Chances for iWork 2012 soon?

[skaertus]

I am sure that Apple will update iWork sometime soon. One of the reasons for the delay is Apple likes to have small development teams. This team got diverted to work on the iPad versions of iWork. Now that that was done sometime ago, hopefully we will see a new version of iWork soon.

Apple has a different philosophy than Microsoft - Apple takes the approach 'what can we leave out to make the application elegant and easy to use' rather than load the application with every function that they think the users might want. iWork is very much a Home / Small office suite, where Office is more for corporate power users, who need the additional functionality or compatibility with Windows users.

Numbers is the application that is in greatest need of an update, as it is a relatively young and underdeveloped product. It is currently only in it's second generation. It's fine for simple charts and tables, but is not much use for serious number crunching, compared to Excel.

Pages is a very competent work processing application, but could use some additional functionality to extend is capability to produce long documents (better TOC and footnote management).

Keynote is a better Presentation application that Powerpoint, but could do with the something like Smart Art to simplify and speed up the creation of documents that utilise a lot of shapes, as these can be quite time consuming using the present toolset in Keynote (although I tend to use Omnigraffle - then cut and paste).

I understand Apple's policy on focusing on consumers rather than on professionals.

I also understand Apple's approach of "less is more", keeping things clean and uncluttered.

What I don't understand is how Apple expects to make the Mac OS a viable alternative to Windows without a credible office suite.

Apple has last updated its iWork line in 2009. It's been three years. Before this, it would update iWork in much shorter cycles. Microsoft updates its Office suite about every three years. But Microsoft Office is a full-featured office suite which has evolved for about 20 years now and has incorporated nearly every feature one could think of. And Apple has a lot to work to do in iWork before it can compare shoulder-to-shoulder with Microsoft Office.

I even tried to use Pages for writing my dissertation. But it lacks so many features! No cross-references, for instance, and I can't live without it. I tried alternatives such as Nisus Writer and Mellel, and they are great word processors, but lack of full compatibility with Microsoft Office is always an obstacle - because I am supposed to send .doc files to everybody else, and all footnotes, and numbering, and cross-references, and everything else, gets mixed up in the process. There's Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac, of course, and it seems to be OK, but it is definitely not a great piece of software. Microsoft Word 2010 for Windows is a much better program.

A week ago, I had to prepare a presentation. I could certainly use Keynote, but the computer in which the presentation would run was not a Mac - so I was supposed to bring with me a .ppt file. I tried using Microsoft PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, but I just gave up. It kept freezing and crashing all the time, and there was no way I could get the job done on it after more than one hour trying. The solution was to switch to my PC and use Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 for Windows - then, I was able to prepare the presentation in half an hour.

How is Apple supposed to address these issues? Mac OS has more than 5% of market share, and is around for so many years. Although it is a consolidated platform, and Apple soars bigger numbers year after year, there is no credible office solution for the Mac. C'mon, Apple had almost US$ 100 billion in cash (before the dividends program, after which it will keep "only" half of that), can't it spend some of these precious billions to invest in iWork to make it crush Microsoft Office, instead of sitting on this pile of money?

 

[nuckinfutz]

Ughhh

3+ yeas and no iWork

Pages is so old it doesn't even handle some of the new core text tools in the OS (like text substitution and other things)

iWork is so old that it can't easily handle iCloud which is pretty silly considering it is an Apple product.

I want to see better support for 3rd party bibliography applications (I'd rather not use Endnote)

Better media support (not that it's really bad now but there far better audio and video architectural support in the OS now )

Keynote needs better audio handling.

Collaboration tools please.

I'm not a heavy user of iWork. It still has a nice nucleus of features but i'm ready for the next step.

 

[skaertus]

Ughhh

3+ yeas and no iWork

Pages is so old it doesn't even handle some of the new core text tools in the OS (like text substitution and other things)

iWork is so old that it can't easily handle iCloud which is pretty silly considering it is an Apple product.

I want to see better support for 3rd party bibliography applications (I'd rather not use Endnote)

Better media support (not that it's really bad now but there far better audio and video architectural support in the OS now )

Keynote needs better audio handling.

Collaboration tools please.

I'm not a heavy user of iWork. It still has a nice nucleus of features but i'm ready for the next step.

I am very disappointed too.

Apple used to update iWork once in a year and a half. Now we're stuck with iWork '09. Is Apple preparing something new and grand, or has it just given up on iWork? iLife has been upgraded in late 2010, why hasn't iWork?

I am tired of this "share your photos with your friends" and "make your home videos" approach. I'm not against it, but I want my computer to handle serious work as well. And Apple is not giving any attention to it.

