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What's Behind Apple's iWork?

businessweek.com — Microsoft's Office still dominates the market, but Apple's new software may signal a tectonic shift in the two behemoths' uneasy alliance.

Who dugg this? Made popular Aug 10, 2007

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  • schestowitz, on 10/10/2007, -10/+50Apple iWork should have OpenDocument format support implemented ASAP. It cannot just ignore the international standards, which for some reason it does.
  • lordtyros, on 10/10/2007, -15/+44"So why does Apple bother with iWork? It must have more to do with something as simple as 'offering choice to our users.'"

    "You might also ask why Microsoft bothers building Office for the Mac? Because its profitable."

    Hear that guys? Big bad Microsoft Corp. just wants to make money. Unlike Apple, which has your best interests at heart. Idiotic article.
  • harlowsmonkeys, on 10/10/2007, -8/+27Since there is no usable international standard yet, they went with a defacto standard that works.

    When either the working groups that are working on fixing the giant gaping holes in ODF finish, and their work is approved by ISO, or when OOXML goes through ISO, there will be a usable international standard.

    See, in the real world, a working defacto standard beats an incomplete official standard any day.
  • GreatDrok, on 10/10/2007, -2/+16Interesting article. I think the main issue here is whether Office and iWork really compete with each other. In a way they do but the reality is that I have already bought copies of Office 2K for Windows and Office X for OS X and they are sufficiently compatible with other Office users that I don't need to buy the latest version. On the other hand, I have bought iWork 05, 06 and now 08 not because they are compatible with Office but because they work better. I use my copies of Office to ensure I can read files that are sent to me correctly or to check documents I am forced to send out in Office format. There is no sense in worrying about trying to use something compatible when you can use the real thing. However, for my own document creation I use iWork because it is much more efficient. I can put together a fabulous presentation in a fraction of the time it takes to do something which looks like hell using PowerPoint.

    I know people will say that the interface for Office 2007 is much better and I should give that or Office 2008 a chance. Well, the loss of macro support in Office 2008 kills it on the compatibility front and I really don't see any need for the ribbon. Office is basically an old fashioned way of doing things even with all the new spit and polish. iWork does things in a new and more powerful way while also being simple. Typical Apple really. A Mac is the perfect office workhorse now, Parallels, XP Pro, Office for Windows and all the great Mac software too (OmniGraffle is way better than Visio for instance) means I have a killer system that makes me more efficient and in the end that is what you want from a computer. As someone else said in a review of the new iMac the difference between Windows and OS X is that with OS X you forget about it being a Mac and just get on with your work whereas with Windows it keeps nagging at you and disturbing you. Yuck.
  • blaze03, on 10/10/2007, -10/+23"Previously, iWork had contained only Pages ... and Keynote, a presentation program that is comparable to, but far better than PowerPoint. (Al Gore's infamous presentation that led to the film An Inconvenient Truth was created in Keynote, not PowerPoint, as many, including myself, have said.)"

    I find it interesting that the author would include something so trivial in the article to make Keynote sound more special than it really is, and even citing himself as someone who's mentioned it in the past as if anyone would care.
  • hotdamn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13will iWork ever cause tetonic shifts? probably not.
    Do I like it and appreciate the GUI and ease of use? heck yes.
    Will I still use Office at work? Totally.
  • estvir, on 10/10/2007, -11/+24Maybe it's some big conspiracy from Apple how they're trying to topple the free world and enslave us all! Quick, post ridiculously long quotes with 40 accompanying links than go spam USENET groups, you've been so effective so far!

    I think you're on to something! Fight the power! I think this calls for a... ONLINE PETITION, YEAH!
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -5/+17Apple really needs to grow some balls and make an out-and-out actual competitor to Office. They're doing it slowly, in pieces, and trying to go about it in a way that doesn't step on Microsoft's toes.

