iLife and iWork '06? Front Row?

[Bern]

I always update iLife every year, but having a remote doesn't really press my buttons. I'd be looking for some significant changes/improvements to iMovie, iPhoto or iDVD (if that's possible).

I had iWork but sold it as it really didn't offer anything great, however I suspect next year's release may see Pages evolve further so may consider it.

 

[kwajo.com]

Im the only person who likes using Pages?

I find it a pleasure to use.....

nope, I enjoy it too. I use it for all my academic use, works great and I feel confident in it day in and day out. can't wait for version 2!

 

[Project]

iPhoto could learn a lot from Picasa. Thats a very fine app.

Whats worse is Picasa is free. Hopefully Apple can supercharge iPhoto with some Aperture lovin

 

[hyperpasta]

Im the only person who likes using Pages?

I find it a pleasure to use.....

Me too. It just works, and its so slick.

 

[Dm84]

With that said I would like to point out what seems to be a major flaw in Pages. The absence of an automatic save. MS Word has this feature, and when you live in a rural area where the power flickers on and off because of the local mill you really need that feature.

You need to buy a UPS if you have an unstable power delivery system where you live. In fact everyone should have a UPS whether that's a concern or not, because you never know when the power will go out.

 

[ctachme]

Yes, you can. But Apple's remote is $29 and we all know that we pay for the Apple logo and their great sense of style. I think that (if the rumor is true) it can be pretty much taken that it will be a Bluetooth remote.

For me, the interesting question is whether this new Bluetooth remote will have a proper scrollwheel - it would give iMac+iSight owners a reason to upgrade

If it did have a clickwheel, that might be something that is worth the $50. Franlky, I thought it should have had that to start out with. It was a wonderful innovation for the iPod, why not include it on other things. If it was that and bluetooth, then yes, it would be a good $50. But otherwise if they just toss in the 6-button thing they have now... absoultly not worth it.

 

[qtip919]

iwork really needs a complete positioning change

First of all, iwork needs to encompass a much larger solution than something that competes with Word and Excel. As much as I hate to admit it, beating office is a near impossibility due to enterprise sales agreements. Even IF Apple was able to beat home sales of Office for end-users it would be almost meaningless because of the widespread use of Office in the workplace. Everyone knows word, and word does not suffer from the terrrors of Windows instability. Word works just fine for about 99.9% of users even if it sucks.

Also, beating Excel is alot more difficult than people realize...first, you would need to come up with something that beats Access and SQL and Excel's tight integration with both of those apps, then you would be getting somewhere...

So, Apple needs to redefine what iwork should really mean. By that, I mean iwork should be positioned with all the real tools necessary to do your daily work. This includes email, calendar, communications and lastly, development (ie, pages, keynote, etc or Final Cut Studio + Appeture, or Dev environment, etc..)

Mail, calendar and Address book, ichat, etc. are VERY loosely tied together and need to be closely positioned to each other to provide a real competitor to Outlook ... which is by far the standard to which all groupware are measured. I cant believe M$ is still winning in this space with the vomit that is Outlook.

After that, the iwork suite needs to be closely tied to the groupware solution so that your work is tied to your communication. Its just a plain fact that in the corporate world your communication is tied around projects and work. If you could bring relevance to your communication through the work you are doing, you could see some interesting capabilities. Entourage tries to do this through "projects" but it doesnt really come off too good.

 

[D3LM3L]

I bet that Front Row package will come similar to the way the new iPods come... a nice trasparent cover, covering the remote, and all software on the other side.

Front Row 2 better work with the IR remote!! I have one and it's a waste of money to go spend another $50 and have an extra remote...

 

[Project]

iwork really needs a complete positioning change

First of all, iwork needs to encompass a much larger solution than something that competes with Word and Excel. As much as I hate to admit it, beating office is a near impossibility due to enterprise sales agreements. Even IF Apple was able to beat home sales of Office for end-users it would be almost meaningless because of the widespread use of Office in the workplace. Everyone knows word, and word does not suffer from the terrrors of Windows instability. Word works just fine for about 99.9% of users even if it sucks.

Also, beating Excel is alot more difficult than people realize...first, you would need to come up with something that beats Access and SQL and Excel's tight integration with both of those apps, then you would be getting somewhere...

So, Apple needs to redefine what iwork should really mean. By that, I mean iwork should be positioned with all the real tools necessary to do your daily work. This includes email, calendar, communications and lastly, development (ie, pages, keynote, etc or Final Cut Studio + Appeture, or Dev environment, etc..)

