iWork Updates Now Available

[Lacero]

I noticed the page delete bug the first 10 minutes of using Pages. Suffice to say, I was disappointed with the program. Didn't QA catch this bug? OMG, Apple QC just plain sucks.

 

[bousozoku]

am I the only one that actually likes the OS X font palette? and I'm happy about the update, I've been trying to delete a page from a document since january

Thank goodness for the font palette. WYSIWYG display of typefaces in a menu is buggy at best. Besides, the menus didn't always display non-Roman characters correctly.

 

[Lacero]

I actually don't like the new font palette. I preferred the old Mac OS9 way of selecting font, BUT I don't like typeface displays in the drop down menus. That is one of my biggest pet peeves.

 

[xsedrinam]

I bought iWork for one reason...Keynote. I haven't even looked at Pages other than check out a template to see what it looked like in Word. Anyone know what the update does for Keynote? I'll probably do some catching up, tomorrow.
X

 

[JJTiger1]

I bought iWork for one reason...Keynote. I haven't even looked at Pages other than check out a template to see what it looked like in Word. Anyone know what the update does for Keynote? I'll probably do some catching up, tomorrow.
X

Keynote v1.1.1 is what I use. PowerPoint has not yet been relegated to yeoman service.

Keynote 2 can "mask" an image. Other applications call that "crop".
... not enough of an improvement to upgrade from Keynote v1.1.1 and be burdened with Pages.
... not enough of an improvement to abandon PowerPoint.

Apple should not have combined the two applications into the iWork Suite.

I also have no real need for Pages. I have MS Office for Mac.

And who says that there won't be another updater for iWork and iLife '05 to provide compatibility with Mac OS 10.4.0.

I'm gonna wait for Mac OS 10.4.2, iLife '06, and KeyNote version 3.1.

I'm gonna let the dust settle, and not impale myself onto the bleeding edge of the software.

 

[Decanus]

Thesaurus

Flash of inspiration -- how cool would it be for Apple to include a thesaurus in the operating system -- much like they do for spelling in Cocoa apps?

There is a thesaurus in 10.4 (Tiger).

 

[johnnyjibbs]

Keynote 2 performance has always been good on my machine (see sig for specs) but Pages is slow. This update seems to have improved something because I don't seem to get the beachball much now. (Pages always used to freeze for about 40 seconds when changing inspector pallet tabs just after launching the program, but that seems resolved to an extent now.) Sticking a photo from iPhoto in and resizing it with wrapping text is still dead slow though. But I don't use the app much anyway.

 

[~Shard~]

iWork is in its infancy. Look for major improvements and additions in iWork 2.0 (or whatever they call it). Keynote is great, but come on, 2 years without an update for... what exactly? Nothing mind-blowing.

I'll just be waiting until '06 before I consider buying this package. Great initiative on Apple's part, but I'm not going to pay for their growing pains right now.

 

[bentley]

good to see they are keeping on top of things.
iWork still isn't great. It doesn't work well enough of my friends machine for me to want to run out and buy it.

Perfectly happy with Office, especially with the new update.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Now if Pages can incorporate LaTeX as an optional backend they would have something very powerful.

LaTeX 3 is open for public testing and development. If Pages could leverage LaTeX and its DTP approach they would have something great.

 

[reviloPARK]

I found another bug that I hope it fixes..

I gotta tell you, I LOVE PAGES.. My two biggest complaints are that it is diffidult to ftp files with embedded graphics because .pages files are actual packages that disassicate when I upload them to a server. The bug though is that when I add a new page to a document before pages with embedded graphics or pdfs, the following pages will loose the graphics position. This is an annoyance that I hope is resolved. Otherwise I can not tell you how nice it is to have more "Omni" like inspectors and autoaligning in a word processor.

 

[NeoMayhem]

Sure I agree Keynote really beats out PowerPoint. But Pages -- it doesn't even come close to Word. Apple Pages probably doesn't even have half of the features that Microsoft Word does. The layout in Pages isn't as fast or accessible as Office's Formatting Palette either.

With bullets and numbering, Pages has far less options than what I constantly use again and again day after day in Word. The color selector is great in Pages, but it wastes time after a while because you have to close it every time after you select a color. The color selector in Word is much faster because it immediately goes away after a color is selected.

The Pages application is a step closer to Apple's software domination, but let's hope when iWork '05 is released that Pages will be totally redone. I know that Apple can do better than this with designing a word documenting application. I will look forward in seeing pages 2.0. I bet it will be comparable to Word at that point. If it is as good or better I'd actually have good use for it as I do for all of Apple's other great software products.

Word and Excel are the only two Microsoft software products that Microsoft has me still using. Microsoft better be careful because if the future versions' features in iWork beat out Office's then I won't be using any of their products any more ... accept the three-button scroll wheel Microsoft mouse that I have that I got for free after a mail-in rebate. Bring it on Apple multiple button mouse; it's about time.

If you have a large screen (20''+) having the tool pallets next to the windows is very nice.

But your right, having to close them every time does suck.