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macOS 12 Monterey Beta 5 Reveals Updated iWork Icons
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It's not even Enterprise stuff, its "Pro consumer" stuff. Now its just full blown professional or dumbed down consumer.
Crazy. Every year or so Apple goes back and forth from a flat to a detailed design.
I do like the new icons. It's a waste to have a device with such a great high resolution display and use a flat design. The detailed icons look amazingly good.
I do like the new icons. It's a waste to have a device with such a great high resolution display and use a flat design. The detailed icons look amazingly good.
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So new icons but, as software still not as good as it was in 2009? That's the progress of a multi billion dollar company at its best.
Yeah, I held on to my iWork '09 versions as long as I could. I use Keynote professionally, and I will say they've gradually brought back some of the worst losses from the "new" version, but the loss of inspector palattes is a big drag on productivity. Used to be you could spread out your controls over the screen and have quick access to them (kind of like Creative Cloud apps can be set up) or even put your palattes all on a second monitor. But now everything is in some ****ing multi function sidebar you have to keep shifting to over and over.
Still better than PowerPoint, though.
Let me use this fluffy article to point out two things:
1. iWork rocks. Yes, it's not perfect. But it really is the most thoughtfully designed and useful office suite. I wish Apple would do more with it.
2. Something is clearly off with Apple design team. I think historically it was people who were better at hardware design weighing in on software design + a fetish with minimalism and beautiful screen shots vs. usability. (this is still true today.) But there now seems to be something else broken somewhere. Things that are poor taste (battery icon, current iWork icons, etc) are getting out to the public. They are shamefully ugly. Plus, the same anorexia which gave us phones and laptops that were too thin when customers wanted more battery life and better cameras (I'm looking at you 720p Macs) is now spreading to our toolbars and software interfaces. Apple designers are shoving more and more and more into a kitchen sink menu (I'm looking at you Share menu) so the chrome looks sparse--all at the cost of usability, logical interface grouping, and discoverability. This is a huge issue since the cornerstones of Apple are "it just works" and, "computers for the rest of us", i.e. anyone can figure out how to use it.)
Apple needs to:
1. Get better editors to stop ugly designs and bad interfaces from making it the public. Experiment internally, but someone needs to be culling.
2. Figure out once and for all how to deal with the lack of menus in iOS. Apple has done a good job reinventing a lot of the constructs and paradigms of classic GUI interfaces. But menus remains unsolved. Do the hard work and crack it.
1. iWork rocks. Yes, it's not perfect. But it really is the most thoughtfully designed and useful office suite. I wish Apple would do more with it.
2. Something is clearly off with Apple design team. I think historically it was people who were better at hardware design weighing in on software design + a fetish with minimalism and beautiful screen shots vs. usability. (this is still true today.) But there now seems to be something else broken somewhere. Things that are poor taste (battery icon, current iWork icons, etc) are getting out to the public. They are shamefully ugly. Plus, the same anorexia which gave us phones and laptops that were too thin when customers wanted more battery life and better cameras (I'm looking at you 720p Macs) is now spreading to our toolbars and software interfaces. Apple designers are shoving more and more and more into a kitchen sink menu (I'm looking at you Share menu) so the chrome looks sparse--all at the cost of usability, logical interface grouping, and discoverability. This is a huge issue since the cornerstones of Apple are "it just works" and, "computers for the rest of us", i.e. anyone can figure out how to use it.)
Apple needs to:
1. Get better editors to stop ugly designs and bad interfaces from making it the public. Experiment internally, but someone needs to be culling.
2. Figure out once and for all how to deal with the lack of menus in iOS. Apple has done a good job reinventing a lot of the constructs and paradigms of classic GUI interfaces. But menus remains unsolved. Do the hard work and crack it.
my guess pivotables has a Microsoft patent or something . Other than that, it has all the features I need and want to use it professionally. I gave up on embedded apps in VBA a whole long time ago. Stupid feature. SQL for databases there are so many great free ones. Beyond that is more on your actual skill level.
For example, I have a 50-year retirement planning program that I originally wrote using Excel and then converted to Numbers. Really glad I did, the multiple table vs big honking table is so much better, even with Excel's version of labels in formulas, it is just better in Numbers with specific tables for specific purposes. Back to this program, it computes inflation adjusted income with social Security, pensions, tax-preferrenced and regular savings, variable take dates on retirement products, computes withdrawal requirements from savings on an after tax basis using both state and federal taxes, has regular and capital gains computations. What if variables include the usual, inflation rate of return on various investments, etc. Yah, it is way better than the one my financial adviser uses. And not only all in Numbers, but better documented and easier to maintain than in Excel. Oh and did I mention the best graphic presentation of results, cause yes, it is really easy to layer different graphic types to get all sorts of interactive effects.
I do hear you on Excel's pivotables, but the rest, meh!
Doubtful on so many levels. Firstly iWork is a great suite of apps and offers a lot of functionality. Often much of what WORD offers isn't even being used by many people in the business world. The thing is no matter how much more Apple offers in iWork Microsoft Office has the branding and by default people ask for it which is why MS gets away with the insane over-charging of it from 365. Lastly either you've never tried it or you're simply ignoring it to make your point but Keynote is light years ahead of Powerpoint yet Keynote is not being used in the business world. So Apple stepping up iWork would not make it compete with Office 365.
This is Apple we are talking about. They are a "design" company that happens to make computers. It's one of the main reason why many appreciate them over other companies.
We're 50% of the way there... all that's missing is some new memoji for the bestest OS evar!!
How about adding something useful to these neglected apps like Pivot Tables to Numbers? That app is 100% useless!
This is the way. Monolithic gigabytes of a single upgrade rather than updating an app suite alone.
noticed that too…its flippin’ the bird to Excel but Excel’s response to Numbers is to laughs and say, “Your kidding’ me right, you suck”. Numbers, how about “iWork” towards being a competitor..
Apple, you can aford a team to make iWorks a competitor to Office..why not? Don’t you think you would sell more Macs? Just think Tim the $ and you can make it happen..
Tim..wouldn’t it be better for you to use Numbers on your Mac instead of Excel when you review your data to make decisions…? Come on…we all know you use Excel..
iWorks…come back home to be the choice again for “Work”.
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