What is Digg?Sponsored by Norton 2010
80’s metal band Dokken vs. a chicken. Who would win? view!
everyclickmatters.com - The question has finally been answered, and we’ve got it on tape. See the showdown.
64 Comments
- morphie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24and it looks like pages. Bummer? No, all iWork apps look alike.
- rkettner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Looks extremely basic, but hopefully it's just a simple-interface for a somewhat-powerful application. I know past rumor sites have said Apple isn't trying to compete with Excel, but it would be nice to have more features.
- MacParrot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17I doubt it's going to blow away excel on features, but then that's not what the iWork suite is for. Considering that the vast majority of Macs are for home use, this should be good enough for what most people need it for as long as it is reasonable compatible with its MS Office formats (at least the older versions). We'll find out just what's what in about 4-5 days!
- central183, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Yes I care about iWork. I tried Open Office. It's clunky and slow. You have to wait that extra two minutes for X11 to gear up. The non-auqu interface has also been disconcerting, especially when trying to save files. It doesn't work right in Expose. What finally ruined it for me was when I had to read to manual for 1/2 hour to figure out that in order to change to "landscape" page setup, you had to create a "style" and apply it.
Lately I've been trying so hard to love Google Docs. It's so simple and clean. Still, all it takes is to frustrate you is working on a spread sheet around 10PM. the whole neighborhood is online, and each request seems to take 30 seconds.
I dunno. Maybe I'm dumb, but I care about iWork, because I don't have to think too hard to use it. It just works. - justinjacobs, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13You know, if you want OpenOffice with an Aqua interface, you should try NeoOffice:
http://www.neooffice.org/ - Maverick18x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9By the way, Think Secret expects the App to be called either 'Numbers' or 'Charts,' while AppleInsider notes Apple's trademark on 'Numbers' has been withdrawn. Personally, I think we'll be seeing Charts 1.0 along with Pages 3 and Keynote 4 in iWork '07.
- shyguy01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"MS Office formats (at least the older versions)"
That got me thinking - will Pages, Keynote and Charts (?) open or save Office 2007 documents in the next release? It would make iWork even more appealing, since Office for Mac can't do it yet. - amosconi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@etjazz
iWork is NOT intended as an Enterprise product, it does NOT want to compete with office and is just meant to be a VERY simple suite to do what you need to do
If you want to get an Enterprise suite, why you waste your time? get Office, then! - virtualball, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@rketgtner:
I do have to agree, but then again, if you glance at Keynote it looks pretty basic but we all know it is apowerful app. - peterjlambert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It's a good point, and a fair one. But I think the people that care about iWork are generally the people who want _less_ features. For instance - I know I'm never going to need to use the majority of features in Excel, so to me they're just bloat - screwing up my clean interface and distracting me from the things I will use - th simple tools that will help me keep a running total of how many people have paid for this week's 5-a-side football game.
I fully appreciate that many people want and need more features in their spreadsheet app than I can even imagine what I'd do with, but for me - I want something with a simple, pretty interface that gets the jobs I need to do done. - meatmcguffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Pages isn't too great for office use; it trades the power of word for ease of use and is better for making well designed documents. Keynote on the other hand is great for business use as it kicks the ***** out of powerpoint. Seriously, it makes every single powerpoint presentation look like a child has made it.
- atommclain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@Rkettner, I have to agree with you the app looks pretty sparse, kinda reminds me of Keynote, and like it I bet all the 'power' will be in the inspector window .
- Charlotte_Web, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"If Fisherprice made spreadsheet apps, they would look similar ..."
Tickle Me Spreadsheet?
Actually, what ever happened to ClarisWorks/AppleWorks? Now THAT was the perfect low-end replacement for MS Office. Six different apps in one interface, all seamlessly integrated. - modusop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6iWork is important in its ability to make really slick looking stuff easily, just like the iLife suite. People who are suggesting other "high power" Office alternatives are missing the point. Pages is not meant to usurp Word in any way, but for most purposes, it's easier to do the same stuff on and make it look better at the same time. I use Pages and Keynote every day for my classes and it's far quicker & easier to do eye-catching layouts and presentations with these than with more complex programs.
- dkm201, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10WOW THOSE PICTURES ARE AMAZING.
- NewChar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I did faint, and just now recovered. I'm doing fine now, thanks.
