Apple's Rumored Office Suite 863
Several anonymous readers noted that the mac rumor mill is churning already with news for the upcoming MacWorld. The current rumor is a new office suite to replace the incredibly dated AppleWorks and incredibly bloated and slow MS Office.
Hope it's functional and not overcandied (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:5, Interesting)
Who wouldn't welcome a slick, well-integrated, back-to-basics, consumer-grade office suite to come out of Apple?
Comment removed (Score:1, Interesting)
Wonder what code base (Score:3, Interesting)
So I wonder if a full-blown word processor would be a souped-up TextEdit, or base off something else - just like they used KHTML instead of Mozilla as a base for Safari.
AppleWorks isn't dated (Score:2, Interesting)
I hope Apple writes a winner, I'd love to avoid MS Office in the future.
The name is free (Score:5, Interesting)
(Note, the piece of shareware is now titled "iBiz" [versiontracker.com].)
Why build when (Score:2, Interesting)
Pricing... (Score:2, Interesting)
If they price it at $199 (the next Apple-logic price point) and a newly rumored $499 PC i'd almost have to go with the PC just to get the software! I'll likely wait untill Tiger either way as there's also a possibility (in my mind) of a package deal with the whole ball of wax.
Re:Bloatedly slow? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd welcome a productivity suite from Apple.
Please, please displace Microsoft Orifice (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry for the rant.
Re:Why build when (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Makes Sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully Apple will take a look at projects like LyX ( http://www.lyx.org ), the ``What You See Is What You Mean'' document processor.
For those who're wondering why Microsoft Office or Open Office aren't ideal --- contrast them with TextEdit.app which:
- is a Cocoa application
- supports all Mac OS X input methods,
- fonts (incl. AAT fonts like Zapfino)
- Unicode
- Services
That last is one of the under-appreciated advantages of Mac OS X. In _any_ Cocoa application (or Carbon app written to support Services) I can:
- Convert case (ALL CAPS to Initial Caps &c.)
- have autocompletion from a user-defined list
- complete a Citation (using Bibdesk)
- typeset a TeX equation and get an in-place
- sort
- &c.
William
Re:The name is free (Score:3, Interesting)
they called the prototype the "iPod".
That's one I was wondering about (Score:2, Interesting)
Not According to Microsoft (Score:0, Interesting)
New Features and Competition (Score:3, Interesting)
Hopefully this will create more competition between these office suites and bring about new features to Office market.
Hopefully Apple will try to use some open standards
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:5, Interesting)
If they can produce Word and Excel equivalents to the level that Keynote demolishes PowerPoint...
People will be begging them for Windows ports.
What about TextEdit.app? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Beating MS Office != Trivial (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. You are correct in one sense: anybody who already uses Microsoft Office (whether at work or at home) for document creation will be more comfortable sticking with something that works exactly like Office.
But I think Apple is going for a different market: casual computer users. I don't necessarily mean just first-time computer users, I mean people who use computers for email, Internet, and instant messaging. How often do casual users need to use an Office suite?
I'll tell you how often: almost never. Since I graduated from college two years ago I have not once used a word processor to create a document. (OK maybe once--I wrote a letter to my grandma.) Most casual users are like me. The only office suite they need is something that lets them view documents that people send them via email. If Apple's office suite can view Microsoft Office documents, that's good enough for home users.
Casual computer users have no need of Microsoft Office as a document creation suite. I think Apple is heading in the right direction for their target market. Apple's suite will not be a replacement for Microsoft Office, but it will be suitable for a large class of users who don't need Microsoft Office.
Re:appleworks (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, removing Outlook Express seems to cripple MSN Messenger, Outlook and who knows what else.
Re:Word compatible (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this is a catch-22. If Microsoft feels threated by an OSX office suite then killing Microsoft Office for OSX would only drive people to use it the alternative more. This would be a poor business move until the development costs for OSX become financially discouraging in relation to sales. Microsoft, after all, is in business of selling software to people who will pay for it.
Re:maybe bloated but not slow (Score:1, Interesting)
I look at it differently, however. Yes, Office does eat up more hard drive space in a default installation than OpenOffice. However, on average, OpenOffice requires twice as much RAM as Office to simply function. This is true whether or not a document is even loaded. Office programs also load significantly faster than their OpenOffice counterparts. All of this is accomplished despite the fact that Office still provides many more features.
So I guess it depends on your definition of bloated. In my opinion bloated refers to both the executing footprint of the binary as well as it's perceived performance. I don't consider features that I don't use but have little/no bearing on performance to be bloat. I also value RAM significantly more than I value hard drive space as one is significantly more expensive than the other. So, in my opinion, Office is a fairly lean animal, especially when compared to OpenOffice.
