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iWork for iCloud Beta Apps Now Accessible Without an Apple Device
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I agree with you about Pages, but Numbers - when I said I was trying to make a very simple spreadsheet, I meant it. Not fit for purpose in any shape or form.
And that's why we have choices. Some things free are living perfection and some other things need to be paid for in order to get living perfection.
Thinking back to iDisk this has been a long project. And those deal-breaking bugs are just the kinds of thing that (to my uneducated outside eye) seem to have taken a long time to work out.
I'm generally happy with what apple offers in the area. More storage would be nice but I'd say that at any level.
Laughable
Ok, Apple needs to stop putting RnD into this product. It is wasting time. I have MSFT 365 and it works pretty good. I have tried to make iWork work for me and it doesn't. Business documents and spreadsheets have been pretty much perfected by MSFT and Apple won't be able to touch. That is being said by and Apple fanboy (me).
Ok, Apple needs to stop putting RnD into this product. It is wasting time. I have MSFT 365 and it works pretty good. I have tried to make iWork work for me and it doesn't. Business documents and spreadsheets have been pretty much perfected by MSFT and Apple won't be able to touch. That is being said by and Apple fanboy (me).
And it screws Microsoft as I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't need all of the features in Office and a suite like this will work just fine with them. I'm assuming this has the same features as the Mac/iOS versions? I wonder If Photos will go there eventually too ?
Have you tried to use Excel lately? It's beyond cumbersome. It's inscrutable. Numbers is extremely intuitive in comparison.
Practically speaking, people outside of the iCloud arena may want to be able to edit documents that people IN the iCloud arena are working on. I work in a creative environment where we support both Pcs and Macs. I can't tell you how many times a day the PC users are asking if they can get Keynote installed on their machines. Since Apple doesn't offer Keynote for Pcs, this is an ideal situation. Now these users will be able to work on/share documents with the creative teams working on these applications.
I think you've missed the point. First of all, the productivity suite is more than powerful enough for the vast majority of users, and 1GB allows these users to give the software an initial test drive. They can easily get more storage if they decide to use it.
Not for everyone - but good enough for most
Apple's iWork suite isn't going to suit everyone. You are always going to have your number crunchers that are going to need to do pivot tables, etc. As far as the difference between what MS (or even Google for that matter) offers, there will never be a comparison. I think what Apple offers in their software suite is good enough for the vast majority of users. Again, there will always be outliers on both sides. For me, I use Excel when I need to do spreadsheets because I have been working in Excel for years and it is just easier and more efficient for me to do so. That said, when you compare Pages and Keynote to anyone else's offerings there is simply no comparison for me. The control you have over pages very much reflects the kind of control you had in Quark V3.31... the best version of Quark ever made... and let's not even get started on the differences between Keynote and PowerPoint. I left PowerPoint the week after they introduced Keynote and just never looked back. I feel that product is extremely strongif not stronger than what MS themselves puts out.
A very large swath of users I come across in a day don't even know what a pivot table is, let alone how to create one. And the Word users I run into really want nothing more than a text editing application. They aren't doing complex edits with 10 or more approvers etc. Even more so - at the end of the day - just about NOBODY knows how to use either Keynote or Powerpoint, and when you mention them they start to sweat profusely. So, I think Apple has done a great job for the masses. I think their stuff works for just about everyone who needs a word processor, spreadsheet generator or presentation software. For those other users I'd say use the appropriate tool to do the appropriate job.
Apple's iWork suite isn't going to suit everyone. You are always going to have your number crunchers that are going to need to do pivot tables, etc. As far as the difference between what MS (or even Google for that matter) offers, there will never be a comparison. I think what Apple offers in their software suite is good enough for the vast majority of users. Again, there will always be outliers on both sides. For me, I use Excel when I need to do spreadsheets because I have been working in Excel for years and it is just easier and more efficient for me to do so. That said, when you compare Pages and Keynote to anyone else's offerings there is simply no comparison for me. The control you have over pages very much reflects the kind of control you had in Quark V3.31... the best version of Quark ever made... and let's not even get started on the differences between Keynote and PowerPoint. I left PowerPoint the week after they introduced Keynote and just never looked back. I feel that product is extremely strongif not stronger than what MS themselves puts out.
