Walt Mossberg tackles Apple's iWork '08

The Moss-man has gotten into a down-and-dirty review of Apple's latest version of its Office-battling software suite iWork '08 (which includes Pages, Keynote, and the new spreadsheet program Numbers) and delivers a one-two punch to the new package. Apparently, Cupertino's entry just can't match up to Office's triple power play of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, though Walt says that iWork '08 is an elegant and sophisticated solution for users looking for something with a little less power -- which should come as no surprise to most. Mossberg's not all doom and gloom though, happily noting that Pages has reined in its desktop publishing aspect and become more of a dedicated word processor, Numbers is a "refreshing innovation," that's more "approachable" than its competitor, and Keynote actually bests PowerPoint in ease of use. In the end, however, Mossy says all the flair and high design doesn't make up for the succulent and unbridled power in Office -- but you knew that already, right?

[Via Techmeme]

[Bob @ Aug 17th 2007 10:20AM]

It seems Walt describes all things Apple as "elegant"...

[Joshua @ Aug 17th 2007 10:21AM]

Has Keynote managed to handle theme changes any better? As someone that used PowerPoint a lot I found that changed the theme in Keynote after I had started with another theme would often cause a lot of problems to my work. Perhaps it was just me...

[Paul @ Aug 17th 2007 10:25AM]

Office may be more powerful, but until MS releases an Intel version for the Mac, iWork will continue to be my preference.

[PeteC @ Aug 17th 2007 11:33AM]

The only real reason I need parallels is so I can run word and excel natively, I don't play games. The old power pc version freezes up when editing long documents with endnote and track changes running so for now, this is my best option, iWork isn't up to scratch for tackling writing up research.

[halfeatenfish @ Aug 17th 2007 1:30PM]

I don't get why so many bow to the temptation to compare iWork to Office. They are similar, but aimed at different audiences. iWork is no competitor to Office. Office is WAAAAAY more powerful. The question is... how many people actually use all of that power? (How many SUV drivers ever get them dirty?)

I use both. For journal papers with references and equations and numbered figures/tables, I have to use Word (I'm not a TeX guy), b/c Pages won't cut it. For everything else, I use Pages. I like to use the best tool for the job. No single one is good at everything

[Froggy @ Aug 17th 2007 3:22PM]

so, what part of OpenOffice is still a mystery to people needing a free and stable solution to word processing and spreadsheets?

[John @ Aug 17th 2007 3:52PM]

The part where it's a crappy office ripoff that is nowhere near as powerful as even old versions of office. Openoffice is why I have to dual boot windows and linux on my desktop. In some cases you get what you pay for, and Openoffice is one of those cases - and it costs you nothing.

[Ignacio @ Aug 17th 2007 5:19PM]

"so, what part of OpenOffice is still a mystery to people needing a free and stable solution to word processing and spreadsheets?"

The part where it requires X11 on a Mac.

[Keaton @ Aug 18th 2007 2:36AM]

@halfeatenfish

I'm sort of the same way...

When I need power I use Office.
And when I don't I use Notepad.

;-)

[humpty @ Aug 17th 2007 10:25AM]

The only reason to get this is if you cant afford Office, cant find a hacked copy, or need an office app. where the name is prefixed with an "i"...

[Bad Beaver @ Aug 17th 2007 10:42AM]

Cut the BS, humpty. Most people will never ever want or be able to exploit the full "potential" of MS Office. The only reason to use it is to bend over to the idea of "everybody else" and to be halfway safe of MS-induced file incompatibilities, both of which is considered "professional" by some deranged minds. Otherwise, most people will be 100% happy and productive with an elegant low cost solution like this (besides Keynote alone justifies the cost), or one of the many free options. Anyone concerned enough will use LaTeX anyway, or other Pro-Tools.

[TrickyKid @ Aug 17th 2007 10:50AM]

I'm pretty sure I use office to its full extent every day. Maybe you don't at your job, but that's your thing. Most of the sales for office apps come from businesses not individual sales.