TextEdit with a friendlier GUI (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple Interface
Compatible file formats (Text Edit does to this)
A slightly more robust UI (default-on Fonts window, etc)
Support for tables and graphics.
I already use TextEdit for 50% or more of my writing (basically all but academic papers), and if they could keep the simplicity while making it a bit more similar to most people's experience with Word (keep the 20% of features that end up in 99% of the documents), I'd use it for 100% of my documents.
I've also tried the X11 OpenOffice, and a native port to OSX would be nice. that said, having the Windows-centric keystrokes blows.
C'mon, Apple, you can do it!
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying that Apple is going to do it right, but if they focus on the office suite as one product, not individual products, then I can easily see a better app/system integration than MS has been able to pull off.
I'm doubtful due to two things: FileMaker and Keynote. Clearly, half of the suite is already there, under Apple's full control, and ready to roll. But will we still see a slow office suite, like MS Office, or will Apple actually pull Keynote and Filemaker in to the point where they are parts of one product, not seperate products bundled together.
Browser and email (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps the office suite is the "linchpin" for people who use a computer to do work for their job or school, but for the typical "computer consumer", the key apps are email, a browser, and some games, plus maybe something like Quicken. My wife uses the computer every day for email and simple games, and she hasn't used any office suite program in five years. The same is true for her parents and aunt and uncle. Heck, I rarely use office suite apps myself except when I am working on a chapter or some other writing assignment. I rarely do any work at home related to my job, but when I am trying to be "productive" from a learning/hobby perspective, I generally use text editors, gcc, and/or KDevelop.
Re:The name is free (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple should not compete with Microsoft Office (Score:3, Interesting)
I use Microsoft Office at work on the PC, and I know that many others do as well. Having Microsoft Office available for the Mac was the single most important reason that I chose a Mac as a viable computer for home use.
If Apple puts Microsoft in a position where they are competing, Microsoft may well do what they did in the Safari situation and stop developing the product.
No matter how much better an Apple office suite may be, I would see that as being detrimental to the market growth that is inspired by having a document compatible office suite at home.
If Joe Six-pack uses Office at work, he will easily understand that having Office for the Mac as a compatible solution.
Any other solution at home would bring up compatibility questions by default.
He forgot "unstable" (Score:5, Interesting)
And when they do scroll, they cause Word to crash, about once a day. Makes me feel like I'm running Windows 98 again, except I don't have to reboot afterwards.
Re:AppleWorks isn't dated (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll back you up on this one. I used all kinds of versions of AppleWorks/ClarisWorks (both Apple // and Macintosh) and they were great. ClarisWorks and then AppleWorks 6 was all I used through university, and it's still the only word processor I have installed on my Mac. A little long in the tooth now, yes, but it certainly doesn't - and never did - suck.
Re:Man, Slashdot is really getting behind. Sub-$50 (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't really understand why Apple would release Keynote 2 now instead of when Core Image / Video [apple.com] is out. Keynote is one of Job's favorite ways of showing off their new technologies -remember the cube effect?
My guess is that we might see a minor version upgrade of it, but nothing really big until Tiger is released. But, what do I know?
Wonder if this has anything to do with Gobe (Score:5, Interesting)
The team that created Productive was also the team behind the original ClarisWorks on the Mac, which too was an amazing feat of integration in a small footprint. Then a different coding team took over, it became AppleWorks, and began to suck royally.
If the team behind Productive is the team behind this rumored office suite, it is going to be one sweet Suite! HA HA HA HA. Seriously, though, they are masters of the art.
NeoOffice/J (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been trying out the beta version of NeoOffice/J [neooffice.org], which is based on OpenOffice 1.1.3, and have found it to be much nicer than the X11 version of OpenOffice.
The main downside is that it is somewhat sluggish on my G4 Powerbook being written in Java (using the Carbon interface). But having access to all of my fonts, and better rendering make up for any speed issues I have noticed.
Re:Open Office? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hell...I'm new to Mac..and I'm still trying to figure out how to get X to run on OSX...much less X applications. I've to OSX 10.2.8...Most everything I've seen says you need XCode Tools 1.2 or later, but, when I go to that Mac dev. site...it says you have to have Panther to run this version or higher of XCode.
I'm having a hell of a time figuring out how to get open source stuff to run on the Mac..and I'm usually pretty decent at finding info...but, don't seem to have much luck for the mac...(G3 iBook, 800Mhz).
Re:AppleWorks isn't dated (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who really cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
PCs are in every way superior? Faster? Debateable, it seems the same chip that runs on my desktop is used to build one of the worlds more powerful clusters with one of the highest computing scores per processor. Stronger? When's the last time my OS X box was victim to a worm or virus? Oh, right, never. (If you're running Linux maybe you can say the same thing, but then I guess the machines are equally strong.) Cheaper? Some are, some aren't. Apple has a higher initial price point, but similarly configured PCs are pretty closely price to Macs.
