About the new iWork for Mac: Features and compatibility | Hacker News Reader

About the new iWork for Mac: Features and compatibility

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48 pointstwsted55 comments

Apple increasingly proves that intransigence in response to customer feedback is not a defining feature of Apple's aesthetic. Another example is the reduced motion setting in iOS7. There's no need to piss people off just for the sake of purity; Steve gave that to Apple, but it is fundamentally distinct from Steve's primary gift - his vision of consumer products. Steve would have berated you for using Applescript, until Apple released the update a year later that supported Applescript.

This.

I had to look it up, so to save you the time:

    intransigence: Unwillingness to change one's views or to agree.

This new trend of Apple "communicating" their "plans" is really... unsettling? It has the same sort of un-appleness to it as the announcement at WWDC of a product with no release-date: just sort of not something we've seen much of, previously.

This sort of communication seems more unambiguously good, though. Not sure if this counts as backtracking, but it's certainly a new degree of 'transparency' (or 'not complete opacity') and I think it's refreshing.

I guess there's actually a bit of previous from apple for this sort of thing, such as their open letter about the iPhone 4 antennas, or about Foxconn etcetera. Still this feels a bit different.

>> "the announcement at WWDC of a product with no release-date"

If you're referencing the Mac Pro, that one made sense to me. People have been complaining about the lack of an update for a long time and Apple was probably losing people to Hackintosh/other platforms. An announcement helps slow that loss. Also developers are likely one of the main groups the Mac Pro is relevant to so it makes sense to announce that they are working on it at WWDC. Also didn't they say 'later this year'? That's not too different that what they do every year with iOS (coming this fall).

I thought the also did it with the iPad Mini Retina? I'm probably wrong though

They said "Later in November". More of a general time frame than a release date.

Yup, timeframe. The first iPad was announced as coming "next month", which turned out to be 5:00pm on the last business day (a Friday) of April.

It's also no different to what they've done in the past when they are launching a brand new product; the first iPhone was announced about five months before its release.

That was because of FCC regulations: they had to apply for licenses that the public would find out about. It hasn't happened with any subsequent iPhones, which have all been announced with < 1 month lead time (I think 1-2 weeks was normal).

Also the Mac Pro ceased being sold in the EU from the 1 March (it didn't comply with some EU regulation that came into force — with years of warning — that it trivially could have been made compatible with), so given they had ceased selling it in one major market it would've seemed reasonable to conclude they didn't care about it (and arguably they don't — if they can go without selling any Mac Pros in one of the largest markets in the world for almost a year).

Don't forget Final Cut Pro (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/06/29/apple-fcpx).

It seems to me as if Tim Cook basically believes that Apple's secrecy about products is a good idea, but is also pragmatic and is willing to be open about screwups/future plans when he thinks it will pay off.

> open about screwups/future plans when he thinks it will pay off.

I'd talk about "ongoing" plans here, considering history (iMovie and FCPX) it's likely the plan was "rebuild from a cleaner slate" all along, but it's good seeing it actually spelled out for once.

Might have been better if they'd spelled out a bit earlier, but at least users are not left completely in the dark and praying for salvation as they were with iMovie '08.

Are we seeing the first shoots of Tim's Apple? A little less guarded about software roadmaps is a welcome change.

Wow they really can't win can they.

"Unsettling" if they communicate. "Intransigent" if they don't.

Wow. Just when I thought Apple couldn't do anything to bring me back, they do this. And then that warrant canary yesterday.

Using Apple is like being in a passive-aggressive relationship. One day, she's absolutely wonderful and does everything your way and you get to cooperate on every single decision, and the next day, she gives you the cold shoulder because you weren't doing some arbitrary thing right.

The website still looks like crap, but it looks like Apple is slowly coming out of the inconsistent days of iOS 7 and fixing the stuff they should have a long time ago.

I guess that's worth something, even if it doesn't feel like enough to me.

I'm kinda surprised to see this. I'm a big iWork user and I didn't really miss any of the features they took out. I mean, not having those features didn't affect my ability to do my job, so I didn't really know if the outcry was realistic or just a sense of entitlement. It is good know that we'll see some rapid improvements - although I'll be wondering how necessary some of these features are if I didn't miss them in the first place ;-)

edit: what kind of things are people doing with Applescript in Keynote? It sounds interesting...

Pretty realistic. I can speak from my own experience: a lot of people used it to produce professional documents. I use it to write books, it is (was) a wonderful alternative to Microsoft Word.

The new version removed at least six mission critical features, so I didn't upgrade. I could not have written my book in Pages if I was starting out with the new version. Style management, in particular, is crucial.

As you self-publish, wouldn’t it make more sense to use Adobe InCopy[1]? There is no other app I know of that integrates better with InDesign. As a publisher, that’s what I ask authors and editors to style copy in.

If you’re a Adobe CC subscriber, you already have access to it. If not, a InCopy CC license costs $240 a year.

[1] http://www.adobe.com/products/incopy.html

It may make sense to learn it eventually, but so far there's nothing I haven't been able to do with ease in Pages. Here are my books, you should be able to see inside them to get a sense of the formatting:

http://www.amazon.com/Graeme-Blake/e/B009A0YBWO/

What would be the major advantages? I'm sure there are some, I just don't know much about it.