A very large swath of users I come across in a day don't even know what a pivot table is, let alone how to create one. And the Word users I run into really want nothing more than a text editing application. They aren't doing complex edits with 10 or more approvers etc. Even more so - at the end of the day - just about NOBODY knows how to use either Keynote or Powerpoint, and when you mention them they start to sweat profusely. So, I think Apple has done a great job for the masses. I think their stuff works for just about everyone who needs a word processor, spreadsheet generator or presentation software. For those other users I'd say use the appropriate tool to do the appropriate job.
Free? There's no charges for getting and using Microsoft Office? I thought there was an annual fee for the new Office.
Yes, I have, and it also is getting very cumbersome and unintuitive, I agree. But Apple's UI is normally much better than this and it's not good enough. Best they don't bother if they will not put the effort in. However, Pages and Keynote are much better, just not Numbers.
You are part of the relatively few that need and use the powerful features in Word and Excel. We're trying to hire someone to manage our documents and spreadsheets, and can't find anyone that even knows how to use Word Styles, create macros, or do Pivot Tables. Most people don't ever need or use those features, so iWork is a great option for the masses. Just because it doesn't fit your needs doesn't make it a poor choice for the masses. In case you haven't noticed over the past few years, Apple has been focusing on making products that meet the needs of the masses, not the select top 10%rs.
MSFT Office 365 isn't free or even affordable for people that don't need it for serious business use. It's silly to say that Apple should stop production of iWork. It's just not for you and Office 365 isn't for everyone either.
or....spend the $0.99/month and get 20 GB
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They do offer it.
$0.99/month seems kinda cheap.
I really just want to be able to chose what shows in my icloud. I never use pages, numbers, or keynote.....let me delete them!
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seriously. That is cheap as hell compared to dropbox or box.
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seriously. That is cheap as hell compared to dropbox or box.
Am I missing something here? If you own Apple devices you already have access to iCloud. Those apps have been in there for a long time. So how does this change anything? confused. Also you can already share documents with non Apple users. http://help.apple.com/pages/icloud/1/#gil785102e55
"People you send the link to don’t need an iCloud account to view or edit the document."
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The big difference is all of your iTunes content is stored for free forever where where I would kill that hundred GB in just movies and TV shows
I could send native iWork files to anyone and they would be able to open and edit them just by creating an account.
Good points and choice is good. I use iWork for home stuff, and MS Office for work. Don't think I'd use iCloud unless I had invested in Apple hardware. IMHO, Microsoft and Google productivity software seem more popular for work.
Like you and several others have pointed out, some need to open iWork apps on other platforms. Something I hadn't thought of, all the companies I've worked for have standardized on MS Office.
Nice of Apple to offer it, and sounds like there are people who will use it.
Hmm, you just quoted two products that your company bought maybe 10 years ago (for XP) and possibly 7 years ago (for office 2007) as an example about why microsoft is going be fine.
I'm not saying that Microsoft is going out of business anytime soon or even in the next decade. Windows isn't going anywhere. But Microsoft is giving away Windows 10 to all of its customers who are running Windows 7 and 8. So I'm guessing the revenue from the Windows franchise is decreasing now and will decrease consistently in the years to come.
Office is great, but the Word processing programs being given away for free are okay. Email works fine on other systems than Outlook. How long will companies continue to buy this stuff? Does anyone buy it for home personal use anymore?
But just because Microsoft is going to continue, doesn't mean that it doesn't have huge and obvious issues. If Windows 10 is given away, will Windows 11 be priced high to capture huge revenue, or does this ratchet only go in one direction? I think it does. Google and Apple will never charge for an OS and I think that means Mcsft will soon struggle to charge for its OS. The Chromebooks are coming up, year after year, better and better from the bottom. The tablet OS (android and iOS) get stronger and stronger each year. The Mac owns the high end, non-corporate, non-gaming market.
Also will developers continue to make software for Windows? They don't for Windows Mobile. Many folks work on web software that is OS agnostic. Otherwise they seem to be focused on iOS Apps. Don't you think that trends is going to continue to accelerate?
Honest question, why do you think that Numbers is unintuitive? Where does it throw you off?
I find it really easy to use even for advanced documents. But I must admit that it is my daily workhorse and I'm probably not seeing it the way an occasional user does.