The Mac Observer

Skip navigational links

You're viewing an article in TMO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site:
Apple Announes iWork; Updates Keynote, All New Word Processor (UPDATED)

TMO at MWSF - Apple Announes iWork; Updates Keynote, All New Word Processor (UPDATED)

by , 1:30 PM EST, January 11th, 2005

SAN FRANSISCO -- Before a standing room only crowd at the Moscone Convention Center, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced iWork, a software suite that includes a upgrade of Apple's Keynote presentation package, and Pages, a new word processing application.

Mr. Jobs called Keynote version 2 "a major upgrade". Among its new features includes 10 new themes, animated text, animated builds, a presenter display, the ability to do interactive slide shows, and a kiosk slide show feature. Keynote 2 improves upon the original with slide animations to synchronize the movement of multiple objects, real-time animated text, and image masking. It includes the iLife media browser for insertion of photos, movies and music directly into presentations.

In addition, Keynote has added Macromedia Flash, PDF and QuickTime output capability.

Pages is Apple's newest word processing application. Calling it a word processing application "incredible sense of style," Mr. Jobs showed a long list of features including footnotes, table of contents and more, but played up its 40 Apple-designed templates as a key feature.

Mr. Jobs said Pages sports "advanced typography," multiple columns, footnotes, tables of contents and styles, as well as dynamic text wrapping and alignment guides.

Also included is an iLife media browser that lets users drag and drop photos from the iPhoto library directly into documents.

Mr. Jobs said iWork will retail for US$79 and will be available January 22.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:dhp Posts: 182 Joined: 22 May 2003
Subject: lots of room for growth

This sounds promising, but it's not exactly an office suite (not that Apple necessarily calls it that). I don't see how a word processor and a presentation app constitute a replacement for AppleWorks.

Close Name:Sydde Posts: 1821 Joined: 30 Aug 2001
Subject: taking their time

Were you expecting a spreadsheet as well? I suspect Apple are studying what people do with Excel and will be adding a tool that handles data in a somewhat different way (for those who really need that kind of a spreadsheet, there are plenty of alternatives). I suspect the third arm of iWork will have some kind of data manager ("Capture"?) that combines the idea of a database app with the utility of a spreadsheet in a way that is handier to use that either by itself (and will integrate with Pages).

So far I am not particularly impressed with this "suite" (especially the notion of "we give you lots of cool templates") - I am beginning to get the feeling that it is the Apple community more than the company, that makes the Mac experience great.

Close Name:dhp Posts: 182 Joined: 22 May 2003
Subject: Academic

BTW, edu price for iWork is $49.

Close Name:BlueDjinn -   TMO Staff Posts: 708 Joined: 24 Jun 2001
Subject: Don't think of it as a "Suite"...

...think of it this way:

Keynote = PowerPoint Killer for $99

iWork = PowerPoint & Word Killers for $79!!

What's rather interesting is that the specs for the Mac Mini indicate that it includes *AppleWorks*, not iWork--which may just be a delay in updating the code (though I doubt it), or may be because iWork doesn't ship for another week or so (although that seems silly).

Are they *not* bundling iWork on any systems at all? AppleWorks is still listed as the bundled app on the hardware spec pages...??

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: taking their time

Quote
Sydde wrote:

So far I am not particularly impressed with this "suite" (especially the notion of "we give you lots of cool templates") - I am beginning to get the feeling that it is the Apple community more than the company, that makes the Mac experience great.


What do you expect for $80?

I know a lot of people (myself included) who have the MS Office suite and only use Word.

I think $80 sounds pretty freak'n awsome for something that will replace Word and work with the same files.

Close Name:Mace Posts: 9604 Joined: 07 Aug 2003
Subject:

Hmm ... no entertainment server.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1960 Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Subject:

Quote
Mace wrote:
Hmm ... no entertainment server.


I continue to believe that we won't see anything like that until they have worked out some way to buy or view movies legally over the internet.

I imagine you'll see that kind of product announced at the same time as 'movies for iTunes' or whatever they want to call it.

Close Name:dhp Posts: 182 Joined: 22 May 2003
Subject:

Quote
Small White Car wrote:

What do you expect for $80?

I know a lot of people (myself included) who have the MS Office suite and only use Word.

I think $80 sounds pretty freak'n awsome for something that will replace Word and work with the same files.


Sure, it's a great deal for what it is. It's just that if I were to buy this, I still would not be able to erase AppleWorks from my system, unless I found replacements for my databases and spreadsheets. (Obviously this would be true for many, many AppleWorks users.)

But for the price--especially the Edu price--it's a steal.

Question: For somone who really needs the functionality of Word (versus AppleWorks' word processor), is this really a "Word killer?"

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Pages is a good move...

Take another close look at Pages.

This may be a sneaky trojan horse kind of product.

It is not just a word processor. The name is "pages"

What we seem to have here is a sort of object oriented wysiwyg layout program with export capabilities in multiple formats including not only .doc and .pdf, but also .htm

If any of you had the oportunity to play with a program called Freeway you may see that the potential for true wysiwyg print/web page layout design in an elegant fashion with conversion AFTER design completion is the seed of something genius.

Obviously you are not going to replace the high end programs which you and I an many others own and use, but think of the many "users" or more importantly potential users who would like to build a web page or print a newsletter or restaurant menu.

Most of them don't have those high end programs and wouldn't know how to use them or even the ones they have to get what this apears to be able to provide them with ease and elegance.