- oskite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Good - iWork has been missing some key features that AppleWorks does beautifully, and if it weren't for Keynote I wouldn't have bought it.
- miker71, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I can already do basic spreadsheets (like invoices) in Pages06.
- bobartig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5i hate the 'exclusive screenshot' that always ends up looking like something hacked together with project builder and photoshop in 10 minutes. Thinksecret seems to be pulling an Appleinsider these days. That is, crawling into a hole in the ground and dying.
- jwdav, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The majority of Excel documents that I see are simple lists of things, pasted in screenshots and attempts to use Excel as a page layout program. Excel used this actually gets in your way, as it is a lousy text editor.
Excel as used by a power user is a thing of beauty, but there is plenty of room for a spreadsheet application that doesn't get in your way with features you don't need. One that offers different tools that are more geared for text and graphics than analysis and manipulation.
That doesn't mean a dumbed down & stripped version of Excel, it means a different take on the whole spreadsheet paradigm, with different tools and functionality. - Quix, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6I'd love to kiss Microsoft Office goodbye forever. Bring it, Apple!
- qpdb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3That icon is pretty ugly.
- ipodman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Hooray!! I can finally dump Claris Works!!!!!!!!!
- smithco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Lately I've been trying so hard to love Google Docs. It's so simple and clean."
That simplicity is one of the reasons I love Google Docs, the second is how well it supports several simultaneous authors. So, the simple interface of iWork already had me interested. Now, if you'll let me dream a little, imagine how amazing it would be if iWork '07 supports a SubEthaEdit-like mode over Bonjour and Office 2007 compatibility. That would be a true killer app. - picciano, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4A grid were you can put numbers...who would have thought...
(Sorry, proceed with the digging down.) - Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Just because the word processer is called Pages doesn't mean the spreadsheet app has to fit the plural naming scheme and call it Numbers or Charts. That's quite dumb and un-Apple, actually. I thought spreadsheet app was actually going to be called Lasso.
- BWhaler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My company uses all Macs and we use a mix of MSOffice and iWork.
The comments here by people who actually use iWork are dead-on:
Keynote crushes PowerPoint. (Steve uses it so this is no surprise.)
Pages (A great re-think of the word process allowing for creation of beautiful documents. But it is too slow, too buggy, and missing too many key features to be taken seriously in the SMB market.)
Spreadsheet? Where is it?
Finally, there needs to be integration between the spreadsheet and Keynote and Pages. Too many presentations and documents rely on financial data which needs to be hot linked. It doesn't need to be elaborate and complicated, but it does need to be there.
We would love to dump MS and buy all iWork 07 licenses. MSOffice is expensive and we stay away from MS and their ethics as much as possible. But we spend about 20K a year to MS in licenses because we need the compatibility.
I really hope iWork 07 is killer. Fix the bugs. Make it fast. Very fast. Add the 20-30 missing features in Pages, the 5 key missing features in Keynote, add a hot linkable spreadsheet, and give us MSOffice compatibility.
I'd buy that in a hearbeat... - Balanced, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Excel is also somewhat expensive.
- MrBobDobolina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I was hoping Apple would buy up Tables. http://www.x-tables.eu/more/overview.html
- smitting, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree with you that Excel is not low hanging fruit like Word and PowerPoint were. I can't tell you how much happier and more productive I am using Pages to make proposals than I was under Word. Hopefully they stick to simple spreadsheets and charts, rather than digging into all the data-cubing options. If enterprise users need that functionality, write a database app. Seriously guys... what is this, 92? Office for $300 * 10,000 employees = $3Million. You can write one hell of an enterprise app for $50k.
On another note, anyone else notice how much Microsoft Office makes your Mac slow and unstable? Seriously every time I'm wondering what the hell is going on inside my computer, I see those icons in the dock and kill them and all is better. I currently use a shareware app to read excel docs its so bad. This instability is why I moved to iWork in the first place. What's funny is this is the same sitation I fell into when I bought a use OS9 mac... all was great unless I ran Microsoft Office, and then it was as unstable as Windows 98. Something tells me Microsoft doesn't try very hard for the mac. - crazyboy1121, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1SWEET!!! This might mean that my school will switch to macs!
