Apple Continues Building iWork Team, Adds New Job Listings

[Truffy]

I can live without iToys/iCloud synching. Pages is good enough as it is (kinda). But Numbers is a joke.

 

[Battlefield Fan]

why would anyone want to work on vaporware?

 

[IJ Reilly]

My only experience with Pages is through the iPad, but I've written up plenty of 20+ page tutorials filled with tons of pictures and custom layouts there, in Word 2010, and 2013.

Now I know this isn't a totally fair comparison, since I'm sure Pages for the Mac is much more feature rich, but I did find the iPad rev to be a fairly nice experience (beyond the occasional crashing anyway). It was one of the things that sold me on the idea that tablets are useful for more than just watching movies and surfing the internet.

That said, my best experience was probably with Word 2013. The ribbon kept all my options organized, easy to find, and up front, and the Metro stylings made everything look nice and clean. There's a smoothness to it that I found lacking in other word processors.

Now when I move to a Mac, I'll probably end up using Pages. I'm hardly a power user when it comes to writing documents, and don't need even half the features Office provides.

One thing's for sure, though. I won't be moving away from it because I think Office sucks. Far from it. It's the de facto standard for a reason.

And the reason is _____? Couldn't have anything to do with it coming bundled with PCs for two decades, could it? Couldn't have anything to do with the constant promotion of the FUD that Word is the "standard" and you might as well be speaking Martian if you use anything else, could it?

I haven't seen Word 2013 but every previous version that I have experienced was absolutely awful compared to just about anything else I have used over the years, so the idea that Microsoft has pulled off some sort of design coup all of a sudden seems farfetched to me. I can also judge the quality of this product by the sad state of the documents it produces with grim regularity. I can tell by these documents that perhaps a fraction of 1% of Word users have even the slightest clue what they are doing. The other 99%+ are banging away so randomly they would probably do just as well with a typewriter, since that's pretty much how they are using Word anyway.

Other word processors have made writing a joy, but they are treated as outliers because, you know, Word is the "standard" -- even though it turns writing into a chore. Yeah, I have a real attitude about Word. I believe it is one of the most destructive software products since the HAL 9000. The idea that so many people feel obligated to use it whether they like it or not is really quite a pathetic commentary on the power of negative inertia.

 

[jacg]

Hate the ribbon. I usually have many documents open at once. In iWork they share one inspector (or multiple if you want). The options are always where I expect, in one place. In Office, every window has a ribbon. So muscle memory is useless. Especially when you make a window narrower and functions jump around or disappear altogether. As always, MS slows you down.

Love iWork on OS X and hope it gets a great update. It's been boring waiting for them to faff around with the ios apps. Hate that OS X has had to be the lowest common denominator. iCloud seemed like a neat idea but it's just slow and Numbers makes subtle changes to formatting when I jump back and forth.

 

[Boris-VTR]

If you really believe that then you are an idiot! Do you think Steve was the only one making decisions? Did you forget Steve had a whole army of talent underneath him... AND to be honest.. The real genius is Jony Ive and has been and is the one driving much of the innovation at Apple along with a team of very smart people. I can not even take your post seriously and believe your are really that ignorant ... Wow! -- Steve was good but he was only a small part of the equation.

Ive? He is designer. What did he invent? Please don't tell aluminum

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Let us not forget that Steve Jobs chose Tim Cook.
While I agree on some of your points, I have to highly disagree with the one about Apple not making acquisitions simply because making acquisitions isn't always the best alternative, nor will it solve any of Apple's problems it's facing right now.

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I hope we see an update really soon! I love being able to use pages and keynote on my iMac, macbook, iPhone, and ipad. Sure they have their flaws and are in definite need of an update asap, but I love being able to access all my files through iCloud!

He also choose Scully

 

[pgiguere1]

A low pixel density image (or low resolution image in slightly less fancy speak) will appear smaller on a high pixel density display. For example, a 32x32 icon on a 256x256 screen will be a quarter of the size of the same icon on a 128x128 screen. If you want the icon to fit onscreen the way it once did, you'll need a 64x64 icon to use in its place.