I looked at the covers of your books: those are good. I also looked at the interiors on some of your books: those seem to not have received as much attention.

InCopy makes it easy to add styles that translate well to InDesign. The same is true for tables and lists. I’d say, watch the tutorials Adobe and Lynda.com[1] created.

InCopy has copyfitting features: you can see exactly how many lines fit on one page and how many lines you’ve got left. You can also preview the layout.

[1] http://www.lynda.com/InCopy-training-tutorials/232-0.html

Interesting. What is "Style management" in this context? I'm assuming the ability to modify a style once and have it applied to the whole document?

Yes. Styles sometimes get complex when you have overlapping paragraph, character and list styles. Highlighting every instance of the style often lets you make subtler modifications.

I suppose I should check if the new style management means I no longer need to do this. But there were other features I needed, so I won't upgrade yet. Not worth risking breaking my workflow until I see where the dust settles.

I'm disappointed not to see the "Share" menu make it into this list.

In iWork '09, there's a "Share" menu. It has a few different output formats (PDF, Word, etc). When you click an output format, it exports to an attachment and automatically opens Mail. This is so incredibly efficient and reduces so many clicks.

I use this feature at 5-10 times a day, at least, and it's the one feature that is preventing me from upgrading to Mavericks on my primary laptop.

I realize that when I install the new iWork, the old iWork will still be there, but it still feels risky.

Apple, if you're listening, please fix this.

> In iWork '09, there's a "Share" menu. It has a few different output formats (PDF, Word, etc). When you click an output format, it exports to an attachment and automatically opens Mail.

The new iWork apps have a Share menu. It has all the same options as before, but it can also send just a link to the document. Using the latter option, the recipient can choose to open the document in whatever format they desire and to open it in an iWork app or on the web. Even web users can edit the document and send it back to you as an iWork file (and other file formats.)

Here are some screenshots: (iWork 5 in Mavericks)

http://imgur.com/IxNE8KG (the Share menu in the app toolbar)

http://imgur.com/a4DqXkY (Send an email containing the document)

http://imgur.com/X9YgQ4r (‘Send via email’ file format options)

http://imgur.com/OcKseRs (Send an email containing a link to the document)

Also, if you upgrade to Mavericks, you can continue using iWork ’09. When you upgrade your OS, the iWork apps aren’t automatically updated to the new versions. And if you do download the new iWork apps, your iWork ’09 apps will still be there.

Appreciate the response. The problem is that the new process introduces another click where you have to select the document format. In iWork '09, you click the menu, then drag to word, then a menu opens. so 1-2 clicks vs. extra clicks and context shifts. It's a step backward.

I realize an update to Mavericks won't necessarily affect iWork, but I'm too attached to my current process to even risk it. It's an irrational behavior, I know. :-)

> the new process introduces another click

Yeah, that is an unfortunate result from adding more functionality in the same menu. I would’ve preferred to have two buttons: one for sharing links and one for sharing files. Even better: I’d like to customize the toolbar, like you can in Finder.

Currently, there’s no preference option to set a standard export format. I’m sure you could write a script that automates the process, but you might have to do it through UI actions.

Personally, I’ve starting sending links instead of files. Doing so only takes two clicks, like we’re used to.

Apple changes its mind frequently. "Nobody wants video on an ipod" a year later, ipod with video. "Nobody reads Books anymore", cue the ibook store years later. You don't need two buttons on a mouse, powerPC processor are the best, firewire! Scsi!

Apple seems to reserve the right to change their minds and then not say anything about it. They ignore commenting on the past ofter (the Halo Demo at macworld for example..)

Apple always project they know what they're doing, but looking at it hindsight they change their mind frequently as business conditions change

For a number of these, I'm not even sure they changed their minds in the first place. Instead I'd see a bunch of these as an over-extension of the internal culture of secrecy and siloing. You can't keep a secret if you have to punt, so they lied their asses off instead,

Most likely the video iPod was already well in development or a known possible development track internally, and Jobs publicly acknowledged at WWDC 2005 that Apple had been running x86 builds of pretty much every OSX version and maintaining NeXTSTEP's portability all along.

>powerPC processor are the best, firewire! Scs

all canned and replaced features

Apple always project they know what they're doing, but looking at it hindsight they change their mind frequently as business conditions change

That's one way to phrase it. Why not say Apple knows what they are doing because they adapt to changing business conditions?

"New unified file format" ... isn't the same sort of nonsense we went thru with Office applications that led to the nightmare of trying to open the files in other applications?

It's an undocumented binary format rather than a documented XML one. The format seems to have been designed with low RAM / CPU usage (ie: iOS) in mind.

But seeing as nobody else seems to have bothered to actually add support for the old iWork formats despite them being documented XML, the situation is basically unchanged in reality.

The difference is in a hypothetical future where Apple no longer supports iWork but you need to access old documents. If it's a documented XML format, you can theoretically write your own code pretty easily to get your data out of it. Undocumented binary? Good luck with that.

