Do Mac Productivity apps have a Future?

[brdaykin]

Hi,

Just wondering today what you all think is the future of Keynote, Pages, and Numbers? Does anyone have any inside info on these as ongoing in the Mac universe? In the Sept 9 presentation, I was surprised at Microsoft being given the stage for Office on the Pro, and I wondered if others of you took that as an ominous signal for Pages etc.?

I'm of two minds. I like the programs personally and aesthetically in my work at home, but I don't see them being adopted in the workplace (although my professional sector is pretty narrow and doesn't really involve advertising or graphic design often (I'm in higher ed)), two areas I wonder might adopt these a bit more quickly in their IT systems which are likely to be more Mac-based?

This was just something I've been thinking about and I wondered if anyone else had similar thoughts?

Thanks. I love this site and turn frequently to the forums to troubleshoot.

brd

 

[dimme]

For years I have used Microsoft office on the mac. I took a look at the new 2016 version and was totally turned office. I always like the fact that office for the mac looked and acted like a mac program but the new version looks like they just ported the windows version to the mac. I do have pages and numbers but never really used them. I am thinking if my older office stops working because of OS updates I will be looking at Libreoffice, it works like a mac program and is free.

 

[firedept]

I wish Apple had not done and gone to Pages, Numbers & Keynote the strip down of the apps in the last major update. Personally it was the death of them to me. I always liked the apps before that and used them extensively. Now I barely open them. I think they are more designed for children now than adults.

Microsoft has a far better product and always will. This I believe is due to the time they actually spend developing their software. It is not free, but it is the most accepted software across the board by business. Just do not see it going anywhere soon. Especially with this new release.

 

[sracer]

Hi,

Just wondering today what you all think is the future of Keynote, Pages, and Numbers? Does anyone have any inside info on these as ongoing in the Mac universe? In the Sept 9 presentation, I was surprised at Microsoft being given the stage for Office on the Pro, and I wondered if others of you took that as an ominous signal for Pages etc.?

I'm of two minds. I like the programs personally and aesthetically in my work at home, but I don't see them being adopted in the workplace (although my professional sector is pretty narrow and doesn't really involve advertising or graphic design often (I'm in higher ed)), two areas I wonder might adopt these a bit more quickly in their IT systems which are likely to be more Mac-based?

This was just something I've been thinking about and I wondered if anyone else had similar thoughts?

Thanks. I love this site and turn frequently to the forums to troubleshoot.

brd

When Apple downgraded iWork after years of no updates, it was clear that Apple was sending the signal, "switch to something else". There are those of the Apple faithful who still believe that Apple will one day upgrade iWork to a level of functionality that was present in '09. That's not going to happen.

No inside information, but I will still continue to heavily use iWork '09 until there is a version of OSX that doesn't support it. I have spent extensive time with LibreOffice for Mac and have been able to reproduce important documents with advanced formatting from their original native Pages format. (Note this is a manual rework not an import/export deal)

When that day arrives, I'll be able to switch over to LibreOffice without too much of an effort. I won't be happy about it, but it will work.

All the while I still use MS Office... primarily for those times when I need to exchange Office documents with others who only have access to Office.

 

[Partron22]

I've moved to Libre Office. Intend to stay there.
There's always MS Office in a pinch.
Been burned too many times by Apple's document format changes and feature set reductions.
Their current mania for all things cloud doesn't help either.

 

[MLinneer]

In my circle, I'm the only Mac user I know. Everyone else is PC and uses Office or Google Docs (2 people I know), or LibreOffice (1 person). Office formats have become the biggest common denominator. Unfortunately, iWork usually butchers import/export of Office formats. MS has really done a great job building Office for Mac and iOS, matching most of the UI from Windows. I'm running Office 2016 on my Macs, my Windows PC, and my mobiles, and having a unified UI is really nice. Apple inviting them to demo Office on the iPad Pro tells me iWork will not see any major upgrades any time soon and why should it? Let MS spend the R&D money on apps while Apple concentrates on the hardware and the system software.

 

[newellj]

I don't use Office because I like it - I don't. I use it because all of the companies we interact with use it. The fact that Apple's productivity apps completely trash anything with more complicated formatting than a .txt file makes them unusable for me and a vast number of other people. But I think Apple itself provides the best clue: there is no Windows version of their productivity apps - that basically sums up Apple's expectations. They're a concession, not competition. As such, however, they probably do have a future, but only a limited future in terms of Apple's investment in continuing to develop them. If you're not trying to compete, you won't try and you won't be competitive.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Over the years, I have used OpenOffice, WordPad, MS Works, and very rarely MS Office. I let my brother use Pages for when he needs to write a paper, which I also used in high school and the start of college, and this one time I helped him put together something in Adobe Flash Professional to export out as a video.

The last professional letter I wrote was while sitting on the carpet with my iPad Mini and iA Writer.

In my case, there has been very little worry about how the work was done, but how the finished work was presented. And that still may be the case for a lot of people. When you need to type up a newsletter, do a flyer, etc, etc, you don't need a $100+ costing program to do it. It's the same argument people used to make when people would say Photoshop isn't suitable for graphics work that Fireworks did better. Well... Where's Fireworks now?

There was this interview with the CEO of Evernote awhile ago, and he was talking about how a lot of people use spreadsheets as lists. I'm not sure about Excel, but Numbers has a template especially for that sort of thing, and it works well. It also does simple math well. I don't need it to do much else, and most likely the majority of people who do use it over Excel are the same.

 

[Fishrrman]

sracer wrote above:
"There are those of the Apple faithful who still believe that Apple will one day upgrade iWork to a level of functionality that was present in '09. That's not going to happen."

iWork '09 still runs fine with El Capitan.

One just has to "step off the update carousel" and be happy with an "existing version" of software...

 

[sracer]

sracer wrote above:
"There are those of the Apple faithful who still believe that Apple will one day upgrade iWork to a level of functionality that was present in '09. That's not going to happen."

iWork '09 still runs fine with El Capitan.

One just has to "step off the update carousel" and be happy with an "existing version" of software...

Exactly. I'm delighted to hear that iWork 09 works well with El Cap. I'm on Mavericks and awaiting for news of compatibility with El Cap before upgrading. (I just need to make sure that other software that I use won't break).

 

[maflynn]

I've largely given up on apple's offerings. I think overall they're not as easy to use as MS Office, have less features and I have no idea what Apple will in the future, i.e., blow them up and start over yet again?