Or to get specific, Retina ready UI elements on the 2880x1800 MBP have to be 4x the size of what they were on the old 1440x900 standard to fill up the same amount of space on a 15" screen without using any form of upscaling.

So if your icons are too small for the physical resolution of the screen, that means the resolution of the UI elements are too low for comfortable viewing.

Make sense? No? Well that's because I suck at explaining this stuff. Pixel density, retina displays, effective resolutions, and how icons and whatnot work within them is something that's easy to understand, but hard as hell to describe.

I understand the whole HiDPI concept, I simply didn't understand why you said:

Actually, that'd means it's a low pixel density image running on a high pixel density display.

What low pixel density image? We're talking about HiDPI icons being displayed on a HiDPI monitor.

 

[simonmet]

Firstly, as for the Steve bashing, the poor guy was fighting cancer for the last few years of his life and was on extended medical leave for a good part of his final years at Apple so you could cut the guy some slack for perhaps not being as productive as his first few years back at the helm.

gave up waiting for an update, Payed $8 for the Mac Office suite from Microsoft (thanks to the work hup program)

Same here. It's the only way to buy M$ products if you can. I got Windows 8 and Office 2013 in Boot Camp for about $20 so Microshaft is hardly making money from me. I wouldn't have bought them otherwise. Office is good to have when you need it. I admit that I do find Excel to be quite handy as a "note pad for numbers", though I don't rely on it for anything serious. Word also has its uses for feature rich documents like reports that have things like a table of contents and a heading structure.

How does Apple usually handle this when new version of software comes out and you have older version? You have to pay full price or what?
Just asking

Based on previous examples like the iLife suite and Aperture you'll have to buy them again...no upgrade. But Apple's pricing is very cheap and less than upgrade pricing for competitors like Office. If a new version comes out that requires you to pay to upgrade I'm sure it'll have enough new features to warrant the cost and if you don't think so simply don't buy it. Hopefully the new version (at this stage still a rumour) will be completely rewritten and 64-bit for a start.

 

[macman34]

I fail to see how a company with 150 billion in the bank, with it's main office suite in advanced abandonware stages for oh about 4 years for its main os, with ever shifting teams between applications and os's, all of them coming out lately with major bugs and/or delays takes so long to actually hire a few people to work on their software.

While at the same time John Sculley, sorry Tim Cook, is throwing around hundreds of millions to top execs.

Phil Schiller deserves a few hundred millions, the guy from dixons a million a month for a few months work, and apple can't cough it up ON TIME to hire some developers and they have been recruiting only since February THIS year?

What the hell is going on here? Anyone might want to explain that to me.

(and it's the same story with maps, they only started hiring (after they figured out user feedback wasn't going to cut it) a few months AFTER the official apology for the maps debacle)

I wonder if samsung, lg, intel, etc. etc. (insert an apple component maker) took the same lackadaisical approach to actually staffing their development teams (hardware in their case) we'd have hardware circa 2009 still, which is where iwork is at...

And to think people give us the same old tired bs about the mythical man month.

I am sure pissed off with apple, asking me to pay (which of course I am not an idiot to do so) for abandoware iwork just so I can have my docs sync with my idevices, while they sit on their obscene unprecedented pile of cash and go, oh, maybe in February now is the time to hire a couple of guys for iwork. We milked the idiots who paid for it over the mac app store dry anyway, maybe now we can afford a few extra programmers.

Unbe-effing-lievable.

 

[simonmet]

Yeah I have to agree with everything you said. I find it strange too. Hopefully they've been taking their time to polish off a major new version.

I'd encourage you and others to look at alternatives in Apple's absence. People are raving about Scrivener for example. I like the concept actually. Perhaps Apple should've bought that and integrated its concepts in a new Pages.

 

[wideEyedPupil]

My only wish for the next version is full compatibility across ios/osx.

OS X and iOS do not share the same frameworks or typical device specs/limits. I would not want Keynote on OS X to be limited to what Keynote can do on iOS.

