iWorks will kill MS Office

[Chupa Chupa]

The big question Apple did not address yesterday was whether you can print directly from the iPad. It's not an easy task w/ the iPhone, so I'm puzzeled why they didn't discuss it. If you can print via Bonjour then it's a triple, but I don't think iWork will ever come anywhere near catching Office. It's too prevalent in schools and business and cost isn't an issue any more for home use. You can get the Home/Student ed for $99.

Honestly, an Office for iPad edition would really help to further legitimize the platform.

 

[James_C]

It really depends on what you use iWork for. If you are working at home or as your own business then iWork is fine. The problem comes if you need to exchange files with Microsoft office users. The best app of the three is Keynote, in my opinion it is better than Powerpoint, but you do get compatibility problems exchanging files with Windows users. Pages is the next strongest App and for most people is a great word processor and better at desktop publishing than Word, that having being said it still does not have all the features that Word has, and if you are a word power user you probably don't want to switch. The weakest App by far is Numbers, the file structure is very different from Excel and is the biggest headache in terms of sharing files with Excel users. However Numbers is the most recent addition to the iWork suite.

 

[rdowns]

LMAO. You know what's harder to find than an iPod or iPhone killer? Yep, a Microsoft Office killer.

 

[sushi]

LMAO. You know what's harder to find than an iPod or iPhone killer? Yep, a Microsoft Office killer.

Yep. Unfortunate. But true.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

 

[Eidorian]

Does iWorks work on a pc then ? I don't think Microsoft are worried....

I'd buy a copy of iWork for Windows this minute. Spinning cubes for presentations is worth it.

 

[gauchogolfer]

I'd buy a copy of iWork for Windows this minute. Spinning cubes for presentations is worth it.

I'd love to have Keynote on my work PC, but honestly PPT has come a long ways since Keynote was first released. (They even have the 3D cube transition now!)

Pages and Numbers are far from being Office replacements, and I couldn't agree more with rdowns' comment about 'Office killers'. It just works too well for that to happen any time soon, particularly in a corporate environment.

 

[Eidorian]

I'd love to have Keynote on my work PC, but honestly PPT has come a long ways since Keynote was first released. (They even have the 3D cube transition now!)

I suspected as much. I haven't used Office much beyond 2003 though.

 

[baleensavage]

The title of this thread almost made me spit out my coffee. There is no way that iWork will ever supplant the empire that is Microsoft Office. I dare you to find me one business that seriously uses Pages for anything or Numbers (aside from perhaps Apple). Whether we like it or not, MS Office is here to stay. Even free suites like OpenOffice haven't been able to dent Microsoft's market dominance. There's no way the dumbed-down iWork will ever touch that market.

 

[agkm800]

If the iPad sales is mediocre, Apple can include iWork for free.

 

[PhoneI]

And of course, referencing that sleazy credit card bit from the keynote.

Unless of course you are a developer or a book publisher, you know, the very content providing people that can make or break the success of a product.

The title of this thread almost made me spit out my coffee. There is no way that iWork will ever supplant the empire that is Microsoft Office. I dare you to find me one business that seriously uses Pages for anything or Numbers (aside from perhaps Apple). Whether we like it or not, MS Office is here to stay. Even free suites like OpenOffice haven't been able to dent Microsoft's market dominance. There's no way the dumbed-down iWork will ever touch that market.

First of all, I need my OneNote. Second, Office has become a big, bloated, ugly app. But, I still need OneNote.

 

[ucfgrad93]

Will I be able to print out my work from the iPad versions of Pages and Numbers????
Also, when I am using iPad and need to print out... say boarding passes, or movie tickets, etc, etc, can I do that with the iPad??
I browsed around last nite and didn't see any way to do that????

Thanks.

Frank

That is a good point. You will probably need a printer hooked up to your network or one that has wifi or bluetooth.

 

[baleensavage]

First of all, I need my OneNote. Second, Office has become a big, bloated, ugly app. But, I still need OneNote.

Don't get me wrong, I detest MS Office with every ounce of my computer-using self. Even on my Windows Netbook, I use OpenOffice instead of that crappy excuse for a product called Works. But, in the business world there simply is no alternative. You either use MS Office or a program that can read MS Office files because everyone else is using Office. It's like Quickbooks, there are alternatives out there that are better, but if you hire an accountant, you better have Quickbooks files to give them. And while the consumer sector is important for computing, in the end it's the business world that keeps the industry alive. When you might buy one copy of iWork, that business down the street just bought 30 copies of Office. There is no way Apple can touch this with a ten foot pole and they know this as well which is why iWork is geared towards one market, the home user where they have a chance.

 

[PhoneI]

Don't get me wrong, I detest MS Office with every ounce of my computer-using self. Even on my Windows Netbook, I use OpenOffice instead of that crappy excuse for a product called Works. But, in the business world there simply is no alternative. You either use MS Office or a program that can read MS Office files because everyone else is using Office. It's like Quickbooks, there are alternatives out there that are better, but if you hire an accountant, you better have Quickbooks files to give them. And while the consumer sector is important for computing, in the end it's the business world that keeps the industry alive. When you might buy one copy of iWork, that business down the street just bought 30 copies of Office. There is no way Apple can touch this with a ten foot pole and they know this as well which is why iWork is geared towards one market, the home user where they have a chance.

I agree, but I'm not sure the business Office users is the targeted market for a tablet anyway.

 

[fridgeymonster3]

iWorks will finally have the technology and the platform to jump ahead of Office in number of users. Microsoft simply doesn't have the technology to compete on this platform for probably 2 years. If this platform takes off (which it probably will - why buy a netbook when you can buy this for $500) like the ipod iWorks will sore in users at only $10 a piece vs. MS Office $$$$ costs.