[Bad Beaver @ Aug 17th 2007 11:18AM]

Good for you. Nevertheless, it is highly doubtful that many people truly _have_ a need for MS Office, yet they are constantly _told_ that they do, so they might start to _believe_ it.

[o rly @ Aug 17th 2007 12:04PM]

_needs_more_underscores_

[Bad Beaver @ Aug 17th 2007 1:30PM]

You *bet*.

[Eric @ Aug 17th 2007 10:31AM]

Without even readying the blip, I'll summarize it for you:

Very innovative, worth the upgrade, buy now. Easier to use that (insert MS Product here). Buy now!

Cut and paste that for all Walt Mossberg reviews.

[Pans @ Aug 17th 2007 2:52PM]

Seriously.

I cant imagine anyone taking any "review" from this guy seriously.

The moment he gives an Apple product a bad review, his 15 minutes will be over.

[Rokesh @ Aug 17th 2007 10:47AM]

The dude doesn't get it....

why would you want MS Office if almost 80% of it you don't use...
and MS Office is just crappy software on your harddisk....

The ease of use is so much higher than MS Office (e.g. look at
what you can do with Pages in a matter of minutes v.s. the same thing
in Word....)


Don't compare pages/keynote/numbers to office... it's meant for cool looking
stuff and not boring "office" documents....

[iGasm @ Aug 17th 2007 10:51AM]

So iWork is meant for doing cool looking stuff and not work?

[arthur barnhouse @ Aug 17th 2007 11:13AM]

You can take the Window's version of Office to task if you'd like, I don't use it often and I didn't like it when I did. But the MacBU made a FANTASTIC version of office for the Mac, and anyone who says otherwise is being foolish.

[skumpy @ Aug 17th 2007 11:39AM]

i think you hit the nail on the head. apple seems to excel at exploiting the 80/20 rule. they make excellent and easy to use the 20% of the mass of functions people use 80% of the time, and forget the rest. suits me just right. so, i am an apple user. i think they apply the same thinking to the iPhone. i work for a mobile phone company that doesn't get this and continues to pile in feature after feature that most people don't care about, all the while making these 'multimedia computers' more difficult to use because of this overabundance of fairly needless features. oh well...

[Scott @ Aug 17th 2007 2:54PM]

Yes you may only use 20%, but as MS realized a long time ago when it comes to office products everybody has a slightly different 20% (well really they have a slightly different 10%). That 10% is more then enough to kill the whole deal.

[John @ Aug 17th 2007 4:00PM]

MS office is the best office suite available and anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. Office 2007 is a step in the right direction, keeping the massive amounts of features that the previous versions had but making them easier to use. Is iWork easier to use? Everyone seems to be saying so. But it's a lot easier to learn to ride a tricycle than a motorcycle, and which do people actually use for transportation?

[Whiplash @ Aug 17th 2007 10:49AM]

Personally, I think this kicks the crap out of Office on the Mac, which is a big stinking POS if you ask me. Still not as sweet as Office 2007 for Windows though. But then again, it's what... a quarter of the price?

[Rokesh @ Aug 17th 2007 11:01AM]

Of course you can use iWork for the office. Imagine what cool
looking charts etc you can make with Numbers.

Managers love nice looking stuff. So yeah, definitely iWork
can be used in the Office.

MS Office is so big currently that is becomes not very convenient to work with it.

Try to make the same stuff of Numbers in Excel in the same amount of time....

Furthermore, do you really need all the stuff that MS Office is providing you ?

[MacDaddy312 @ Aug 17th 2007 10:51AM]

When Office in its different versions prices between $200 and $500, and iWork costs $79, I think the scale gets tipped to one or the other depending on your intent. I agree that most people don't really use all of Office's features, so why pay for them?

[Ordeith @ Aug 18th 2007 3:23AM]

Office 2007 costs $125 for home users. That includes Word, Excel, and One Note.

[DW @ Aug 17th 2007 10:52AM]

I'm using the trial of iWork 08 now and, while it pains me to say it, iWork 08 is nowhere close to Office.

And that's coming from a guy who only uses MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint about once every 2 months or so.

