Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Why aren't the Apple office apps more popular?

because excel, power point and word are better, and dominate the business and academic worlds

indeed they are probably better because they dominate

excel may be Microsoft's "killer app"

I wouldn't be surprised if it is one of their largest revenue streams

the "iWork" apps on the other hand are after thoughts

numbers can't do a quarter of excel can do, and the things it can, most people that need to do them wouldn't know how. everyone that needs to use a spreadsheet knows how to use excel

"numbers" would probably slot in after google sheets and whatever 'open office' things are around these days
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mousse, zapmymac, redcarian and 3 others
nathansz said:
because excel, power point and word are better, and dominate the business and academic worlds

indeed they are probably better because they dominate

excel may be Microsoft's "killer app"

I wouldn't be surprised if it is one of their largest revenue streams

the "iWork" apps on the other hand are after thoughts

numbers can't do a quarter of excel can do, and the things it can, most people that need to do them wouldn't know how. everyone that needs to use a spreadsheet knows how to use excel

"numbers" would probably slot in after google sheets and whatever 'open office' things are around these days
Click to expand...
The academic world is more diverse than the business world though. I've already mentioned this a bit up thread, but in my experience of academia in the fields physics, astronomy, and mathematics you are more likely to find LaTeX (e.g. via Overleaf for collaborative projects), custom Python scripts, and Keynote (or Beamer for the nerds) than Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Word isn't great for STEM writing (neither is Pages), Excel isn't practical for much beyond basic tabulating, and Keynote is just nicer than Powerpoint and popular in fields where Macs are more commons than Windows PCs. In other areas though of course Office reigns supreme.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac and nathansz
They're probably just too used to microsoft office to switch.

(which is a shame in my opinion, something like apache openoffice would be way better)
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac
VitoBotta said:
I have been looking into Pages, Numbers and Keynote since yesterday after ignoring them for a long time, and I actually like them! How come they are not popular? It seems that everyone still uses Microsoft Office even on Macs.
Click to expand...
Because Microsoft Office is cross-platform, the large majority of desktop computing is still done with PCs, and the business world heavily relies on integration with Microsoft services.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac, WarmWinterHat, turbineseaplane and 1 other person
VitoBotta said:
How come they are not popular?
Click to expand...
Why?
Because they're not as easy to use, not as powerful, and not compatible with the vast majority of users who need to collaborate with information.

I've not used Numbers in a long time, but it was painful entering data and formulas, took too many iterations of going from the keyboard to the mouse, where as I can use the keyboard for the majority of my interactions with Excel.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac, nathansz and Scepticalscribe
VitoBotta said:
Weird, for me they seem quite intuitive to use and not overwhelming like the MS apps.
Click to expand...
If you need to do one formula, or one action, yeah selecting the the formula and interacting with the Number's interface is not bad for a single item, but when you're dealing with large spreadsheets and complex formulas that's a whole different ball of wax.

Numbers lacks a lot of the data analysis, data lookup functions such as xlookup, pivot tables, queries, macros/vba addins/plugs ins.

I wrote an entire accounting package in Excel using its VBA capability, and it automatically produced balance sheet, P&L statements, automatically posted journals and produced balancing reports. I looked at Numbers briefly and found it to be very lacking
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac and WarmWinterHat
Speaking for myself, I‘ve been exposed to MS Office for so long that I simply know my way around those apps and how to get things done that I just cannot be bothered to look at alternatives.
I am a Professor for Nuclear Medicine and we have always done a lot of things in Office in addition to more specialised software like SPSS, Endnote, Matlab or LaTeX.
It‘s not delightful to use, but in the end it gets the job done most of the time and causes the least friction.
So I also use it at home.
I once looked into switching to iWork, but quickly lost motivation. 🙂
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac and Scepticalscribe
My work uses Microsoft's (and sometimes Google's) stuff for everything, so I use Microsoft's apps as that is the original format of the document or it needs to be if I share it with anyone. I also use OneDrive/Sharepoint to share documents. I don't know if using Pages/Numbers/Keynote will work with online-shared documents? Can an Apple user and a Microsoft user work on the same Word document together, even though I am using Pages? I also use autosave with OneDrive, and Box to store these documents. I don't know if autosave will work with Pages. It seems constantly saving to Word is too much of a headache to switch to Pages if that is the case
 
  • Like
Reactions: Scepticalscribe
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Mainsail and escargot3
A lot of hate for Numbers on here. I absolutely LOVE Numbers. It's so much nicer to use than Excel on either macOS or Windows.

