Forums | MacLife

::after trying out the demo::
Do you know what is the best part?

When I get a MacBook with Leo, I'm definitely getting iWork '08

maleko wrote:

ScifiterX wrote:

I suspect it probably written using Core Animation and other much cleaner programming tools that exist in Leopard, where the previous version was written using clunkier stuff like Core Image & Video and Tiger's programming tools.

Right, but for people who run 10.4 does that not mean there will be none of the benifits of these new tools.

Well if you have 10.4.9 or lower definitely. I supposedly won't even install on those OS versions. If you have 10.4.10, it's possible some benefits may be missing. How many kind of depends on how much Leopard toolbox compatibility was shoehorned in with everything else via that particular update.

Just finished up doing a few things with all of iWork 08, and I'm pretty impressed with the improvements, especially in Pages.

When I first got iWork 06 I wasn't very thrilled with it.  My parents paid for it, so I didn't really complain.  As a regular word processor, I hated Pages, because it tried to make things too superfluous and didn't have a lot of Word's easy to access edits.  However, with Pages 08, I can honestly say that this can replace Word as a word processor for college students, and maybe even professionals.  It's easy to format, and easy to use, with the new tool bars up top.  Also, hooray for Pages loading fast on Intel Macs.  Apple 1; MS 0

I think Keynote presentations looks cooler than PowerPoint presentations, but they're hard to make (what you give is what you get, right?).  It has a lot of new themes and nifty transitions, but I don't really need that stuff for my slideshows.  Most of my slide shows are simple 5-6 slides, and for eye candy all I really want is just a different background.  That's one thing that I haven't been able to do easily with Keynote - you have to go into the Master Slides editor and change it there, instead of right clicking and selecting "change slide background".  MS wins the battle here, for me.

Now, I never was much of an Excel pro, but I did have to enter data and create charts and rosters as part of my student leadership job in my high school band, so I'm familiar with it.  Again, from a student perspective, Numbers, like Pages, is a great alternative and easier to use than Excel.  The different templates are very helpful, and can be easily edited to suite your needs.  If you don't like templates, the blank spreadsheet format is still, of course, available.  The interaction between different charts and graphs to go along with your spreadsheet as very smart, and adjust whenever you change that data.  That's pretty cool .  I don't know about the corporate world, but this is definitely great for student life.  Apple 2; MS 1

For a $80 bundle, I think that iWork 08 is definitely worth it.  My complaints about Keynote are probably not a common problem with most people, so others should find it very enjoyable.  As stated by others, iWork 08 is almost half the price of Office 2004.  Also, it takes up less hard drive space than the previous version!  Almost 1/4, in fact.  Apple has definitely made a real winner here.

I wasn't very impressed with the old pages, so I think I'll give that demo a shot.  As for Keynote, I think it's better than PowerPoint, so I imagine the new version would be even better.  I'm also interested in Numbers.  I'm wondering how it stacks up "feature-wise" to Excel.  Is it like a consumer version of Excel, or is it a real contender?

I know that the demo of iWork is less than 500MB but has anyone installed the full version and can they comment on the size? I have seen several posts talking about the new iWork being 1/4 the size of the previous version. However, I wonder if it is actually smaller or if they are talking about the demo which might not include all of the templates or if perhaps templates are being stored in a different location with the new version.

Frank

Keynote looks really nice. The hidden Presenter Notes and the new powerful editing features are super nice.

Does the new version of Pages have useful templates, like Avery 5160 address labels and #10 envelopes, or is it just more stupid smurf like "Luau Menu" and "School Play Program"?

Shadowless wrote:

maleko wrote:

ScifiterX wrote:

I suspect it probably written using Core Animation and other much cleaner programming tools that exist in Leopard, where the previous version was written using clunkier stuff like Core Image & Video and Tiger's programming tools.

Right, but for people who run 10.4 does that not mean there will be none of the benifits of these new tools.

For those running Tiger, Apple will simply use magic.

mmmmm, I love Apple Magic.  Seriously they should just make an API or framework called magic.

I've always been impressed with Keynote.

Pages always bothered me.  It's come a long way, particularly with its word processor view.  The only thing it really needed from the start.

Numbers is a nice start.  There are some stupid things going on, but it's not a bad application.  I'll use it more than Excel, but I rarely use Excel so that's not saying much.

I still wish the "Inspector" wasn't a separate, over-cluttered window.

ScifiterX wrote:

I suspect it probably written using Core Animation and other much cleaner programming tools that exist in Leopard, where the previous version was written using clunkier stuff like Core Image & Video and Tiger's programming tools.

Nah. I would suspect media files of some sort. Possibly bundled tutorial videos or something like that.  Using a new API is not going massively slim your applications like that. Moreover, the core animation API is not part of 10.4.

True the Core Animation is not part of Tiger but that does negate the possibility of it's use. Admittedly the probability is reduced but it's highly possible that that particular aspect of Leopard is in a more advanced stage of development than other aspects of the OS. It's also quite possible that Core Animation & other such Leopard based APIs can produce code that is compatible with the latest release of Tiger. (Much like Tiger's development API's were capable of deploying some limited code attributes under 10.3.9.) I'm not sure CA specifically is the cause of any portion in the code reduction, however considering it has proven it can produce results with less coding, it's possible it is. That is why it was mentioned.

Last edited by ScifiterX (2007-08-12 9:15 pm)

That said I'm pretty sure tweak the last revision's of an OS version's API toolkit enough so it doesn't just go WTF when it hits the more radical elements of new coding.