But, yeah, iWork is nice-looking at least. Any word on whether it will be able to open .docx files?

[halfeatenfish @ Aug 17th 2007 1:32PM]

It opens docx files natively. Unfortunately my Office 2004 won't. Go figure. How did Apple get the conversion done faster than MS????

[Ron Hands @ Aug 17th 2007 10:54AM]

99% of office suite(ms office, star office,...) users don't even scratch the surface of the capabilities of these programs. That's what makes iwork or ilife so attractive. Elegant, easy to learn and easy to use. Most office suites are over rated bloatware that most folks don't need or want. Other successful software such as Adobe's Elements(Premier or Photoshop) again are Elegant, easy to learn and easy to use. I'll take something simply, straightforward and get the job done software any day over bloatware that I'll never use.

[nate @ Aug 17th 2007 11:11AM]

where the hell are you getting that number? 99% ... ??

[Ron Hands @ Aug 17th 2007 11:23AM]

personal experience in dealing with users every day

[Hawkman @ Aug 17th 2007 12:22PM]

Totally agree. Though Pages is still a bit of a strange word processor - stick to the DTP, I reckon - and Keynote is an exception in the other direction: an incredible piece of software which beats Powerpoint easily.

Why's Keynote so good? Because presentations are all about *presentation*, and Keynote's output is the work of a great painter, compared to Powerpoint's blind-man-with-a-paintbrush approach. The difference in output aesthetics is less important in the other applications.

[John @ Aug 17th 2007 4:02PM]

I don't know what "features" star/open office has that no one uses... it's a pretty threadbare suite compared to its non-free competitors

[David Blank @ Aug 17th 2007 10:56AM]

I haven't used iWork '08 yet, but for $79 it's probably well worth it for a large audience. Why spend $399 when most don't use all of the features of Office anyway. I can understand if one is using Office's full feature set, but most people only use Office on a casual basis. From what I have seen, iWork '08 has some very cool features that will only get better with future releases and the price of admission is within reason.

Keynote is a great product, Pages has some cool feature, needs a little work, but Numbers looks quite interesting from some of things it can do. I hope to get my own copy soon.

[tony @ Aug 17th 2007 10:58AM]

But I've heard that Office is the one thing from Redmond that isn't a steaming pile, no? Maybe that's the PC version.

[David @ Aug 17th 2007 10:58AM]

I've been using iWork 08 for the past week and so far I like it a lot more than Office 2004, mainly due to MS' inability to get a version of Office out that runs correctly on Mac's that have been out since the beginning of last year...

Office 2007 on my Windows desktop of course owns it though, but that's also twice the price.

[george.beckingham @ Aug 17th 2007 11:12AM]

I use Pages and Keynote exclusively, but I still need Office for Excel. That hasn't changed with version 08. Numbers introduces the groundbreaking idea of having independent tables on a single sheet, but other than that it's only good for producing eye candy for management. It has no power, and chokes on my small technical spreadsheets (a few hundred lines).

If Apple comes out with a more powerful version of Numbers, I may never touch Office again. Until then I'll be stuck with two office apps: iWork for presentation, Excel for power.

[kyle @ Aug 17th 2007 11:14AM]

"Casual office users"...How many of you have desk jobs? I spend at least 8 hours a day using Office and I gotta say, my computer makes me money rather than the other way around. Office 2007 is a solid improvement. iwork hits the typical apple market segment. Broad, middle of the road consumer base, from kids to grandmas...it looks shiny and is easy to use. I am all for good looks, but sometimes the ugly girl in the room works harder for it. With that said I am desperately waiting for Adobe to create presentation software.

[Gary Niederhelman @ Aug 17th 2007 11:15AM]

You've got to be kidding? The dork still thinks its the 90's, what with that friggin' goatee....who cares what the out of date geezer has to say about anything?

[Bart @ Aug 17th 2007 1:19PM]

Yeah...because you generation is so much smarter. Smart-assed and arogant for sure.