Mail, calendar and Address book, ichat, etc. are VERY loosely tied together and need to be closely positioned to each other to provide a real competitor to Outlook ... which is by far the standard to which all groupware are measured. I cant believe M$ is still winning in this space with the vomit that is Outlook.

After that, the iwork suite needs to be closely tied to the groupware solution so that your work is tied to your communication. Its just a plain fact that in the corporate world your communication is tied around projects and work. If you could bring relevance to your communication through the work you are doing, you could see some interesting capabilities. Entourage tries to do this through "projects" but it doesnt really come off too good.

I completely agree. I dont know about anybody else but I really want iWork to be somewhat of a success and a credible productivity suite. Of course, I dont expect mass corporate penetration of the product, but it would be nice to see a lot more Mac users using it.

I think differentiation is the key here, as you rightly pointed out. There are a ton of word processors out there, and a lot of suites. Yet overall, they are all still doing the same things that Word and Star Office etc did all those years ago. MS to some degree is trying to change the way we use them with the huge UI change in Office 12, but I feel theres a ton of innovation still to be had from these suites.

Following on from your groupware comments, perhaps a lot of ideas could be taken from Groove Networks. http://www.groove.net/home/index.cfm

And in response to your point about the whole comms package, would you take the existing Mail/iCal/Address Book apps and place them into iWork, but more integrated or was you referring to something else?

 

[IJ Reilly]

Me too. It just works, and its so slick.

Likewise. Pages is very good for a 1.0 version, with plenty of room to grow and gain refinements. Why so many people beat up on Pages is a mystery to me. Maybe they were hoping for a Word clone, or something scary and redundant like that.

 

[jsalzer]

iWork and AppleWorks

Another Pages fan here. Once they added the page thumbnails, I was head over heals in love. I just sent the printer my third catalog made on Pages (PageMaker has been removed entirely from my work computer).

I have a few minor gripes, such as wanting the ability to "attach" the Inspector (I'm not a palette fan - I tire easily of having to keep moving them around) and the ability to change some defaults via preferences (who chose those defaults, anyways?). But, overall, I think it has its perfect nitch. It makes a nice, simple word processor if that's what you want. And it makes a powerful desktop publisher - thanks to the acceptance of high-quality PDF's by printing presses.

That said, AppleWorks is still a tool I rely on. Which is scary, considering it won't make the jump to Intel. My vote:

1. Continue working on Pages in the direction it's headed. Focus on things that were lost from CW/AW (such as the ability to manipulate a large variety of gradients (starburst, etc.), to make polygons, to make arcs, etc.

2. Tie in a 2-dimensional FileMaker Lite. That's all the average Joe needs and can handle. If they need more, it'll be an easy learning curve to FMPro. Hello - cross promotion. Get them hooked here, and then real them into FMPro (though FMPro needs a real GUI makeover, despite its recent incredible recent advances). Who's your parent company again? And, of course, we need to be able to tap into the database via mail merge options in Pages (with the ease of use in CW/AW).

3. Spreadsheet - doesn't need to be amazing - but it also has to allow for spreadsheet frames to be added to Pages.

Keep up the good work, Apple!

 

[Alasta]

I'll buy iWork as soon as they add a spreadsheet, but not before.

Appleworks has all the functionality I need for home use, but it's starting to feel a bit dated and I'd really like to finally put it to rest.

 

[syklee26]

Pages as classnote taker

how is Pages as a class note taking program? I kinda like M$'s onenote and I really like office's notebook layout view.

nobody ever talks about the Pages as a classnote taker....can anyone tell me if it is worth getting for notetaking?

 

[jsalzer]

Pages for Notes

how is Pages as a class note taking program? I kinda like M$'s onenote and I really like office's notebook layout view.

nobody ever talks about the Pages as a classnote taker....can anyone tell me if it is worth getting for notetaking?

As much as I like Pages, I wouldn't use it for this.

1) The Outline function is still a bit buggy.

2) Depending on your processor, it may run slow. Pages is overkill for simple typing.

3) OK - I'm still stuck on why anyone would take notes this way. Writing does much more to aid in your memory, and the pages actually look different. I can't imagine studying typed pages.

Says the guy whose handwriting hasn't seen the light of day in years.

 

[themacman]

i have iwork 05, but i dont have much expiernce with keynote, i haved used pages a couple times and thought it was okay, but it needs to have a better blank document feature like word has. Plus a easy to use spereadsheet would be great too, and a graphing calculator built in.

 

[IJ Reilly]

i have iwork 05, but i dont have much expiernce with keynote, i haved used pages a couple times and thought it was okay, but it needs to have a better blank document feature like word has. Plus a easy to use spereadsheet would be great too, and a graphing calculator built in.