    They need to either; dig in and do some serious work at making a complete Office competitor, buy the Microsoft MacBU outright, or buy a majority stake in it so they have some sway in Office's development.
  • macewan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12That's the first thing I looked for in reading through the specs yesterday. Please Apple, don't ignore OpenOffice.org
  • meatmcguffin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13I take it you haven't used keynote. It kicks the crap out of powerpoint in every way possible.
  • Balanced, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12Because iTunes uses Quicktime for music playback.
  • MacParrot, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11Safari on Windows does suck from what I've heard. However millions of people (though apparently not those on digg) use iTunes and QuickTime on Windows systems everyday without any hassle.
  • Radan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12Well, Pages isn't really comparable to Word (though more with Pages 08). Pages is a typical iLife kind of application. It's made for the people who isn't running a big corporation of 10 000 people. It's made the average home user, students and smaller corporations, who doesn't need all the functions that Word has, but what they need is an inexpensive and easy but powerful application which can create gorgeous and professional looking documents without spending too much valuable time on it.
    Though, as I said, it doesn't fit everyone, it's not meant to, but personally I have completely stopped using Word, as it doesn't have any features that *I* need which isn't done better in Pages.

    I'm not saying Pages is perfect, but I believe it's far from as bad as many wants it to be.
  • Kazbaeden, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12Don't forget Quicktime.
  • theone3, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11Bet the only reason you're even thinking about CVs is because you don't have a job. Bet the reason you don't have a job is because you think misaligned type matters more than experience, personality and action.
  • tobbe303, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Well, if Apple is supposed to maintain an OS with built-in support and drivers for all kinds of hardware setups and weird devices instead of focusing on a set of known setups we'd get.. well, Windows.

    Contrary to some people's beliefs, using OS X is not a human right, it's the right of those who've bought a Mac.
  • Balanced, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Care to explore this in more detail? I'm curious as to what you feel the applications are missing.
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -7/+15We all know what happens when Apple releases software for Windows. Look at Safari or iTunes.
  • dsendecki, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Oh, I just stepped in a steaming pile of irony.
  • SirG3, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I think we're all trying to forget Quicktime for Windows...
  • awhiteflame, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7They're much better on Mac. Go to an Apple Store and play around with one yourself.
  • REBELinBLUE, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8When will people grasp this idea, Apple is a hardware company, Microsoft is a software company, OS X is a means to sell Macs.

    If they opened Mac OS X up to non Apple machines it will cost alot more to support and develop as they would have to support a magnitude of different hardware set-ups and exotic devices.
  • slapjack, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9For what it's worth, Keynote IS much better than Powerpoint in almost every way. Use it for a day and you'll never want to go back to PPT again. Seeing as how PPT is responsible for people creating some of the most mind-numbing crap, it's always nice to have an application that actually helps enhance the credibility and smarts of the presenter.

    That said, it's still a little over the top with the Al Gore "testimonial"...and at the same time, when was the last time you saw a feature film that was almost entirely created in Powerpoint?
  • zodieman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I have a feeling that at least 95% of the people use 5% of the features in Office (not including the bean-counters in businesses). So why can't Apple offer something that looks and works better and give them 100% of what 95% of what people need?
    Honestly, we're still only 90% of the way there because we really don't have a true Exchange server client on the Mac. Don't tell me about Entourage, that thing is a kludge. Come on, syncing mail through OWA instead of IMAP or MAPI??? A true travesty. Bring us a real MAPI client for crying out loud!
  • Jorlwind, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7The future of iWork and Office for Mac doesn't really matter to me. I've thrown my cards into ODF based applications, like NeoOffice/OpenOffice with X11.

    And iWork won't grow balls until Microsoft pulls Office For Mac.
  • theone3, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9Microsoft didn't sacrifice quality to gain market share - you're not looking at the qualities that matter to 95% of the market. Market decisions are based on the needs of the consumer - 'quality' is a myth, there are only desirable qualities and undesirable qualities. What we refer to as 'quality' is a somewhat elitist term meaning that you pay more for a certain type of object in order to either gain more returns or sustained returns.
  • MacParrot, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6WHAT! over9 wrong again! My head is spinning
  • Altotus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7iWork is not Office, and I don't think it's intended to be. The big problem for iWork really is consistency in the target audience.

    Keynote is a fantastic presentation app -- you have a slightly different set of drawing tools than PowerPoint, but otherwise the applciation itself is far better than PowerPoint for making presentations. More control, better effects, better presentation options, more formats, better rendering, etc. It's just excellent and is really best in breed for a hardcore business user.