This once again is empowering technology with the potential to transform large groups of computer owners into computer users.

Think of what iMovie did for video editing. And for that matter think of how desire to make a movie drove mass purchases of macs solely to acquire iMovie.

This is a good move, together with the Mac Mini apple is doing some really smart strategic placement.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Hmm ... no entertainment server.

re: Hmm ... no entertainment server.

How much do you want in one day? The thing is to not reveal everything at once, otherwise you lose the impact ... Apple have more stuff up their sleave - the next couple of months will be very interesting

Close Name:spxyu02 Posts: 1214 Joined: 04 Aug 2004
Subject:

As good as a Powerpoint and Word killer these programs may be, most people still need a spreadsheet program for one thing or another, or just would feel really naked without one. Sure you could get iWork + Excel, but buying an Office app by itself is really expensive, and probably worth just getting the whole suite together.

It's also interesting that it doesn't totally take over the AppleWorks stuff like databases.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Powerpoint Killer Yes, Word Killer No

Keynote already was a PowerPoint Killer. Pages is not a Word killer because Apple does not want Microsoft to stop OS X development. This pattern has been going on now for quite some time. Why do you think it took Apple so long to come up with a replacement for AW6? It looks to me like Pages is a simple, elegant, low cost page layout program akin to InDesign or Pagemaker, rather than a word processor like Word. InDesign for the masses, if you will. Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft are carefully not stepping on each others' toes and effectively cooperating in their very succesful attempts to empty our wallets. This being the case, we still don't have a comprehensive suite that uses all of OS X's outstanding typography, graphics and computing power. I own CS and Office and although they are great, they could be much better. No doubt, I'll end up with Pages at some point for my wife and kids.

Close Name:Mace Posts: 9604 Joined: 07 Aug 2003
Subject: Re: Powerpoint Killer Yes, Word Killer No

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
... It looks to me like Pages is a simple, elegant, low cost page layout program akin to InDesign or Pagemaker, rather than a word processor like Word. InDesign for the masses, if you will ...
Agree. I just watched the SJ's keynote. From the demo, Pages seem more like a page layout application than a word processing application. Pages is to InDesign as iPhoto is to Photoshop.

Close Name:mshoaf Posts: 112 Joined: 02 Dec 2002
Subject:

Quote
Mace wrote:
Pages is to InDesign as iPhoto is to Photoshop.


Bingo. From the demo I saw today, and from the discussion I had at the Creative Suite Power Tools seminar, that's exactly what Pages is. Mr. Jobs wouldn't dare say that in public (They have pissed off Adobe enough already!), but that's really what it is. I almost think it would be a better fit into iLife 05 instead of iWork... except it would be more likely to be used in a small office situation than the other iApps.

Now all the prepress people are cringing at the thought of what they will be getting from Pages users!

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Organic Apples

My advance hopes were that this new "word processor" would take a new and defining direction in the nature of the word processoring itself, much like Apple computers did with the nature of personal computing. Although I've only seen it briefly, what Pages seems to lack is integration with Address Book and iCal. I think this capability would take care of almost everything.

Comment on this Article


You cannot edit your comments.   You cannot delete your comments.

Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.


Recent Headlines - Updated November 10th

Mon, 7:20 PM
Rumor - Apple May Update iPod touch in December
6:45 PM
Product News - MacUpdate Desktop Updated to 5.0.1 with New Features, Bug Fixes
5:16 PM
Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.6.2 - Guest Account Bug Fixed, Much More
4:12 PM
Games - New For iPhone: Star Rangers, Air Force Supremacy, Blood Beach, More
2:51 PM
Apple Stock Watch - Radio Shack Jumps 14% on iPhone Deal, Apple Up 3%
2:25 PM
Games - EA Scoops Up Social Games Publisher Playfish
1:51 PM
Deal Brothers - Western Digital 1TB SATA Intellipower Hard Drive:  $84.99
10:58 AM
News - StarHub Signs Singapore iPhone Deal
10:36 AM
Hot Forum Topic - Reader Speculation: What’s in Apple’s Tablet?
10:08 AM
News - Apple Kicks Off New Credit Program
9:26 AM
News - Apple Launches Reserve and Pick Up Program
8:49 AM
News - ikee Worm Rickrolls Jailbroken iPhones

The Mac Observer Reader Specials

  • TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com
  • RamJet Memory: Mac Pro 8-core 8GB Kit $199.99, 4GB Kits $109.99! Sale on MacBook and MacBook Pro 8GB kits $549.99! New MacBook DDR3 2GB for $49.99. iMac and Mac mini 4GB Kits for $79.99! 1TB SATA Hard Drives for $109.99! Click here
  • OWC: Get the Right Memory for Your Mac Top Quality, Competitive Price, Lifetime Backed Free Expert Support + Installation Videos too! MacBook & mini 8GB, iMac 16GB, Mac Pro up to 32GB. Click here
  • Poker Mac If you're using a Mac, then you've gotta check out Full Tilt Poker for Mac. This Full Tilt Poker bonus code does the unthinkable, it actually rewards!
  • For the latest Apple products use Ciao, a price comparison website, to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate mobile phones like the Apple iPhone.

  • Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.
  • __________
  • Buy Stuff, Support TMO!
  • Podcast: Mac Geek Gab
  • Podcast: Apple Weekly Report
  • TMO on Twitter!