What do you mean by a "blank document feature?" You can start with any kind of document you like, including blank.

 

[bousozoku]

Likewise. Pages is very good for a 1.0 version, with plenty of room to grow and gain refinements. Why so many people beat up on Pages is a mystery to me. Maybe they were hoping for a Word clone, or something scary and redundant like that.

It's a scary thought.

Word is a really bad word processing application to emulate. It's not good at what should be the core of its existance. Once you get past simple letter writing, the Intellisense overwhelms you with help, but typical functionality fails to function.

I wish we still had WAV, from the OpenDoc days. It was quite a capable document processor and the integration was amazing--probably better than Apple could do. WP had some amazing Macintosh application developers before they let them all go.

 

[sord]

Well, regardless when, I can't wait to preorder my copies of iLife 06 and the next iWork!

 

[GregA]

I find that I can do pretty much everything I need (except for spreadsheet stuff of course) in iWork as it is.

Improvements to Pages will probably make some of the things I do easier. And of course a spreadsheet program would be nice.

Filemaker Pro offers importing of Excel spreadsheets etc. Rather than a spreadsheet, I'd like a Filemaker Lite that replaces Appleworks' database AND can be used as a simple spreadsheet. I don't really see the need for 2 separate apps... but that may just be me.

Oh... and a WEB DEVELOPMENT app

For me iLlife 06 will need something more to really put it over the must buy line. Maybe a new iSight with HD that comes bundled with the remote might do it if iLife 06 provides a bunch of upgradd support and new video features.

There are some really interesting possibilities, I think. For instance, at the moment you can have a slideshow with some movie clips integrated, OR a movie with slideshows integrated - they look very similar and these 2 concepts should be able to merge extensively. A movie is just a series of clips really, which you may add a soundtrack too.

Another place Apple could do something really different is merging iDVD with Quicktime creation, and web publishing. I mean, with a DVD you are taking your movies or slideshows and making a nice opening screen with buttons to get to them. With a website, you are doing the same thing - why not make a DVD which you can "share to the web"?

Greg
ps. I really like the idea someone had of merging iWork with all sorts of workflow, calendar, address book integration.

 

[eXan]

I think if Apple have continued to develop iWork, it could be shaping up into an excellent suite. The addition of some kind of spreadsheet program and upgrades to Pages and with Keynote being awesome as it is, I think it could become a viable (and cheaper) alternative for the common user as opposed to Office.

I also hope that iLife shows some surprising updates, just to keep things fresh and interesting.

Yes iWork is a pretty nice suit, I use Pages all the time instead of MS Word and love it much more! Keynote is also great, but I dont have any use to it.

If Front Row will be in iLife 06, how would Remote work with other Mac (not only iMac X600)? Maybe they'll make it Bluetooth?

 

[johnnyjibbs]

Oh come on, like no-one was expecting there to be an iLife and iWork '06!

Front row sounds interesting, although it will be of limited use on my 12" PB and I'm sure they'll find a way of ripping us off for the remote in the UK.

 

[Will Cheyney]

If they're are going to be releasing Front Row for 'all Macs' how is the remote doing to function with, say, a PowerBook or Power Mac? Will they make a Bluetooth model? (I don't understand why they didn't use this in the first place).

 

[cleanup]

iWork REALLY REALLY needs to have multiligual support. Sure, it can do lots of stuff for most users, but for us right-to-left language users (like myself, writing in hebrew), pages is worthless. The support for right-to-left text is terrble. It's also impossible to import hebrew-written word documents properly. Apple really needs to learn alot from Microsoft when it comes to universal languages support. They are such a great company. If you are writing in English or spanish, that is.

Word for Mac doesn't link Hebrew or Arabic characters probably either.

Try Mellel.

 

[mdavey]

Will they make a Bluetooth model?

Yes.

I don't understand why they didn't use this in the first place.

Because the Bluetooth model costs more to make. They'll include the IR model with the machines and probably call the Bluetooth model something like 'Apple Remote Pro'. Just like the wireless keyboard and the wireless mouse (and the wireless MightyMouse if it ever appears), they'll keep the Bluetooth model as an accessory only. As I've said elsewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bluetooth model has a clickwheel.

 

[Will Cheyney]

Yes.


Because the Bluetooth model costs more to make. They'll include the IR model with the machines and probably call the Bluetooth model something like 'Apple Remote Pro'. Just like the wireless keyboard and the wireless mouse (and the wireless MightyMouse if it ever appears), they'll keep the Bluetooth model as an accessory only. As I've said elsewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if the Bluetooth model has a clickwheel.

Yay! Here's hoping.