iWorks - office replacement

M

macridah

root
oh yeah ... word on the street is that Apple has an office alternative in the works. It's gonna be called iWorks. Here more detatils from Think Secret:

"if you're waiting for AppleWorks 7, look instead for iWorks, coming from Apple later this year. Sources said that iWorks will consist of a word processing application tentatively called "Document," Apple's Keynote presentation software, a spreadsheet application, and a database app. Unlike AppleWorks 6's integrated format, iWorks' apps will be separate programs but connected, much like Apple's iLife."

Full article with more info on iWorks and other stuff:

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/tsnotes.html
 
Why won't it be called iWorks? Come on man, give some credibility to your claims. Just kidding, what makes you think not? I'm curious.

magnolia1240
 
iWorks sounds a little like Microsoft Works to me .. remember that wonderful package of software?
 
I have heard this rumour before, and unlike most I think this one is true. I hope they do come out with it. I use M$ office, and some what like it, I would start using Apple's new office suite.
 
The smart move would be for Apple to follow the Safari paradigm and base any office application on open source.

check out http://www.openoffice.org

By improving the suite (to use Aqua instead of X11) and throwing it back out to the open source community, Apple could really loosen the grip that MS has over the business productivity market, and wipe out one of the major resistance points for corporate switching.

What ever they do would have to be 100% compatible with MS Office suite to gain widespread acceptability.

It need not be as feature rich either. Most users use only a fraction of the capabilities of MS Word, for example. Yes, it can do detailed technical documents with footnotes, references, tables of contents etc. most people use it to write letters.
 
That would be like basing Safari on mozilla rather than KHTML.

Keynote is an XML based application, and a wonderful one that will develop into an even better one. Apple already _has_ a word processor that only needs more features: TextEdit.

Also, Cocoa has wonderful text manipulation functions that would be given up by using OpenOffice.org, which would be a big step down. Why override something better with something worse? No point...

A Cocoa version of AppleWorks has been in development for months, and I guess it makes sense to create single applications out of that code base. Keynote shows that Apple now makes a profit using the technologies invented for Mac OS X, like Quartz (PDF) and the aforementioned text handling features.

As for the database, I hope it'll just be a trimmed down FileMaker version (FileMaker Inc. is still owned by Apple).
 
Originally posted by fryke


Keynote is an XML based application, and a wonderful one that will develop into an even better one. Apple already _has_ a word processor that only needs more features: TextEdit.
Click to expand...

Yes XML base is great. Now TextEdit is not really a word processor. I mean, it's ok to read text, or write a few ideas. But it's not a text processor. No style management, nothing. It's even below the good old MacWrite. MacWrite was at least easy to use and good enough for short letters, faxes...

Opening AppleWorks is a good idea. Get some of the technologies and put these in a modern way (infinite undo, a good style management (like FrameMaker), and build a nice interface).
 
Originally posted by magnolia1240
Why won't it be called iWorks? Come on man, give some credibility to your claims. Just kidding, what makes you think not? I'm curious.

magnolia1240
Click to expand...
The suite will not be called iWorks for a couple of reasons:
1.) The supposedly first piece of the puzzle, Keynote, does not start with i. Neither does Safari. Apple is obviously trying to steer away from that now.
2.) The iLife suite only started with i because all four of the suite's apps did as well. It would not have sounded right if it did not contain i at the beginning at the name.
I don't think that Apple would start their productivity suite's name with i, if they are going to do so at all. I also believe that they will try to steer clear from the i beginning in the suite's app names as well. They already have with Keynote.
 
Keynote, Write, Draw (no Paint: it's iPhoto), Spreadsheet, Safari and Database.
 
Who cares what it's called. So long as it has a great a Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Database application, and can maintain file compatability with Word and Excel - they can call it anything they like. Just make it good, affordable, and a real alternative to Office that Mac users will want to buy and they will have a hit.
 
I hope that Apple does come out with a office-suit. It would be nice to see Lotus (IBM) port more of their products over the Mac. A few office suites will help control the cost and motivate each company to make great software.
 
An Apple Office Suit? That really sounds great, maybe kind of like a Star Trek uniform, more whitish and with an Apple as communicator-button-device. :p

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)

'Document' for the word processor sounds good. Would certainly also fit the spreadsheet application. And 'File' for the database, perhaps. Then iPhoto could be renamed 'Picture' or just 'Photo', iTunes would be 'Tune' or 'Track'. Hmm... 'iWrite' would actually sound quite good, I think. Certainly hope that 'Document' isn't gonna stick with a final product...
 
'i'-Apps are consumer, digital lifestyle/hub apps. The apps you are discussing here are for pro use, not really consumer apps. Safari, iChat (which shouldn't be an i-app IMHO), Mail, and Address Book are key components to the OS. Key in the sense that every OS should have a web browser, em@il client, and contact management software, not in the sense that you can't replace them with something you like better (like a certain other OS that doesn't let you remove its web browser). On the other hand, iChat, iSync, and iCal seem like they really go with .Mac, which altogether can be said to be digital lifestyle. Whatever... pro apps and essential OS feature apps (EX:Mail, Address Book) should not have the 'i.'
 
Here's something:Keynote files are (supposedly) XML files. Since XML seems to work for presentation files, and I'm sure it would work for word processing documents, I have to wonder if it could also work for spreadsheet and drawing documents? If so, Apple could stick to one standard (XML) and simply create 2 levels of feature sets: iWorks for consumers and some type of Office-like package for pros. This way, documents created in the pro version could still be read by people using the consumer version. The difference is the features you get: Keynote would still have more advanced features like PowerPoint, but the new AppleWorks replacement could still read the presentations, with fewer options. Maybe leave out some of the better transitions, stuff like that. 'Document' as some say it will be called can have advanced editing, auto-correction, really heavy-duty stuff for offices, while the Word Processing part of 'iWorks' can still read documents from Document, and do the basic word processing that a family needs. I'm sure you get the idea, so I won't get into the spreadsheet and drawing app differences. Of course, the pro package wouldn't need a graphics module; Office doesn't have it. So iWorks could have the simple drawing and painting abilities of AppleWorks, but save in standard formats only such as TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG. The point is that my biggest problem with AppleWorks is that it often does a lousy job of saving in Word format, as well as opening Word files. If both the Pro package and Consumer package used the same format, and the Consumer package could do as great a job of importing the Office documents as the pro package would, that could really compete with Office by offering a solid solution at a much lower cost.
 
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