Microsoft Office is the most important piece of software in Microsoft's portfolio right now. It's not Windows. It's Office. Not only because it is the best office suite and it has the most features. But mainly because everybody uses Microsoft Office and people have to exchange files which were produced in Microsoft Office format. And nobody has managed to produce a piece of software which can perfectly handle files written in Microsoft Office format - Apple iWork doesn't do that, Corel WordPerfect doesn't do that, Google Docs doesn't do that, and LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org/IBM Lotus Symphony do not do that.

And Microsoft Office for Mac is crap piece of software. Made in Carbon. Less features. Buggy. Always released after the similar version of Office for Windows. Should Mac users be treated as second-class citizens even after paying more for a computer than they would pay for a similar PC?

There are lots of companies and people stuck in PCs with Windows because of Microsoft Office. Mac OS, Linux or any other OS is just not an option for lots of people. Office is Windows killer app. IMHO, And Apple isn't going to gain a substantial piece of market share unless it comes up with something better than Microsoft Office. And which better handles Microsoft Office files.

 

[nuckinfutz]

I'm sure it's coming along with a substantial update to the iOS versions. Getting iCloud done right has to be of prime importance.

Keynote could definitely utilize some of the advancements in Audio and Video handling as well.

I think we'll have it this summer and I hope Apple is aggressive. At this long of a wait I want iWork 12 to catch up and push the edge.

 

[jackc]

I hope you're right about a major update, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's not like there are only three employees at Apple, and they had to focus on iCloud and iOS.

I just don't think the demand is there for a serious Office alternative.

 

[nuckinfutz]

I hope you're right about a major update, but I'm not holding my breath.

It's not like there are only three employees at Apple, and they had to focus on iCloud and iOS.

I just don't think the demand is there for a serious Office alternative.

It'll come. The iWork team probably got delayed when they had to develop the iOS versions. You can tell they're still working on it because they've updated it with full screen and ePub export in Pages. It just needs the major advance that we're waiting for. There's so much stuff in OS X that iWorks isn't leveraging yet.

 

[skaertus]

I just don't think the demand is there for a serious Office alternative.

Why? Can you develop on that? Do you think people are just happy with Microsoft Office 2011? Or do you think that Mac users just don't need a real office suite?

I've talked to a friend a week ago or so. He told me that he had bought a MacBook and he regretted the purchase. He told me that he bought Microsoft Office 2011, but felt it was much inferior than the Windows version, and that he was not willing to use Parallels Desktop or some other virtualization tool so he could use Windows+Office inside the Mac OS. I told him nothing, but sometimes I feel very much the same.

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I'm sure it's coming along with a substantial update to the iOS versions. Getting iCloud done right has to be of prime importance.

Keynote could definitely utilize some of the advancements in Audio and Video handling as well.

I think we'll have it this summer and I hope Apple is aggressive. At this long of a wait I want iWork 12 to catch up and push the edge.

I hope so. If I don't get a good office suite to use on my Mac, I may go back to Windows. Mac OS is great, but I just can't do without a good office solution. And Microsoft will not make a good office app for Mac...

 

[jackc]

Why? Can you develop on that? Do you think people are just happy with Microsoft Office 2011? Or do you think that Mac users just don't need a real office suite?

I think Office for Mac is usable, and many people (myself included) must use it at least to some extent for compatibility. Believe me, I'd prefer a more powerful iWork. But for me it's not a deal-breaker in terms of staying with a Mac.

 

[skaertus]

I think Office for Mac is usable, and many people (myself included) must use it at least to some extent for compatibility. Believe me, I'd prefer a more powerful iWork. But for me it's not a deal-breaker in terms of staying with a Mac.

I find Microsoft Office 2011 usable. But "usable" does not mean good.

Microsoft Word 2010 (for Windows) consumes no more than 50 MB of RAM to run; Microsoft Word 2011 (for Mac) eats up more than 150 MB, and it is much slower. But at least it is usable.

About two weeks ago, I tried to use PowerPoint 2011 to create a few slides for a class I had to present. Well, this crappy piece of software kept crashing. It freezed all the time, and, at one point, it kept frozen for at least half an hour - no joking here. I had no choice but to switch to Windows. When I used PowerPoint 2010 to create my presentation, it was ready in about twenty minutes - and I couldn't create two slides in forty minutes while I was using PowerPoint 2011.

It bothers me a lot not to have a decent office suite for Mac. Hats off to Microsoft for creating Office 2010 for Windows, which is just great. But Office 2011 for Mac is crap. I've not yet decided if the absence of a decent office solution is a deal-breaker for me, but it probably is. I'm just not getting my work done with a Mac because of this.

Have you ever known somebody which went back to Windows because of Office? Or is it just me?