifying risks, working with the team to implement and integrate new features, and polishing, demoing and delivering your work on time.
Education:
BS CS/CE or equivalent
I hope this means an update.
A google doc like collaboration feature would be killer
I hope Apple brings at least cross-references to Pages. Pages is nearly useless as a word processor for complex documents without this feature.
How is cross referencing different than just adding footnotes?
Are you kidding? iWork?
Apples got high priority lawsuits & bullying to do.
Wow, that's totally different. Cross-references have nothing to do with adding footnotes.
Cross-referencing creates a reference with another part of the document. For instance, if I have a reference to chapter 2, the reference will be automatically updated when I add another chapter and chapter 2 turns into chapter 3. Or if you make a reference to footnote 332, and the footnote becomes 350 after you add some other footnotes in-between, the reference is updated automatically.
How is it similar to just adding footnotes?
I'm surprised Apple haven't jumped on such features given how there is a push for Mac's into the education sphere, especially in universities these days. With that being said I have to ask whether Apple never had any intentions with iWork other than to provide something that is bare basic functionality with higher end features better suited for dedicated companies like Microsoft to deliver in their own products. For me, as much as I love using iWork I had to use Office through university for the exact reason you noted as well as lacking even basic bibliographical functionality.
I guess iWork was an attempt to bring some kind of Apple uniqueness to office suites. It is simple and somewhat minimalistic. But it lacks features which are useful for several users. Some people call Microsoft Office bloated, but those are the ones who don't need its features, or don't even know such features exist. The "bloat" is, in fact, a set of features that brings a lot of power to the software, and lets users save time and do a better job. iWork is beautiful and all, but it isn't on par with Microsoft Office due to this lack of features.
I have to laugh when I hear people call Microsoft Office bloated when one considers that for a full install of Microsoft Office 2011 Home and Business edition it take up slightly less space than Pages + Numbers + Keynote (1.93GB on disk according to finder) - not including Mail/Contacts/Calendar that when used together deliver Outlook like functionality. As for the term bloat - I love how many throw around the term without knowing what it means; bloat is the disproportionate relationship between size and functionality; Microsoft Officer certainly doesn't fit that category.
I guess the key difference is between software that feels bloated with features and software that feels sleek, modern and fast. What's a few GB of decent quality themes between friends?
Office 2011 was "built from the ground up" yet I still encounter buggy dialogues that annoyed me in 2004, when I first reported the bug. That is bloated, inefficient code, and this is why I only use Office apps if I have to. iWork FTW!
Safari 7 and 10.9 will be something very different.
iWork and iLife living in safari 7... maybe even the next version of Aperture...
I just get this feeling the web app world is upon us... Obviously the technology will be there to work offline as well - but these new apps will live in safari... much like Google Docs and Chrome.
The next question is - how does all this play into iOS7....
CF
Wow, that's totally different. Cross-references have nothing to do with adding footnotes.
Cross-referencing creates a reference with another part of the document. For instance, if I have a reference to chapter 2, the reference will be automatically updated when I add another chapter and chapter 2 turns into chapter 3. Or if you make a reference to footnote 332, and the footnote becomes 350 after you add some other footnotes in-between, the reference is updated automatically.
How is it similar to just adding footnotes?
In the iOS app store, the iWork apps are in the top 10 downloads (gross revenue) in most countries.
So there is clearly demand, why doesn't Apple show some love for the desktop versions? It's not like other Apple products or services (Ping in iTunes...) where there was no demand and EOLing the offering a natural choice.
I don't get it, they have about 150 billion in the bank, adding a few engineers for iWork (and Mac Pros, but that's another topic) would solve a lot of problems for business and edu users.
As for people saying the current iWork version is "good enough", maybe Keynote is (it always was the most polished app in iWork in my view).
But Numbers and Pages are in dire need of updates. Just one example, MS is working on an Excel entension code-named Geoflow:
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft...ation-with-geoflow-preview-and-powerview.aspx
Have a look at the screenshots. I rarely get a "wow" effect from MS software, but this looks really interesting. Visualizing data in 3D in novel ways, this is a direction Numbers could have taken had Apple invested in it.
Oh well, at least the job ads posted above seem to indicate they haven't shelved iWork completely.
You are right, it isn't similar to adding footnotes - I didn't understand what cross referencing was.
It sounds like a very useful feature for long documents. However I used LaTeX for this when I handed in my thesis. Pages, as much as I love it for personal docs, just didn't cut it for writing a dissertation.
The thing is, if Microsoft ever made something right, this thing is Office. You may not like Microsoft, or even hate it. You may think that Microsoft used its power to destroy WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and other software so its inferior Office could dominate the world. But the fact is that Microsoft Office evolved during all these years, Microsoft invested billion dolllars in development and it eventually became a killer app. And you may like or even love Apple, but the fact is that it simply abandoned iWork for the last four years, and even before that there was just not enough investment in the suite.