Deafening Silence about iLife & iWork 06...

[Diomedes]

With all the rumors about dual-core Intel Macs next week, I haven't heard anything about updates to iLife or iWork. The latter in particular, has kind of languished since introduction. I was hoping Apple would sort of resurrect PageMaker with Pages. There is a huge niche, particularly for small-businesses, who could use fairly powerful but "easy" layout tools. My partner runs a business whose main commodity is research, and they've been frustrated by Word's "layout" tools (this applies to Windows and Mac). InDesign is too complex, too expensive, and too steep a learning curve for their needs. If Pages could take up where PageMaker left off, and Keynote could be an "addition" to PowerPoint (for example, using Keynote to create more sophisticated graphics), I think they would have a winner. Yes, I know Keynote can substitute for PowerPoint, but let's face it: people will always want to stick with what they know. Even a giant like IBM couldn't pry its customers away from Microsoft: for years, they distributed their presentations and slide template in Freelance (I know, because I gave presentations where I had to wrestle the Freelance file into PowerPoint).

I was actually hoping Apple would take FreeHand and Fireworks from Adobe-Macromedia and turn those apps into a mid-range graphic/layout/image editing suite. I really like Fireworks — it's a great tool to have when you want to combine vector and bitmap without the overhead of Illustrator & Photoshop.

And what of iLife? There's lots of room for improvement in the suite. While it certainly integrates better than its Windows döpplegangers, they still have an amateurish feeling to them. Apple should give them a make-over so that they are the equivalent of any comparable mid-range Windows applications. As has been alluded to in another thread, iPhoto needs some serious file management overhaul. I'd say leave the heavy lifting to Adobe, and concentrate on ways of managing all those pictures. And how about tighter integration with iMovie for movies that come from digicams? I have a Canon S2 that is capable of taking video at 30-fps, for several minutes. Right now, iPhoto just dumps them into the library, and launches QuickTime to view them. I'd like some options to jump right to iMovie, and have some effects or themes suited for MPEG-4 video.

OK, enough of my rant...lol. Regardless, I am very excited about next week.

Mr. Jobs: what I REALLY want is an 80 or 100 Gb iPod!!!

 

[Macmaniac]

iWork basically came out and flopped, Apple should have been smart and actually made it a full office suite instead of releasing only 2 programs as a part of it. At the store I work for we have only sold 1 copy of iWork vs the 50 copies of MS Office, I would still take Office any day.

 

[iDM]

I have to admit i have not used iwork but since i am a recent graduate(i.e. i will not be getting free office updates anymore) in the future I will need to get my office suite upgrades and I'll probably go the Apple route since the only error messages i get anymore are from Microsoft Office '04. However if they do not offer a reasonable figures or numbers program like excel then the suite will have lost 1/2 of its entire functionality to me.

I disagree a little with your ilife comment. I love '05 as it is except for iphoto. It did get much better in my opinion from iphoto 4 with the new books, editing tools, printing options, ratings, and search. However i still think work can be done to make it's file organization better. I think i would have about 1/50th the number of folders i have now if it wasn't for iphoto and itunes. Also my other little concern is with the editing tool. I still think iphoto lacks some editing features that are offered by programs like adobe elements or picassa. I however will always be an iphoto user because of the seemless integration with printing, burning, copying, emailing and hopefully the editing tools in upcoming versions.

 

[EGT]

Steve will probably start off with the success of Apple over the last few quarters. What the new iPod has done for shareholders, etc. Then iLife 06 will take up a lot of the Keynote. New features, iTunes with more video content, folders show up on iPods like iTunes (come on, Apple!!!), updated Shuffles. "Isn't it great?" Talk some more about other software (Asteroid?). Probably something else we don't know about.

"One More Thing" being the first Intel portables. And I want to see some melodramatic behavior from the front row.

*Excited shiver* 5 DAYS!

 

[Diomedes]

Well...true, iLife 05 is a big step up from '04, but still not as good as Apple could be. Yes, I remember wowing while Apple showed it off at MWSF 05, but it could be a whole lot better. Again, even improvements in how it handles files would make it superior.

Maybe Apple is readying "Aperture Express" for power iPhoto users. The little I have physically seen of Aperture (in terms of file management and workflow) screams to be adapted to iPhoto. And it would address some of the little annoyances and quirks of iPhoto. For example, when I want to publish recent photos quickly, iPhoto does a good job. But it could add something simple, like removing the generic file names from being displayed on the site (I use .Mac, and whenever I post a new page, I have to manually edit or delete the IMGxxx.jpg file names.) A little workflow improvement (and even better integration with iMovie) would make it shine.

I don't know what your major or line of work in, but you will be in for a shock if you think Pages can be used in a cross-platform world, especially if you don't know what your audience may be using. Pages GENERALLY can handle Word files well, but I have just as many instances where it failed. You may find yourself re-opening, editing, and exporting your Pages document and realize Word is the better tool.

I am no advocate of one or another; it's a matter of using the best tool for the job. I use Acrobat Professional every day; however, do I think every print job necessitates opening Acrobat, waiting for the Adobe printer, etc, when Apple's PDF engine will do? Nope. I use the OS X PDF engine almost as much as I use Acrobat for conversion of source documents. I can then use Acrobat to upgrade the PDF version to incorporate accessibility tags, multimedia, etc.