As to the choice of UNIX, by your argument Apple could have picked any core. Picking an OS core isn't something you do for marketing reasons, you make Aqua pretty for marketing. The main reason UNIX was picked was for stability and extensibility. With a clean code base Apple has been able to rapidly pump out an array of applications because they've been able to build powerful frameworks that can be used over and over.
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a question of scale. Apple doesn't truly integrate its apps; rather, it creates separate apps that work well together and can easily trade info back and forth, yet no single app is required at all. You could replace every Apple app on your OS X system, and the core OS would still operate fine. Even the Finder. [macosxhints.com]
With MS, the apps are portrayed as being necessary to the operation of the OS.
(tig)
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:3, Interesting)
Major flaws are: No ICC support in IE and other apps. This means we can only create images in a color gamut the equiv of an average 5 year old low-end monitor.
Microsoft has screwed up, and translated keyboard shortcuts to make sure that the OS and the application is not the same. (US OS foreign keyboard)
(Ctrl-F = Fat letters in danish. Ctrl-B = Find (B is not part of any find-like word)).
Microsoft has products (ISA 2004) where you can not use copy/paste in dialog boxes. So they must do something to avoid default behaviour.
There are many other small annoyances in Windows, whereas you get the consistent user interface / user experience in MacOS X. Apple has documented things like Human Interface Guidelines, and reserved letters for Find etc. MS just lets developers decide. They think a consistent UI is not worth the trouble.
Re:Wonder if this has anything to do with Gobe (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes it was fast, yes it was Integrated with itself, yes it was intuitive, but when it came time to use it in BeOS it was like another separate layer.
You couldn't edit Document Attributes in Tracker. You couldn't search for a Particular Document, You couldn't even tell what type of Document a Document was without opening it up in Productive.
They're the same reason I don't use AppleWorks or OpenOffice.org on my iBook. I'd much rather use AbiWord and Gnumeric, or even better, WordPerfect for Mac (I Wish) and Excel 2004.
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:2, Interesting)
integration--big deal (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft achieves its "integration" by shipping ever more bloated bundles of software. And, yes, other vendors are trying to emulate that, including Apple.
But that's the wrong way to go. Microsoft, Apple, and other vendors need to figure out how to create software platforms that allow good integration between applications that weren't developed by a single team. And none of them have managed that yet.
True integration requires open, flexible standards for content and inter-application communications. Nobody has really figured out how to do that yet, least of all Microsoft and Apple.
Re:TextEdit with a friendlier GUI (Score:3, Interesting)
TextEdit already supports graphics (just drag and drop them in), and support for tables is in the version included with Tiger (at least, according to Steve's last keynote).
For me, TextEdit is the ideal word processor - it's simple, fast, and includes a spell checker. Not to mention the fact that it integrates nicely with AppleScript and Services. I wrote a simple AppleScript wrapper around wc for word counts, and I can use the Equation Service to quickly typeset equations in short documents if I need to. On the other hand, I only use it for very simple documents - everything else I do with LaTeX.
I recently tried the OS X port of AbiWord. It has a few rough edges, but on the whole it behaved exactly as an OS X app should.
MAPI support (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Maybe a graphical front end to TeX (Score:2, Interesting)
I try every new TeX/LaTeX front end that comes out for the Mac. LyX is close, but isn't reliable (for me) and appears to be a one-document application.
Jerry
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure you can ascribe this to malice - it probably has more to do with the historical context. Windows 95 would have been blocked out, when, '92 or so? That was long before the first release of Mosaic (Nov, '93). By '95 browsers were the next big thing. I suspect the design changed pretty radically mid-project, and the only way to make it happen without starting over was to integrate the OS and browser.
And you have to consider the effect of academic literature (especially in a company that prides itself in its PhD density). At the time, some academics considered the browser sort of the next evolution in computing, and they were trying to shove the paradigm into lots of solutions that didn't really fit the problem. The idea was popular in the literature. If they were following the trend, they would have thought "let's integrate Windows into the browser!"
In any event it's hard to do anything right the first time. It's easy to say what the logical design is now, a decade later.
Re:WORDPEFECT (Score:3, Interesting)
Wordperfect does word-counts properly. MS Word's count funciton is buggy.
This matters because certain courts have limits to the length of certain pleadings, breifs etc - and if the count goes over, you loose!
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:3, Interesting)
Right. Which explains why in the subsequent ~7 years, just about every major system has done so (OS X, KDE, GNOME) ?