That fact alone makes this a huge day for Apple. No need to worry about Office being available for Mac. People will become used to using and will prefer iWorks.

That and the user numbers 125million credit cards and 75 million ipod users familiar with finger gestures make this unbeatable for now.

I laughed so hard at this I almost peed myself!! Are you discounting the corporate world from your ludicrous statement? Discounting educational institutions? Discounting the majority of the world's population? WTF?

 

[disco stu]

I work at one of those institutions that uses MS Office, and I make all of my presentations on Powerpoint. My question is whether I can use the iPad to take those Powerpoint presentations with me and use them when I present at conferences? Will I be able to save them to the iPad, and then connect the iPad and show the presentation at the conference? I would much prefer to bring this device with me rather than the big, heavy, bulky Dell Laptop I was given.

 

[fridgeymonster3]

I work at one of those institutions that uses MS Office, and I make all of my presentations on Powerpoint. My question is whether I can use the iPad to take those Powerpoint presentations with me and use them when I present at conferences? Will I be able to save them to the iPad, and then connect the iPad and show the presentation at the conference? I would much prefer to bring this device with me rather than the big, heavy, bulky Dell Laptop I was given.

I'm assuming this would depend on Keynotes compatibility with the PPT files. I don't use iWork on my Mac's bc I use MS Office at work and used it at school. I think the regular Keynote did allow certain (?) PPT files to be opened, though I'm unsure how intact they were. However, i wonder if the iPad version of Keynote will act in a similar manner?

 

[disco stu]

I don't think I would want to depend on converting back and forth. Could be disastrous at the moment the presentation is supposed to begin. Can PPT presentations be saved to any "iPod" type device just as a file (basically using the device as a flash drive? I guess it would need to be opened on the device to be able to display it though, right? Is there a MS Office app for the iPhone? Would that work/solve the problem?

 

[Jaro65]

no way. Put down that crack pipe and start seeing things the way they truly are.

Office is way more useful then iwork is. Yeah apple has made inroads in improving iwork but not to the extent of unseating MS office. Excel has too many formulas and functions over numbers. Many of my excel spreadsheets fail to fully convert over to numbers. Pages doesn't have the flexibility of word. It has great page layout abilities but its not as flexible in producing a document then word.

It doesn't matter how much $$ Microsoft charges because people will buy it. The same argument is made about macs. They're more expensive and people think that will hurt sales because you can buy a cheaper alternative elsewhere but that hasn't occurred.

I totally agree with you in regards to the Excel. MS have cornered that market quite well. I don't see anything threatening it anytime soon.

 

[Anuba]

iWork can save as Office formats. Keynote > ,pptx. Numbers > .xlsx. Pages > .docx.

Yes, but it sure can't READ Office formats properly. Lord knows how many docs of mine it gets completely wrong. Office can handle embedding, i.e. you can paste an Excel spreadsheet into a Word document and when you edit that part you have all the Excel controls. When you open such a document in iWork, it converts the Excel part to a bitmap and doesn't even bother to use the right fonts.

When I switched to Mac I had high hopes for iWork, but now I'm doing all my Office stuff in Boot Camp/Win 7/Office 2007 because iWork, and Numbers in particular, is just a toy.

When iWork can translate Office documents verbatim and not screw up formulas, date formats, font sizes, colors, embedding etc, I'll think about it.

 

[sushi]

I don't think I would want to depend on converting back and forth. Could be disastrous at the moment the presentation is supposed to begin. Can PPT presentations be saved to any "iPod" type device just as a file (basically using the device as a flash drive? I guess it would need to be opened on the device to be able to display it though, right? Is there a MS Office app for the iPhone? Would that work/solve the problem?

You can always export your PowerPoint presentation to jpgs -- one per slide.

Then copy the jpgs from your Mac/PC to the iPad.

If you need to animate a slide, then you must do it the old way. It can be time consuming, but will work in a pinch for many things.

 

[dave1812dave]

Thats my point
iWorks is not only compatible with Office but now has an exclusive platform so mac users are forced to choose it if using the ipad.
Office has nothing advanced enough to be usable on ipad.
When ipad takes off so will iWorks then people will become accustomed to it as mac and ipad market share grows so will iWorks and Apple will be free of Office dependency
Of course this will take time but it is brilliant by Apple

What have you been smokin'?? Apple still has a paltry percent (after all these years!) of the worldwide market for PC's. No way the iPad/iWorks is going to put a sizeable dent in the Windows/Office market-share.

 

[RazHyena]

Oh dear god the Kool-Aid...THE KOOLAID.

We don't even know how this thing can print yet. Most likely you'll need a real computer to hook it up to for that.

 

[theshirko]

i really tried hard to use Numbers and Pages for my homework, it cant be done, they lack so many little features that are very important.
Excel and Words are a power house that no one can beat, beside being a hater or a fanboy the truth must be told no other application out there with so many features , and after 2007 the user interface became very very good,
2 reason i have windows on my bootcamp partition :
first : its MS Office
second: hard to believe; but MSN is very popular in most of the world

 

[Chaos123x]

I have both iWork and office on all my macs. I find that I almost always use iWork instead of office. iWork makes it easy to create great looking documents , in order to the do the same with office you gotta be really skilled in the programs.

 

[steve-p]

I use iWork at home, but I must admit I was very surprised when we upgdraded to Office 2007 at work - it's good. I've always hated using Office in previous versions, but I like this one. I'm now wondering about buying Office for Mac in the future and ditching iWork. As to the OP's claim - well, no. Not a chance.