Likewise, if I don't have Word open, I am not going to launch it to read an 8K RTF file. In my line of work, my Mac will be tied to my Windows machine; until the day I can truly compose and send a long Word document with "Track Changes" on and some formatting (for flair) from my Mac to a PC user and not have to make the obligatory phone call ("Did you get it OK"?), or have users wonder why it reflows and adds or subtracts pages. Office for Mac and Office for Windows can't do that now, but I have more confidence that, if I send a Windows user a 100 page white paper for comments, they'll have no problems with opening it.

If you can use iWork exclusively, then more power to you! But love it or hate it, the Mac needs Office. The Intel transition will only make that more apparent; I'll be willing to bet there will be a surge of PowerMac and PowerBook purchases when Office 12 is released. (And this will probably be the most-anticipated version ever, with its promise of universal XML file format and native PDF conversion. From what I've seen on Windows, this might be the most Mac-friendly Office ever!)

 

[OldCorpse]

With all the rumors about dual-core Intel Macs next week, I haven't heard anything about updates to iLife or iWork. The latter in particular, has kind of languished since introduction. I was hoping Apple would sort of resurrect PageMaker with Pages. There is a huge niche, particularly for small-businesses, who could use fairly powerful but "easy" layout tools.

And what of iLife? There's lots of room for improvement in the suite. While it certainly integrates better than its Windows döpplegangers, they still have an amateurish feeling to them. Apple should give them a make-over so that they are the equivalent of any comparable mid-range Windows applications. As has been alluded to in another thread, iPhoto needs some serious file management overhaul. I'd say leave the heavy lifting to Adobe, and concentrate on ways of managing all those pictures. And how about tighter integration with iMovie for movies that come from digicams? I have a Canon S2 that is capable of taking video at 30-fps, for several minutes. Right now, iPhoto just dumps them into the library, and launches QuickTime to view them. I'd like some options to jump right to iMovie, and have some effects or themes suited for MPEG-4 video.

OK, enough of my rant...lol. Regardless, I am very excited about next week.

Mr. Jobs: what I REALLY want is an 80 or 100 Gb iPod!!!

Couldn't agree more. I'm a switcher since 2 weeks (new iBook), and I've consciously stayed away from PCs, to try to live exclusively an Apple existance. Well, there's inevitable adjustment, and different doesn't mean worse/better, but in some instances Apple offerings are just weak. iPhoto is one... on my PC I used the wonderful free irfanview, and frankly, iPhoto has far to go to come anywhere close... batch resizing to my exact specifications f.ex. is totally not possible in iPhoto, in general I find the integration a bit of a mixed blessing - what if I don't want to set up Mail... well, that means some things are much more awkward to do in iPhoto etc.

So, I'm lookig forward to iLife06, completely confident that they'll get it right... and I'm cheering on iWork, though if you follow office suite type software development (KOffice, office.org, abiword, star etc.), you gain a lot of respect for just how huge a job it is... so I'm cutting Apple a lot of slack and giving them a lot of kudos for what they've done so far (inadequate as it may be as a full-on competitor to MSOffice). There's no magic. It'll take a lot of time to make iWork better overall than the competition... and the competition has had a lot more time to work.... of course, Apple can be pretty fast... konqueror was started way earlier than Safari, but Safari has more than caught up (thanks to the konqi engine )

Oh, and I agree w/ you 100% on the iPod... see my sig .

 

[TheMac19]

Just a quick off-topic sidenote. The mac doesn't necessarily need MS Office per se. NeoOffice handles nearly everything Office does just fine, and it's free, and moving forward rapidly. After my Microsoft Office caused me major headaches when writing a 30-page paper with a few photos in it (it simply wouldn't let me add my 5th or 6th photo, without turning my paper into a 60,000+ page garbled mess...). I did a lot of research and went to NeoOffice (then NeoOffice/J). I just completed my 100-page thesis, using exclusively NeoOffice, and with quite complex formatting. I regularly had to open it in Word for printing, showing to colleagues, etc and had almost no problems at all. Great office suite, and FREE, free, free. I also use it for medium-weight Excel spreadsheet work without problems. Granted it doesn't look as gooey as MS office yet, but it's come a long way even in my 8 months of use. Still the biggest thing against it in my opinion is that it takes about almost a minute to start up, which doesn't look too smooth, but once up, it's fine, even with massive documents. It's a great at what it needs to do, and compatible back and forth with word - just doesn't look as fancy. And not too sure about templates either, as I generally don't use them.

I tried and tried to use Pages, but it just really didn't suit my need of writing long papers with loads of endnotes and footnotes. It is nice to make flyers and such, and great to pump out a quick business letter or something, but it seems to me like it's not really quite ready to do full time work as a word processor. I would love to see Apple up the ante this year and revamp iWork, so we'll see!

Sorry about the hair off topic, but with all this Office speak going on, I had to mention it!

 

[ruzzian]

Quark? Its the most professional layout application. Big Industry yes yes for me personally, dunno if it suits your needs but it is worth getting and learning. I might have missed someone already saying this, sorry if it has. Quark is a bit of a pain to learn but its really good. Better than InDesign.

 

[decksnap]

Indesign and Fireworks are not 'mid-range' graphic applications. They are top of the line professional design applications. These would have to be seriously dumbed down and simplified to be consumer applications. Seldom is a job completed with just Fireworks, or just Indesign. This is why they are sold in suites with other bread & butter pro design apps. The learning curve would be huge.

Edit- you said Freehand, not Indesign. Either way, same story.