    Then you have Pages. Pages is quite simple. It's not as feature complete as OpenOffice or Word -- for example, you can only merge from Address Book. However, at least in '08, it's page layout handling is much better than Word, and it does a far better job of making what you see on the screen appear that way in print. But there's a lack of dictionaries (think other languages), grammar checkers, equation editors, etc. Pages is approriate for middling work, and it'd be great for students (does footnotes, endnotes, and TOC ok, but for an index you need AppleScript) or people whipping up brochures, signs, etc. It's good, but anything more than basic use would require another product.

    Then there's Numbers. Numbers is a very simple spreadsheet application. No pivot-tables, graphing has some peculiarities (X-Y graphs in particular), etc. It can certainly make nicer graphics than Excel, and you have more options as to what goes in a cell (you can have columns of images or sounds, for example), but it lacks some basic things like error-bars on graphs, many statistical functions (no ANOVA, for example). No macros (not even in AppleScript). It's just not usable the way people have come to use spreadsheets in the business world. Numbers would be suitable for home use, perhaps to make inventories, budgets, little league rosters, price lists, etc.

    So, you've got one iron-clad presentation app, plus a good word-processor that's lacking a few features that users would expect to have, and then a spreadsheet which is far too limited to be acceptable in a business situation and probably at home.

    For $79, I think it's a good buy, but it simply won't replace office. For many people, iWork + OpenOffice (particularly whent the native port is complete) or NeoOffice will satisfy all their needs, but will do so using two different apps. The current Office for Mac is a little disappointing because it doesn't interact all that well with the platform, but it's very capable (with the possible exception of PowerPoint, which simply is not as good as Keynote). I don't think the two compete at all, I think they hit two very different demographics. However, I also think that Apple has considerable discontinuity between their apps on the level of functionality they each provide.
  • SteveMax, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Yes it is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF
  • vandy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6itunes didn't play video at that time
  • peestandingup, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Tell that to IE & WMP for Mac. Oh, right. You cant because they've been dead for years.
  • bloomanchoo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I'm just curious... what can Word dot, that Pages can't? (not talking entourage, or exchange)
  • NerdyNinja, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5It also uses it for video playback. It's not like Apple released a Home iTunes package and an Ultimate iTunes package or something, they only manage one version at a time. Besides, QT seems to be a lot better at syncing video and audio when you click to a different time in the clip rather than watch the whole thing linearly.
  • gohoos, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Apple is a behemoth? In mp3 sales, maybe, but not in the office space.
  • Balanced, on 10/10/2007, -5/+10To put it as succinctly as possible: MS Office is a de facto standard for several documents. iWork isn't.
  • vandy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5At some point, journalists became shaky on how long Office would continue to live on the Mac. Then when Apple debuted Keynote and iWork they started ringing the bell, claiming this was the end of Office and that Microsoft would cut off all relations. The truth of the matter is that Microsoft, as a software company, only stands to benefit from continuing development on Office as it's quite the profit maker for them. I had read articles after their most recent earnings call and people mentioned how Windows and Office were the only two profit makers for Microsoft. On top of that, Office for Mac accounts for something like 20 percent of retail Office sales. Sure Office for Mac suffers from bugs, isn't as fast or have as many applications bundled with it as its Windows brother, but the MacBU has released constant updates as well as working to make sure the apps work under Rosetta on Intel chips and work with the new Office 2007 formats. Microsoft is a software company, and Apple provides a profitable system for them to sell their products for, Office will stick around.

    Apple likes having Microsoft develop for them. If people know they can open standard Office documents on a Mac, then that's one less obstacle for people to move away from Windows. At the same time Apple allows people to use Windows on the Mac with Boot Camp and openly supports Parallels and VMWare. But the real topic at hand is iWork and Apple's aim for marketing.

    iWork is not a replacement for Office for all users and it never will be. As Steve said during his introduction of Numbers, it's for the rest of us. Office features some very powerful applications with support from many third parties who develop plug-ins. It's full featured, but for some people it is simply too much. iWork is simplified because it is oriented at doing the much more basic functions of said programs. If I want to work on a spreadsheet for a budget, build a small database, make comparisons, Numbers is fast and will let me do my task easily. Excel tends to get in the way of simple, it wants to offer too much help. Pages does layout and word processing, and Keynote lets you build great presentations quickly if you have the right eye for design. These apps can't replace Office in a business. They won't be used for research analysis. iWork is targeted at that home user, small business and student. I really enjoy working in iWork, and it will replace Office for most of my uses. I still need Excel for various analytical projects but when I don't need to make use of all of Office's hidden features and just want to get my work done, iWork fits the bill.