The proper and better way is to embed an API, and put a browser out that works off that, like how OS X (Safari) and 2000/XP do it.
That's exactly how IE has worked since the browser was integrated with IE4 (or Windows 98 if you want the Windows release).
Remember how in 98 IE crashes could make the taskbar disappear?
That's because the shell (Explorer, including the taskbar) used (and continues to use) IE components. Certainly the separation of individual components has improved, but the fundamental architecture has not.
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but Apple uses open standards in a way very similar to the way MS does.
Case in point, the Address Book. It can use an LDAP directory, but it refuses to display 90% of the LDAP records. Just the name, work phone, and email address. No home phone, no comments, etc. You also can't browse the directory.
Also, for some reason, mail.app will use the local Address Book for completion, but it won't use the ldap server. Mail.app has it's *own* ldap configuration.
The only people who seem to notice how half-assed a lot of apple's stuff is, are the people who try and do more than just run photoshop.
Re:OASIS is the key... (Score:2, Interesting)
A TeX file created in 1984 would work just as well today as it did then. I'm sure Knuth didn't have to upgrade much software as he edited TAoCP over the decades. LaTeX of course has been around since about 1986 (though there was a version jump at some point which broke things).
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:3, Interesting)
Nonsense, nothing of the sort was ever proven in court. The court ruled Microsoft was a monopoly and was abusing its monopoly position by (among other things irrelevant to this discussion) bundling the browser with the operating system. But that would have been true even if the browser wasn't integrated. They were in trouble for providing the browser for free.
The browser integration issue came up when Microsoft claimed (somewhat weakly) it couldn't separate the OS and browser. But that doesn't have any relevance to design decisions made years earlier. Do you really think the lawyers were involved in the design?
I'm sure the more elegant solution would have been to separate out the browser, but I can see a certain logic in trying to avoid two distict presentation layers.
Also, have done some WinAPI programming myself, I can tell you the obvious, elegant solutions aren't the easiest in most cases. That API is crap compared to POSIX. It always amazed me they could come out with an API years after POSIX that was far worse. Don't they read books? The very crappiness of the API lends support to my contention this is probably more a result of incompetance than malice. Microsoft had missed the internet boat and they were determined to get back on board, elegance be damned.
Re:Oh, Please Let It Be So! (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't really like M$ but: You have never used Keynote, I take?
If they can produce Word and Excel equivalents to the level that Keynote demolishes PowerPoint... I doubt that.
How so? In Keynotes you can not even draw simple diagrams. Fiddeling with fonts and themes (backgrounds) for the whole slide show is a mess.
I find PowerPoint far more productive than Keynote. I spend over $100 to get Keynote and it sucks imho big time. I had to spend another $400 to get Office for Mac OS X, ONLY for Powerpoint, I don't use Word nor Excel
angel'o'sphere
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Just one reason: market share. The only thing they can do to improve the Mac's image in the work place is to have a toolset that works better on Mac and has a large market share.
Businesses are moving to Linux, and there is no good Office tool for Linux (Open Office is the best, but still not professional quality in my opinion). By making whatever the Mac solution is open source, it gains market share and credibility. By making it run better on Mac than on Linux, they sell more Macs. Trying to sell office software means going head-to-head against an entrenched competitor (Microsoft). It is much better to go against a commodity market (PC manufacturers) with a diferentiated product.
The main problem is that most CTOs and CEOs, know that MS Office runs best on Windows. If you make your money using Word and Excel, you don't "risk your job" buying a Mac. Of course that is not really true, but perception is reality here. If you tell them to use TextEdit, it better not just run on Macs!
I wasn't really saying use OpenOffice and make it better for Mac - I'm just saying whatever they do will probably meet strategic objectives (not near term financial objectives) better if it is open source.
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
However, if you notice, Apple isn't really an open-source shop. They help open-source, they support open-source, they use open-source, but they don't really open-source their own products. I'm not saying they shouldn't, I'm saying that don't.
However, I do think their profitability would be hurt by, say, open-sourcing all of OSX, iTunes, iPhoto, etc. If I were running Apple, I also wouldn't choose to create an open-source office suite or run an OpenOffice porting project. Like I said, they'd be risking Microsoft withdrawing support of MS Office (as well as quashing other 3rd party developers) by creating a project that they won't be able to sell. I don't think the peripheral benefits would be sufficient.
Again, if I were running Apple, I would sooner create an office suite and port it to Linux and Windows. But I probably wouldn't even do that. Most likely, I would probably make a highly compatable closed-source office suite with open file-formats while throwing some help/support toward the OpenOffice/NeoOffice projects (and the support would include helping them read the Apple file-formats). For Apple's current business model, it makes a lot of sense to cultivate an open-source community, but not a lot of sense to open source your own products.