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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: 180 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: 180 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: 1950 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: 9163 Joined: 07 Aug 2003
Subject:

Hmm ... no entertainment server.

Close Name:Small White Car Posts: 1950 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: 180 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?"

View Name:Guest
Subject: Pages is a good move...
View Name:Guest
Subject: Hmm ... no entertainment server.
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.

View Name:Guest
Subject: Powerpoint Killer Yes, Word Killer No
Close Name:Mace Posts: 9163 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!

View Name:Guest
Subject: Organic Apples
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