Spreadsheet software coming to iWork in '07
By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor
July 5, 2006 - EXCLUSIVE For its third birthday, Apple's iWork productivity suite will see the addition of a third application, Think Secret has learned. Currently dubbed Charts, the software is planned for iWork '07, which will likely be released in January, in keeping with Apple's previous iWork annoucements.
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Long rumoredor at least, assumedto be in development, sources say Apple is not planning on positioning Charts as a competitor to Microsoft's Excel, but rather as a more consumer-friendly spreadsheet application that can handle the needs of home users and small businesses but not pretend to execute any of the more advanced functions of Excel. Nonetheless, Charts will support importing and exporting Excel formatted documents, as well as legacy AppleWorks spreadsheets, and Apple is hoping the performance of Charts will at least rival that of Excel, sources report.
Future users can also expect Charts to sport the same integration with Apple's other applications as current versions of iWork and iLife do. Rumored to be at the top on the list is a built-in media browser, drag-and-drop support of spreadsheet and chart data in new Mail messages, and some level of Address Book interoperability.
Still unknown is whether the addition of charts to the iWork suite will result in a price increase for the package. Apple originally offered its iLife suite of media applications, introduced as a bundle in 2003, for $49. In 2004 the company added Garage Band to the suite yet kept the price the same, but in 2005 raised it to $79. In contrast, Apple originally offered Keynote for $99 in 2003, but when iWork '05 arrived with the second version of Keynote and the new Pages word processor, the price dropped to $79.