One major annoyance of Excel, for me, is it 'forgets' what you copied when you do something else. It's like you absolutely most definitely must do something with the clipboard right now or it gets discarded. That's so annoying. Copy some cells, click in another cell, make it bold, click somewhere else and paste your cells... Oh, can't. Excel has forgotten what you coped because you decided to do that bold manoeuvre in the middle. Thanks, Microsoft.

Sure, Numbers doesn't do all the things Excel does, but it does 99% of it and probably 99.999% of what a consumer needs to do with it, and it does it in a more intuitive way - and it doesn't have that god-awful 'ribbon' that hides functions away from you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: escargot3 and gregmac19
I use them for personal stuff and think they're fine for that purpose. For collaboration (which I do very rarely anymore) I tend to use the Google Suite of apps.
 
  • Like
Reactions: zapmymac
I use Numbers for budget planning and tracking.

I mainly use Pages for page layouts by disabling the document body, which you can't do on Word.

Used to use Keynote but not so much anymore.
 
darkpaw said:
Sure, Numbers doesn't do all the things Excel does, but it does 99% of it and probably 99.999% of what a consumer needs to do with it, and it does it in a more intuitive way - and it doesn't have that god-awful 'ribbon' that hides functions away from you.
Click to expand...

The majority of consumes don't use Excel or Numbers at all, it's primarily a business application and that's why numbers isn't more popular.

I spend upwards of 20-30 hours per week in Excel. Numbers doesn't even touch 1/3 of what Excel does, plus it's not cross-platform, doesn't do change tracking, link with outside databases, macros, etc.
 
  • Like
Reactions: James_C
I use the Apple office products almost exclusively, the only time I don't is when I'm pasting from them into Microsoft Office. Most of the business world runs on Windows so office is the default.

I know Apples stuff (with the exception of Keynote unless that's changed) doesn't do as much as MSOffice but I personally like it that way. It's so much faster/easier for me to do stuff in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote than their Office equivalents.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dizmonk
I have both iWork and MS Office, and use Numbers and Pages regularly. I am retired, but still do a fair amount of analysis and writing for the family real estate business. iWork is fine for this purpose, and I like the simple interface and streamlined feel. The truth is most people only use a small fraction of the capability of most spreadsheet and word processing applications, so I really don't find Numbers and Pages limiting. These days, I almost never do a presentation, but I understand Keynote is quit good.

When I share documents, it is usually with my dad and brother about the status of properties. They are not very computer savvy, so I just send them a PDF.
 
  • Like
Reactions: adrianlondon
Keynote is stellar for so many things beyond just presentations. Great for wireframes and other light design work.
 
What does popular mean in this context? They are Apple-only apps, that are used by basically every Apple user that:
- needs to produce documents
- doesn't want to pay for MS Office.
 
chrono1081 said:
I use the Apple office products almost exclusively, the only time I don't is when I'm pasting from them into Microsoft Office. Most of the business world runs on Windows so office is the default.

I know Apples stuff (with the exception of Keynote unless that's changed) doesn't do as much as MSOffice but I personally like it that way. It's so much faster/easier for me to do stuff in Pages, Numbers, and Keynote than their Office equivalents.
Click to expand...
I agree and find Pages (in particular) far more intuitive than Word. The only feature Word has that I wish Pages did is the References feature. I'm often needing to cite sources, and Word does a very good job at that.
 
It is always that one time I need to share something that the 99% compatibility issue pops up.

I try to save as .pdf as much as possible, but sometimes others require .doc(x) and it is just what it is.

I have a Win10, Mini, and a Mint Machine all available to me, and MS Office is still just a thing in this world.
 
  • Like
Reactions: turbineseaplane
I find that Pages deals with fairly simple formatting better than Word. Word has a weird hierarchical approach to formatting that can trash a document in seconds. Pages also doubles up as a simple DTP app, something that Word is terrible for.

Numbers has one significant advantage to Excel, which is that you are not tied to a grid for a whole sheet. You can add formatting and calculating blocks wherever you want. Excel was great but they put VisualBasic in instead of the macro language it had before... also they got rid of the ability to add a cell reference to a formula by clicking on the cell. Yes it can do loads of data stuff, but that's a business thing, not a general computer user.

Keynote is just stylish, and works. It's a shame it isn't updated more often, adding useful things (like having an animation option to advance a slide, or do something, at the end of a movie on a slide). One of the most frustrating things with Keynote items from Apple hobbling it to match with the iPad version. Master slides are a shadow of what they used to be. Powerpoint 🤮 It's not easy to use or intuitive. It is very telling that about half the Powerpoint presentations I see are the actual editing window shown on screen, scrolling to the next slide. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back