For example I can place Quartz Composer files for animation etc on OX KN slides but Apple has not bothered to port QC to iOS well not officially anyhow. So I could never use QC files on iOS. GLSL is a subset on iOS too. And the GPU on iOS devices isn't comparable to a modern PC GPU.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yeah I have to agree with everything you said. I find it strange too. Hopefully they've been taking their time to polish off a major new version.

I'd encourage you and others to look at alternatives in Apple's absence. People are raving about Scrivener for example. I like the concept actually. Perhaps Apple should've bought that and integrated its concepts in a new Pages.

I don't want Apple to pursue version-itis just to satisfy the people who have new versions of things every week. Talk to me about what features should be added to make an application better, not just newer.

 

[elgrecomac]

This is a joke post right?

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It was never Apple's intention to replace MS Office in corporate America. So no, that has nothing to do with it.

Hold on there Big Guy. Apple has been successfully making inroads in corporate America and one would be totally naive to think that they did not want their application software running on their computers in big corporations. To follow that logic, there would be no need to create Safari as there are other browsers out there that are, arguably, better than Safari.
Apple believes in closed systems, right or wrong, and that includes application software.

 

[cjmillsnun]

So if you pospone announcement on everything you are supposed to do you'r never late? LOL you are really funny

It's quite simple. If the product hasn't been announced for release then IT IS NOT LATE. To be late requires a date that the public expect to buy it (ie a shipping date). There hasn't been one for any of those products. Not a single one.

You're making an assumption that an announcement was postponed. We have no proof either way.

 

[powers74]

Hell Yes!

 

[MikBe]

It's been over four years since the last major update. Why has apple not updated iWork in such a long time?

They were busy with the Mac Pro... oh, wait...

 

[truth42]

It's been over four years since the last major update. Why has apple not updated iWork in such a long time?

Better this than Adobe updating every six months.

 

[iHEARTcartoons]

iWork is a pro app suite already. It does what Office does. Not in the same way, but with better results.

Making iWork fully compatible is the same as mating a thoroughbred horse with a goat. Why should Apple stoop so low? Surely the emphasis should be on Office users switching to iWork (which costs a heck of a lot less than Office) or for Office to make itself more compatible with iWork.

Why accommodate PC users by making iWork available for PCs—you're just condemning them to living with Windows for longer than they need to. Let them switch. Let them have the chance to use quality computers.

Apple computers may cost more to buy, but they are cheaper to own because they work reliably, are fast, and don't have so many crashes and problems. In the end, they are miles more efficient and much better value for money.

Why do so many people want to keep using Office and Windows? Break free—the grass on the other side of MS is so much greener.

I agree with you for the most part, but the simple reality is it has to work seamlessly with PC/MS Office. In my graphics business I work with a boatload of different clients with Macs/PCs and 99.99% of them use MS Office for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

So unless you can seamlessly interchange iWork and MS Office, there is no way I can swtich to iWork even though I would love to.

 

[simonmet]

I don't want Apple to pursue version-itis just to satisfy the people who have new versions of things every week. Talk to me about what features should be added to make an application better, not just newer.

I didn't mean I want a new version just for the sake of it, but the current suite is tired, beyond sluggish, still 32-bit and there are many things they could improve. I've written a dozen or so feedback suggestions about the current apps, particularly Numbers, which is near useless in comparison to Excel for my needs. As much as I can't stand Microsoft, I'm using Office 2013 in Boot Camp at the moment and it's not that bad. For most things it's very fast and responsive (Excel went backwards a bit), and they're cleaning up the interface a little too.

I have ideas for how Apple could make a really amazing spreadsheet app by changing focus a little bit, building something that doesn't compete directly with Excel but offers something a little bit different that addresses Excel's main flaws. I would like to explain in detail but it might take a while to write, so I'll post again soon.

 

[flottenheimer]

1. Windows 8
2. Windows 8 RT
3. Office 2013 and Office 365
4. Surface Pro & RT

OMG did I just listed the most powerful OS and softwares above.
All are updated or improved recently ... (Apple) have not changed anything in iOS and OSX in last couple of years.

