iWork, worth it ?

[mindbend]

See my review and discussion of Keynote 2 here:

http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50559

In short, I think K2 is excellent if you need that type of app.

I played with Pages just for a few minutes and was not too impressed. It's a very introductory level type app. Like page design for people that don't have a clue. It initially seems very intuitive, but unfortuantely I was easily able to get it confused with what I was trying to do, so in the end I was more frustrated than anything. But then I'm a designer, so I'm used to a different degree of control and layout mentality. I could see Pages having an audience (newsletter types, letters to grandma, realtor showcases, that sort of thing), it's just not for me.

 

[andyhargreaves]

I don't think it's worth the money since as a student I get Office at a discount.

You also get iWork at a discount. It's currently at £38.78 ($70) for students and teachers, rather than £49 ($94) {I've taken these prices from the UK store and converted them - mybe the US store prices would be different?}

Besides, Office for the Mac isn't a bad product and it works much better than Office on Windows. I just love the floating palettes as opposed to the multitude of toolbars you find in the Windows version of Office.

I agree entirely. I was really pleasantly surprise with office:mac, as a MS skeptic.

Andy

 

[karavite]

OpenDoc, in general, was drag-and-drop-a-licious. It was a wonderfuly idea that will never take off unless everybody wants to reprogram their apps.

Thanks Adambyte! Yes, it was a great idea and after spending all day updating images, text and files across files in Visio, Excel, Word and Powerpoint I don't doubt I would shoot the first person who tells me Office is "seamlessly integrated." It is anything but. Open Doc was a concept that would have made so many people so much more productive. I run across so many things with Office apps and wish I could just do this or that - after all, it is a computer! I think some people SHOULD be forced to reprogram their apps! Ah, they would stil screw it up!

Mindbend - it isn't just you. I am not a designer and I found the Pages UI just plain odd. Nothing worked as expected and absent was the nice feeling you get with so many other Apple apps. So you hear that Apple - why did you put the junior UI/interaction designers on Pages?