[sensible consumer @ Aug 19th 2007 2:11PM]

This coming from a man who runs scam websites. Harassess his customers, slanders and insults anyone who makes the slightest request of him and steals email addresses from other sites to spam unsuspecting people (adults AND minors). Just Do a search on ripoff.com under his name and you will see what kind of scum he is.

[deslock @ Aug 17th 2007 11:17AM]

My local University store sells iWork '08 for $39 so I picked it up. After using it for a few days, my assessment is that as far as OSX office suites go, iWork '08 > MS Office 2004 > NeoOffice > OpenOffice.

I really want to stick with the open office suites, but they're just a little too clunky and at less than $40, I don't mind paying for iWork now that it has a spreadsheet. It's a shame that Apple doesn't read or write the Open Document format and doesn't appear to write to OOXML (it can export to MS' older Office formats).

[Chicksta @ Aug 17th 2007 11:20AM]

I think they both compliment each other nicely; Keynote can make much better-looking presentations, and has much nicer transitions (as dangerous as they can be). Exporting into QuickTime is a huge plus. Word absolutely stinks at laying out pages w/graphics, so Documents (why the rename?) is a great app for people who would use something like Publisher. The pre-made templates and layouts are nice in Numbers, and it seems to have all of the advanced goodies according to all the Excel users I've talked to that have tried it. For a home user, you can get the Student/Teacher edition of Office for $149 and get iWork too; heck, throw in NeoOffice too for free!

[jps @ Aug 17th 2007 11:23AM]

All the power in the world can't help if you don't know how to use it. To wit: my boss still can't fix his margins.

Fuck clippy, he isn't helping.

[papafew @ Aug 17th 2007 11:50AM]

That's true jps. I don't know Word a lot but sometimes I need to use it in one of my client's office and, ok, it can certainly do a lot of things, but where is the menu for that, in a zillion choices complicated and old style interface ? (in french we say it's a "gaz factory"

+ Numbers is version 1.0 only for now

I think Apple's "revenge" on software side need a least 1 or 2 version up to really compete with Office

a little comment from Paris, France

[TorontoGuy @ Aug 17th 2007 11:55AM]

Has there ever been a review of an Apple product that did NOT include the meaningless iWord 'Elegant'? What is 'elegant' to one person might be 'selling the sizzle rather than the steak' to me.

[MrWhite @ Aug 17th 2007 11:59AM]

I'm a designer, I have MS Office suite for Mac, I deleted Entourage off my HD because it's a pile of junk and I use Apple Mail. I use Word maybe 3 times a month and adding images and having the texted wrap is cumbersum and lame along with many other features that you have spend a lot of time trying to find just for not to work properly. I don't use Excel because I haven't devoted the time to read a 300 page book on it or take a course on how to use it :| But iWork looks like something that fits into my designing nature, having used Pages, it does what you tell it, not the other way around with Office.

I agree Office is here to stay, just like Windows is and that is sad.

[Galley @ Aug 17th 2007 12:06PM]

A few months ago I began taking my MacBook to work, using iWork '06 to create beautiful new training materials. The only problem was that I was now "too good at my job" and it wasn't fair to the other training specialists who were stuck using Office 2003 on their PCs. Numbers is a god-send for folks who use Excel to create business forms. Individual tables is the only way to go.

[MasterCKO @ Aug 17th 2007 12:08PM]

Everyone who says "blah blah blah Office is so unusable, iWork is better than sliced bread" should try Office 2007. Usability has gone WAY up in this version. The whole "it's buried in a menu" thing was a valid pitfall that people consistently suffered in usability tests, so MS finally addressed it in the new version. And frankly, I think it's awesome. I've discovered so many features since switching to the new version (some that are new, most that were available in 2003 that I didn't know about). Personally, my productivity has skyrocketed.

I'm SURE the next Mac version of Office will see all of these great UI changes and more.

Though, that being said, $79 for an office suite is kind of hard to beat, heh.

BTW, Microsoft switches itself over to a more open and robust file format (everything based on XML), that generates files about half the size as before, and people complain about "MS forced incompatibilities!!!"? This is the rock and hard-place that MS constantly finds itself in.