"updated or improved recently" hardly qualifies as amazing, useful innovations.

And I wont even comment on your statement that "(Apple) have not changed anything in iOS and OSX in last couple of years."

 

[IJ Reilly]

I didn't mean I want a new version just for the sake of it, but the current suite is tired, beyond sluggish, still 32-bit and there are many things they could improve. I've written a dozen or so feedback suggestions about the current apps, particularly Numbers, which is near useless in comparison to Excel for my needs. As much as I can't stand Microsoft, I'm using Office 2013 in Boot Camp at the moment and it's not that bad. For most things it's very fast and responsive (Excel went backwards a bit), and they're cleaning up the interface a little too.

I have ideas for how Apple could make a really amazing spreadsheet app by changing focus a little bit, building something that doesn't compete directly with Excel but offers something a little bit different that addresses Excel's main flaws. I would like to explain in detail but it might take a while to write, so I'll post again soon.

Numbers is clearly the redheaded stepchild of the three and I know in its current form won't suffice for spreadsheet jocks. I'm not arguing that it can't be improved, but in reality, it doesn't really need to be improved very much for the vast majority of spreadsheet users. In my experience most spreadsheet "users" are firing up Excel for nothing more heavy duty than making simple tables, including no calculations whatsoever (a task that they can and should be doing in a word processor; I make mine in Pages).

I can't honestly compare Keynote to PowerPoint (I use only the former), beyond what I see on screens. PowerPoint users seem to be creating scary-bad presentations almost without exception and I don't know why anyone would do that on purpose. With Keynote you are steered into making good-looking presentations. You'd have to work at making them as unholy ugly as the average PowerPoint slide show.

I've been using Pages daily since v1.0 was released in 2005. I have found a few bugs, but other than that, I'd have to think hard to come up with suggestions for actually useful changes to this app. Maybe I've become overly accustomed to its little quirks, but at the same time, I find most of the complaints about Pages are from Word users who think Pages ought to be little more than a Word clone. I say, if you want that, buy Word, or download OpenOffice.

I suspect that if Apple hadn't made the tactical error of naming versions of iWork with their release years, far fewer people would be complaining about the current version being "tired" or "old." Sure, I'd like to see Apple continue development, but I am also hoping they don't succumb to feature-cram. Bloat would be the result if they responded to the calls for it to become Word with an Apple logo on it.

 

[manu chao]

And Office updates are oftentimes very, very unwelcome. As said above, I only use Excel at this point, but I've gone so far as to continue using the 2003 Excel at work on Windows when I want to be as efficient as possible. I'm running 2011 Office on my iMac at home, though I only use it when I need to work from home in a pinch, and again, only for Excel. If Apple can improve Numbers, I'll be all but done with Office altogether, and it will be a happy day.

Yap, Excel is the only Office app I use as well. Started to use Numbers for a few smaller new things but there is still a lot I don't know how to do in Numbers (or know even whether Numbers has the feature).

 

[MarkRoderick]

The Reason

One, Numbers is useless to me without the XIRR function, and Apple refuses to add it.

More important, there's a method to the madness. Up to now, at least, Apple has believed that it needs Microsoft to keep developing Office for the Mac platform, because many people won't buy Macs if they can't run Office. So as a quid pro quo, Apple has intentionally crippled iWorks.

Now that Microsoft has announced it won't release Office for iPad until sometime in 2014, Apple might change its mind.

 

[MrNomNoms]

One, Numbers is useless to me without the XIRR function, and Apple refuses to add it.

More important, there's a method to the madness. Up to now, at least, Apple has believed that it needs Microsoft to keep developing Office for the Mac platform, because many people won't buy Macs if they can't run Office. So as a quid pro quo, Apple has intentionally crippled iWorks.

Now that Microsoft has announced it won't release Office for iPad until sometime in 2014, Apple might change its mind.

Why are you digging something up from over two months ago?