Why aren't the Apple office apps more popular?

[ignatius345]

There's a 1:10 chance a person I send a Pages document to, won't own hardware capable of opening it. That jumps to a 100% chance they can't open it if it's a business.

There's a 1:1 chance that Pages imports/exports to .docx with quite good fidelity, for those occasions when you pass around a working document instead of delivering a PDF.

I use Pages, Keynote and Numbers to run a small business. I’ll add FreeForm too. I can’t make documents look that good that easy using other apps. Numbers make “numbers” fun. Pages is actually a “publisher” as much as it’s a “text editor”. Free Form is my whiteboard and Keynote is miles ahead of the competition.

Apple’s lack of marketing is frustrating because I’m afraid someday they’ll just give up on these amazing apps.

They've been steadily improving the iWork apps for over 20 years at this point. I think as long as its Microsoft Office counterparts (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) exist, Apple is going to keep making sure they have their competing version pre-installed on Macs. It's a selling point for Macs that you can buy one and out of the box start creating familiar office documents.

 

[SalisburySam]

Pages is good but Numbers is frustrating and non-intuitive.

I agree, but suggest that’s only because it is different. Coming from decades of Excel, LotusNotes, QuattroPro, and even VisiCalc results in habits which become ingrained. As a result, any different way of doing something is likely to be deemed non-intuitive. Without all that spreadsheet background, Numbers would be as intuitive as any other product for a first-time user. Some things like adding a “Sum” to a column of numbers is incredibly easier through the “Insert” function, and likely more intuitive than the Excel approach…it is certainly faster.

But yeah, you do have to learn the differences. I think most of us can.

 

[Jonnod III]

I agree, but suggest that’s only because it is different. Coming from decades of Excel, LotusNotes, QuattroPro, and even VisiCalc results in habits which become ingrained. As a result, any different way of doing something is likely to be deemed non-intuitive. Without all that spreadsheet background, Numbers would be as intuitive as any other product for a first-time user. Some things like adding a “Sum” to a column of numbers is incredibly easier through the “Insert” function, and likely more intuitive than the Excel approach…it is certainly faster.

But yeah, you do have to learn the differences. I think most of us can.

Agreed, and one thing to remember is that Excel suits business because solutions developed by business have been forged in Excel. So business says "We must have Excel", when they may not need it at all, they need a number processing application with formatting.

 

[flang]

I find shortcomings to both.
But in the end, MS is a software development company.
Apple sells phones and streams content.
The proof is in the pudding.
Apple Mail still very weak.
Music/iTunes is total trash.
iWork suite is better than those 2, but still is clumsy and buggy at times.

 

[James_C]

I have been using a Mac in various PC based companies since 2002. I am an accountant so I spend most of my working time in spreadsheets anything from simple reconciliations to complex multi year multi company forecasting and planning models. I don't use word processing very much as most communication is via email, Pages is pretty good and I tend to use that for personal documents, but on the rare occasion I need a work processing document for work I use Word.

Numbers is better than it use to be, but even though it now can do pivot tables and lookups, it is a poor relation to Excel for my use, particularly for complex financial models. However one area that I do use Numbers is to create tables and charts for Keynote.

Most of my presentations including the monthly board decks are done in Keynote, which I find easier to use and more powerful then Powerpoint. Magic Move is so easy to use in Keynote and a great way to transition objects between slides. We tend to share our presentations to the board via PDF so no need for Powerpoint.

In addition because I tend to present a lot of tables I love how Keynote lets you 'build' tables, several row or columns at a time. Something that Powerpoint does not do.

 

[Fishrrman]

Q:
"Why aren't the Apple office apps more popular?"
A:
Compatibility.

I've never had a real "need" for MS Office. Never really "used" a computer in my work (which was a career running old-fashioned railroad locomotives, now long retired).

For me, since 1987 the Mac has always been for personal uses, at home.

If I need a WP app these days, I use Pages.
If I need a spreadsheet app, I use Numbers these days. (I previously used MW Works, then ClarisWorks, then AppleWorks, and then the Tables spreadsheet app)

I do have copies of LibreOffice and OnlyOffice.
LibreOffice is great for file conversion (it can read many old Mac formats that few other Mac apps will read these days).

 

[AppliedMicro]

Pages is good but Numbers is frustrating and non-intuitive.

The complete opposite to my personal experience.

Frustrating, maybe if you're an experienced Excel user?
And I get it, Excel may have a richer ecosystem of macros, support and library of functions.

But I'm not an experienced user - and I've found Numbers much more approachable.
And easier/quicker to produce decent-looking results.

 

[Varmann]

Mainly habit.

For writing I am very agnostic, I do not use many of the more fancy functions.

Presenting, here drawing tool is my most used functions, I switch between google and powerpoint, but do not like any of them really.

For spreadsheets I am at a loss. I used Lotus 1-2-3 extensively 1987-94, pushed it way beyond what it was meant to do at that time. Beta tested Quattro Pro, but did not really like it. Excel, or other spreadsheets, I have never got to terms with. Guess I do not depend on them that much anymore.

 

[ifxf]

The autosave feature that overwrites the original document.

 

[adrianlondon]

The autosave feature that overwrites the original document.

I have "ask to keep changes when closing documents" set in "settings / desktop & dock".

If I choose to not save when I close a document, it doesn't save (and reverts back to the last deliberate save).

Usefully, when the document is opened again, under "file / revert to" I can even roll it forward to the time I closed the document without saving. I like having these options.

 

[maflynn]

The autosave feature that overwrites the original document.

That's how autosave works. With Excel/Word, their autosave does the same thing, though I think OneDrive may have some rudimentary versioning capability.