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Apple Announces Upcoming Features for iWork Mac Apps Following Criticism
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I keep getting surprised not enough people are seeing the real problem here:
If full iOS editability is the rule for iWork, it will never be as powerful as it used to be or as powerful as the Mac can make it. If Apple continues to base its decisions of iWork by being able to do everything you do on a Mac with a 4 year old iPhone, then the Mac will always be screwed, as well as Mac users.
Why isn't anyone seeing this? Why isn't anyone addressing the main issue that any software will be screwed if Mac to iOS feature parity is mandatory? It is not like the FCP X debacle, it is much worse. Imagine FCP X being bound to iOS and you will get the picture.
Actually now that you mention it, I am really scared. Scared that Apple has the bright idea to release some "iMovie Pro" for iPad/iPhone, actually being Final Cut 11 then...
Then you have some weird grasp on history, or maybe you live in some alternate world.
If you check my website you will read I'm a professional musician. I even got my money back from Apple because of this buggy mess they called Logic X. If you go to gearslutz website I opened many threads with the bugs and some got videos included..
Yes, he did some remarkable work. To say that he would have never needed to apologize because "he was on top of things", though is going above and beyond saying he did good things.
No, they are APOLOGIZING to customers. Something that also did not happen with Steve Jobs.
Did they? I didn't see a hint of "we heard and are sorry, we will make it better, we promise" in the released statement. Only this is why it is bad and this will be added..
TBH, you have a bean counter at the top of the pyramid whose main worry is to open up the Chinese market. And some fat guys serving him who are loaded through their option plans (and it shows). No matter how often they will tell you that "Steve is in their DNA" the simple truth is that they lost focus and start to screw things up.
And this is coming from someone who felt for decades a special bond with the Apple products.
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They threw away everything that made iOS unique. Just a small example. Look at the beauty of the old Garageband icon and the sheer ugliness of the new one, look at what they did to Calendar (not talking skeuomorphisms). But I admit that some apps improved (Reminders, Voice Memo).
Actually, this is the way Apple updates
The fundamental problem they had was, they now needed a 64-bit app across many platforms. To work properly on a tablet or phone, the file system had to change. Now, you could do like Microsoft and build two tablets, one that could run Mac OS X and the other that ran iOS, but Apple doesn't do that. They rebuilt from the ground up. If you have the old Mac version, it still works. Now we know the shape of the improvements to be made.
This is how Apple goes about the job of eliminating cruft. Strip everything down for the new platform, and then build up again.
The fundamental problem they had was, they now needed a 64-bit app across many platforms. To work properly on a tablet or phone, the file system had to change. Now, you could do like Microsoft and build two tablets, one that could run Mac OS X and the other that ran iOS, but Apple doesn't do that. They rebuilt from the ground up. If you have the old Mac version, it still works. Now we know the shape of the improvements to be made.
This is how Apple goes about the job of eliminating cruft. Strip everything down for the new platform, and then build up again.
That's not how software development works. Throwing a thousand programmers at a development project doesn't speed things up; it's just as likely to slow things down.
Sure, true, but I don't think Apple was "wrong" here. They wanted to meet a ship date and have a unified experience, and to do so, sacrifices had to be made. I had zero doubt in my mind that many features left out would be reintroduced in updates. They left iWork 09 alone on our computers so if we really needed them, we'd still have them. I think they got a lot right and I think it was smart to get every platform on the same page and go from there. It'll be better in the long run to go this route.
Did Pages '09 work for you before the new upgrade? Then who cares. Just cause it's not the latest and (not so) greatest doesn't make Pages '09 any less incredible. I use it to make newsletters and like you, not having linked text boxes basically makes the new pages vaporware. However, unlike you, I don't care cause Pages '09 still works perfectly.
When you demonstrate you can finally learn something, you might find that people stop repeating the same thing over and over to you.
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You are absolutely right on that score. Sometime regression is a necessary evil, but good communication is essential.
Absolutely spot on. Where Apple really failed here is on the communication front (nothing new for them
). I think it's important to treat your customers like adults and say - "Hey, we want feature parity (or whatever) across these products and operating systems because we think it's the right way to go and this new release is a first step in that direction but there's a ton of features still missing. Don't worry, they're coming but we'd still like your feedback on this new stuff (Back up your old stuff first!) But we're leaving the old versions intact so you can continue to function. Here's our roadmap of what's missing and when it's going to be implemented: <Roadmap Link Here>
Love,
Tim"
No, they didn't.
If they'd listened to the customer in the first place it wouldn't have been released so dumbed down. The same happened with Final Cut Pro.
It's Apple trying to simplify for the sake of it, without actually thinking that people may need those features they're ripping out.
You do realize that iWork 2013 was a huge re-write, right? It wasn't just removing features because they felt like it.