According to John Siracusa, Apple made the new iWork file formats so that changes could sync better with iCloud. The idea being that it’s more economical to sync lots of small packages instead of sending one XML file.

Apparently, the new file formats use a Google technology called ‘Protocol Buffers’[1]. According to Google, Protocol Buffers have some advantages over XML: they’re simpler, smaller, faster, less ambiguous, and generate data access classes that are easier to use programmatically.

Here are some more details on the new file formats: http://pxlnv.com/blog/exploring-the-new-iwork-for-mac-file-f...

[1] https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/overview...

Yep.

The whole OOXML/ODF debate and standardisation efforts we went through close to a decade ago have been completely ignored by Apple, who've come up with a file format straight out of the 1990s.

Meanwhile, the more enlightened among us are focused on formats like Markdown and HTML5, which actually have non-zero interoperability.

A spreadsheet program without "Multi-column and range sort"?

They are definitely catering to a specific group of people here (i.e. nobody who has ever used a spreadsheet in a remotely technical fashion EVER -- my monthly budget tracker??)

I like how their workaround is to have two versions of iWork installed. That's the same kind of shit they are always making fun of everyone else for.

Personally, I find OS fragmentation more excusable than Office Suite fragmentation.

What I miss from Pages:

1) Set shortcut key for style.

2) Being able to see my styles laid out and displayed WYSIWYG (but I don't miss the drawer).

What I was hoping for but did not get in the new version of Pages:

3) Non-broken ePub export.

None of these have been promised (yet).

Keyboard shortcuts for styles are mentioned as a feature coming in the next 6 months.

One small issue is comments aren't shown as a sidebar so if you have many comments on a document, it becomes tedious to read them as they're tucked away behind little yellow boxes.

Hm... no mention of restoring the drastically weakened typographical features that got dropped from this version of Pages. I suppose I'll stick with iWork '09...

I would hope that you weren't hoping for them to restore 'drastically weakened typographical features' as you suggest. :)

Restoration of drastically more powerful ones, sure. :D

"Improvements to AppleScript support"

This was the biggest disappointment for me. Although, given the train wreck the Finder has become, I am not very surprised. It seems like they should have waited a couple of more months before releasing Mavericks.

I am confused how the Finder has become a train wreck.

It is fundamentally the same as OSX 10.0 public beta.

It actually worked in 10.8 and is buggy as hell in 10.9. So here are some fun things with 10.9:

Create a folder A, set folder A to sort by Kind, create a folder B inside it, create 100 text files. Open 2 Finder windows showing A. Scroll window 1 to the top of A, scroll window 2 to the bottom of A. Drag the last file from windows 2 to folder B showing in window 1. watch window 2 scroll. Sorting files into sub-folders just became an exercise in frustration.

Set any folder's view properties with AppleScript and they no longer take effect until you navigate out of and then back into the folder.

Move too many images with previews and watch Finder hang.

Maybe I'm missing something: why wouldn't you just open folder B in window 2 and move files from the outer folder in window 1 into the open folder B in window 2?

I haven't updated to Mavericks yet, btw.

I gave the simplest example. In general you would have a couple of folders that you would be sorting some files into when one folder got too crowded. It is still a really crappy bug.

Here comes the backtracking via public announcement; something we've come to expect from Apple over the past few years.

Actually they usually don't tell you anything as they did when they re-wrote iMovie and Final Cut Pro which took out features and were later added in. Telling users explicitly that this is what they're doing is much better.

This isn't backtracking, and this is awesome.

There has been a lot of coverage over how the new iWorks is to the old one as FCP X was to FCP 7. Unlike that debacle, which left users wondering WTF, this time Apple is providing a roadmap amazingly quickly after release, detailing exactly what feature improvements we should be expecting in the near future and when. To that I say: about time, and thank you.

I'll stick with iWorks '09 for now, but at least I now know that e.g. the lack of AppleScript is temporary, not permanent, and that I'll be able to massage my old scripts to work with the new tools within six months. Not bad.

I'm surprised they didn't learn more from the FCP debacle, and produce this list a week go when the new releases came out. Would have avoided a lot of the bad press.

And I bought Keynote a few weeks ago — I have some disc with Keynote 1 (maybe 2?) on it somewhere, but instead of digging that out I thought I may as well get something up to date — and I noticed in my Applications folder earlier today that some recent update has installed Keynote '09 alongside the new version.

I'd hardly consider this backtracking. They have come out and said they will be re-introducing features that were missing from the new version of their software, and that while that is happening, you are capable of using the old software. I honestly have no idea what you could want more out of this other than them not having changed it in the first place, which is impossible.

I agree this is great, and not backtracking.

Although, as for this:

  "I honestly have no idea what you could want more out of this"

...I'd say we could have wished for more of a heads-up. But like you say, since the new version of iWork doesn't remove the old apps (and was free) I don't think people should be too distraught.

You guys are right, I was stuck in the negative mindset of reading the announcement as an impeding (productivity-wise) apology, but really it is much more valuable to users to be responsive in this manner.

Thanks for pointing it out and making me humble once more :)

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