iWork for iCloud Gets Minor Update, Will Remember Last Used Settings

[IJ Reilly]

The truth is it didn't.

No support (or equivalent in this case) for VBA macros (Swift should come rescue us), no pivot tables (!!!), a lack of versatility regarding the styles, a lack of user-friendly mathematical formulas built-in in Pages (it's already in Apple's Grapher, why not in Pages ?), the absence of many important mathematical functions in Numbers, the absence of many graph types, the lack of compatibility with other apps, the lack of collaborative work, a lack of synthax analysis (at least in French), ... too many elements where Word and Excel... well, excel over Pages and Numbers.

If you need any or all of these relatively obscure features, sure. The workflow I was able to establish with Pages is second to none in my experience. Sadly Apple decided to delete many of the features of Pages that beat Word cold. They seem unlikely to return.

Compatibility has never been a problem for me.

 

[PsykX]

If you need any or all of these relatively obscure features, sure. The workflow I was able to establish with Pages is second to none in my experience. Sadly Apple decided to delete many of the features of Pages that beat Word cold. They seem unlikely to return.

Compatibility has never been a problem for me.

Yes I need all of them, I work in engineering and exploit Office as much as I can.

While iWork may be a good suite for the average Joe, it's completely laughable in engineering. A lot of elements that I've mentioned are advanced, but they're far from being obscure.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Yes I need all of them, I work in engineering and exploit Office as much as I can.

While iWork may be a good suite for the average Joe, it's completely laughable in engineering. A lot of elements that I've mentioned are advanced, but they're far from being obscure.

So to you the world is divided into engineers and Average Joes? If that's really what you meant, then you need to get out more often.

 

[PsykX]

So to you the world is divided into engineers and Average Joes? If that's really what you meant, then you need to get out more often.

Let me make myself clear here : a lot of professionals will require Office, as iWork does not meet their minimum requirements for a few reasons. Just the lack of Pivot Tables in Numbers itself is a complete deal breaker for most people, even if the app is free on some platforms.

It's so sad because Apple is one if not the most valued company in the world - if I were Tim Cook I'd inject way much more money in iWork and create a permanent team to rollout big features all the time. We've been let down for 5 consecutive years with just minor updates to iWork '09. It's as if the iWork team worked on it 8 hours a week. Microsoft Office is a product that has stagnated in the last 4-7 years. It was the perfect timing to crush them.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Let me make myself clear here : a lot of professionals will require Office, as iWork does not meet their minimum requirements for a few reasons. Just the lack of Pivot Tables in Numbers itself is a complete deal breaker for most people, even if the app is free on some platforms.

It's so sad because Apple is one if not the most valued company in the world - if I were Tim Cook I'd inject way much more money in iWork and create a permanent team to rollout big features all the time. We've been let down for 5 consecutive years with just minor updates to iWork '09. It's as if the iWork team worked on it 8 hours a week. Microsoft Office is a product that has stagnated in the last 4-7 years. It was the perfect timing to crush them.

This is a different argument. You say you need specific features of Office for your work, and that's just fine. I will never argue against that point. But what I will argue against is the concept that your (or anyone's) needs are anywhere close to universal.

I see Excel spreadsheets all the time, but I can't remember the last time I saw one that included even a single calculation. My judgement based on long experience is that the vast majority of Office users treat Excel as a glorified table-maker. Massive overkill. And the main reason why this happens is because virtually every Windows PC sold has Office preinstalled, so I'd say easily hundreds of millions of PC owners use it by default and never consider any alternative, even though their needs are far less technical than yours.

I really liked Apple's direction on iWork through the '09 version, and I didn't mind so much the only minor updates we were getting for five years. What I do mind a whole lot is their going backwards with the current version, and I am afraid that the 4.1 version of Pages that I rely upon utterly for my workflow will be EOL one of these days without Apple releasing an equally capable version to replace it.

 

[sracer]

I really liked Apple's direction on iWork through the '09 version, and I didn't mind so much the only minor updates we were getting for five years. What I do mind a whole lot is their going backwards with the current version, and I am afraid that the 4.1 version of Pages that I rely upon utterly for my workflow will be EOL one of these days without Apple releasing an equally capable version to replace it.

That is my concern as well. I have Office:Mac for those things that require it, but I much prefer iWork. But then again I was one of those oddballs who used every version of ClarisWorks and AppleWorks on Windows.

 

[IJ Reilly]

That is my concern as well. I have Office:Mac for those things that require it, but I much prefer iWork. But then again I was one of those oddballs who used every version of ClarisWorks and AppleWorks on Windows.

Our word processor migration over the last 25 years has been WriteNow -> ClarisWorks -> AppleWorks -> Pages. Unfortunately this has stranded a lot of old documents in formats that their successors do not open. I really don't want to go through this again.

 

[sracer]

Our word processor migration over the last 25 years has been WriteNow -> ClarisWorks -> AppleWorks -> Pages. Unfortunately this has stranded a lot of old documents in formats that their successors do not open. I really don't want to go through this again.

I'm in the same boat. I have found that LibreOffice (open source office suite based on OpenOffice) reads .cwk files very well. I'm going through my old docs and converting them.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm in the same boat. I have found that LibreOffice (open source office suite based on OpenOffice) reads .cwk files very well. I'm going through my old docs and converting them.

I will check into that. Thanks for the suggestion. If I could only find one that reads WriteNow...

 

[Mike MA]

The lead article is misleading, having emailed the editor, it has still not been updated, not sure why....

Because he's having a different opinion on that?