    I can't stress how many papers and presentations I have created in iWork, headache free, and in the style and formatting that I want. iWork and Office have a bit of overlap, and maybe Office will suffer some sales, but the two suites are for different markets. If anything, maybe it will help Office re-focus on who really needs their product to just work the way they need it to outside of a business setting. From early screenshots, Office for Mac looks to be making movements in that direction, and that's good. It's all about progress through competiton and I'm glad to see it happening on the Mac.
  • blackjack75, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Given how faster openoffice is on Windows/Linux than on my mac , I'd love to use iWork. I just don't mostly because I want to keep my files in an open format. I still can't get used to the idea of OOXML. Purely ideological though, I admit.
  • SoloMalee, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Whatever happens, Apple has about three and a half years left to make sure they have their iWork solution properly sorted and working with all competitors. I can't vouch for the quality of iWork as I never tried it, but at $79 dollars, it's a price I would be prepared to pay alongside free from Open Office. If Apple don't pull it off, then they'd better renegotiate that 5 year deal with Microsoft:

    http://www.tuaw.com/2006/01/10/microsoft-promises-5-years-of-office-development
  • neondiet, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7
    --[ I want to keep my files in an open format ]--

    That's what "Save as PDF" is for from the OS X print dialogue. PDF support is native in OS X, and you can get free PDF viewers for any platform and likely always will.
  • Ramble, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Not in the UK here. Linux and MS dominate unis.
  • JonLatane, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Well, everything runs beautifully on my Mac. And hey, before you go whining about free software from Apple sucking on Windows, consider that the several-hundred-dollar Office X is the WORST program on the Mac today. Neither company knows how to develop for the others' platform; why waste resources doing more than is necessary in that regard?

    PS: What bugs did you find in iTunes for Windows? I found it to be a memory hog, but it was always quite stable and sane in my experience.
  • Vician, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Even though you're just trolling the hell out of this thread, I'll point out both OpenOffice and NeoOffice are horrible on the Mac. I like OS X and appreciate the certain amount of polish it offers, otherwise I'd use Windows or LInux. So, iWork's is a good choice for that. So in the end it's a personal choice and wether or not you understand that, well, I could give a *****.
  • blackjack75, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I don't use 1% of Excel or OpenOffice calc. I'd be glad to do these in iWork.
  • Ramble, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8I don't think this person has used Office 07. It's the best thing to happen to Office ever, so I somehow doubt that iWork is far better than that.
  • schoate09, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5.doc is used 90% of cases, I think that's the standard. I love how these OSS fanboys get together on a newsgroup, declare something that's used 10% of the time a standard, and bash everyone for not "adhering to the standard".
  • MacParrot, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5wrong again. That must suck for your ego.
  • inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I got iWork because of Keynote. I have to say that I am pleased with it. And even though Pages isn't close to Word, I actually prefer it because it isn't as slow. That's probably because it is universal, but I digress.
  • NerdyNinja, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Every computer lab in any college I've been to on the east coast has at least half its computers as Macs, except for the occasional PC only lab in libraries - but those are balanced out by the Mac only labs that dominate the computer science, physics, math, and bio labs.
  • zodieman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Only if it's unprofitable for them. They dropped Internet Exploder because they gave it away for free (can't make money for that) and because they had no returns on it they canned it (yes, because the Mac marketshare is smaller and it cost them too much to develop at the time and ostensibly there were better browsers).
    Office will be around as long as people continue to buy it, MS makes money on it or somebody pisses of an MS exec really badly. This gives Apple a chance to develop a usable alternative albeit with lesser features that 95% of people really need and gives all of us something to fall back onto in the event MS decides otherwise.

    My needs are basic to the point that Office is useless and too expensive (ah, the key to it all). iWork fits the bill perfectly for me so Office is coming off the drive as soon as I can test Word and Excel files to the point I'm happy compatibility is good.
  • fkr3, on 10/10/2007, -12/+16Apple can do whatever they want. In case you haven't noticed they're all about locking people in to their platforms and their software.
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