- webmacster87, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I personally think that that screenshot looks completely fake. I might get dugg down for this, but personally, I think that what we're seeing is a Keynote document with a table added and made to look very slim, and someone went into the Keynote package contents and changed a few strings from Slides to Sheets. This looks way to simple to be a spreadsheet application that anyone would consider using for real, and we all know that Apple can do better than that. I'm calling bull on this one.
- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just looks like a table pasted into Pages/Keynote to me. I mean they'd be mental to have you drop the "spreadsheet" on the page, rather than use the whole page.
- jmack111, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I think we are all getting WAY ahead of ourselves here.... think secret is a RUMOR site, and not a great one IMO.
Lets just wait, another few sleeps and all will be revealed.
It is only speculation until officially announced by Apple!!!! - smitting, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Get parallels and a copy of windows. I run Visual Studio.Net all day long. Even 3d studio max runs quite well.... photoshop and office are a breeze on there, although I have no complaints about the ppc version of Photoshop on the intel macs.
- CannedCorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1OK, someone has to say it... It's time that apple think seriously about this whole replacing microsoft office thing. Personally, I've had a macbook for about a year and I'm pissed there is no ppc version of word, excell or powerpoint yet, even moreso than photoshop, lets face it, it affects a lot more people who arent just artistic, it affects everyone in college and using a mac for any sort of work that requires your write, crunch numbers, or make a presentation.
Secondly, and I think this is very important, my sisters who have macbooks, and other people not as tech-savy as I am constantly bitch about how their new computer is "slower" than their older ones, as for them, it truly does appear this way as their main application suite is now is less snappy and makes them less productive after a $1,500+ purchase. Try to explain the concept of rosetta and emulation to a 15 year old, believe me its impossible. So from the average apple consumer perspective, this is hurting the image of their new technology. Thus apple should start to really work on making these a replacement, as microsoft surely doesn't care how long it takes thier sweet asses to make this crap, which is horrible anyway.
Just my two cents. - nobogeys217, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i agree. I like pages a lot better than word. its much easier to use.
Keynote also beats out powerpoint. The final product looks a lot better and cleaner.
The best part is that iwork costs a hell of a lot less than office. - flag564, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"How do you know, flag? Have you used the app? No? Well, you're not better than all the people who you bitched at for dissing the Zune without ever using it."
Well, Zang has now understood the concept of irony. Maybe now you get my whole point with the Zune.
Class dismissed. - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Lasso was the internal code name was my understanding similar to canon etc.
- r3zonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I'm pissed there is no ppc version of word, excell or powerpoint yet, even moreso than photoshop"
I take it you mean no INTEL version. And none of those are Apple's fault, that'll be MS and Adobe you should be pissed at. - memoryminus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's not. The fact is most people just don't want to pay that much for productivity apps. Just because you pirate Office doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people who wouldn't and would rather save the money because iWork will do everything they need.
iWork = $79
Office for Mac = $399 - koko775, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I think the real news is that Keynote 4 will be able to export to iPod for portable presentations. Wow.
- audioquester, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1It looks like they didn't even try to make it look real. It's Pages with a few rectangle drawn in. Lame.
- atommclain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I have to agree with you, as far as a 1.0 product I think this will be pretty robust, but compared to excel I sure it will be lacking in alot of absure areas. I think it will be like pages, keynote and ical, start of basic and powerful, and with each new version become more rubust while maintainin its simple interface.
- flag564, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"If this intends to be a competitor to Excel, it can never succeed: Excel in an absolutely unassailable position in financial application."
You are correct. - zang74, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Actually, that's not irony, flag. You're just making a reverse analogy. The question is, why do you care so much to even bother? If you're so superior to Apple fanboys, why are you here commenting on Apple stories? Unless you want those fanboys to think you're superior, in which case you're looking for approval from the Apple crowd. Now THAT would be ironic, in the proper sense of the word even.
You're not fighting a battle for freedom of Digg, flag. No one asked you to defend the world against fanboys. - schneb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Looks just like AppleWorks in days past. Oh well, I just need a simplified Excel anyway--this might do it. I wish it had the Excel power--but I doubt it.
- jayscottgold, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1ugly icon (not very maclike)...program looks a like a watered down version of Tables
http://www.x-tables.eu/more/overview.html
I doubt it's real - zang74, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2How do you know, flag? Have you used the app? No? Well, you're not better than all the people who you bitched at for dissing the Zune without ever using it.
Troll. -
Show 51 - 65 of 65 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is