flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
Well, I wasn't paying attention and Apple came out with some new stuff. I heard about iLife '08 first. It appears the .Mac web gallery feature is something I've been really wanting for a long time, simply to avoid the hassle of manually uploading to photobucket. I figured they probably came out with other stuff, but I didn't find out 'til yesterday - New iMacs (thinner, aluminum, faster, whoopee), some new keyboards that look really nice, an iPhone system update (finally!), and iWork '08.
I also hadn't noticed at first that iWork '08 is now a complete Office package, with the introduction of the "Numbers" spreadsheet. Now, having checked it out on their web site, I'd say it's compelling enough to buy iWork. I'm still using MS Office 2001 on my machine because it still works just fine, but this new thing looks like an entirely different way of approaching a spreadsheet.
First off, rather than starting with a huge grid, you have a blank "canvas" to which you can add "tables" each of which is similar to a sheet in Excel. I don't know about the rest of y'all, but just about every spreadsheet I have has various chunks of the sheet used for individual smaller pieces of the overall puzzle, so this will certainly clean up the look a LOT.
These tables are also "intelligent" - You can drag names over from your address book and the table will be populated automatically. You can use formulas like "=SUM(Total)" rather than "=SUM(L3:L7)" which will be nice because my spreadsheets have formulas such as "=IF(E376="","",IF(A376="Maintenance",0,IF(OR(D376=0,D376*1<G376),G376,D376*1)))" or "=OR(AND(J10<J18,J10>(J17+(J18-J17)*(I10-I17)/(I18-I17))),AND(J12<J18,J12>(J17+(J18-J17)*(I12-I17)/(I18-I17))))" which would be MUCH easier to figure out and debug with the plain-language cell references that Numbers now offers. (In fact, that's exactly how I do 'em... Plain language in a text editor, then I go and replace things with their cell references.)
And yes, all of the iWork apps read and save as their M$ Office equivalents, so no worries WRT compatibility.
It looks nice enough that I think I'll be heading on over to the Apple Store today to buy a copy. That's the other thing... It costs a whopping $79.
That sure beats the hell out of the $399 that M$ wants for Office. In fact, it's so cheap I actually want to BUY it instead of pirate it! (Software developers, RIAA, and MPAA, take note...)
http://www.apple.com/iwork/numbers/
Frankly, I wasn't sure whether Apple was going to do this - Note that some time after Apple released Safari, Microsoft stopped updating IE for Mac. I still think that the Mac needs MS Office to at least be available, as many "switchers" aren't going to want to learn a whole new way of doing EVERYTHING... It's important for those folks to have the level of familiarity offered by Office even if it does suck. There's also plenty of folks who will want Office because it's Office even if Apple's apps did everything Office did and then some.
But, Steve Jobs was never much for caution anyway, was he?
I'll report back later once I get a chance to play with the new stuff a bit.
I also hadn't noticed at first that iWork '08 is now a complete Office package, with the introduction of the "Numbers" spreadsheet. Now, having checked it out on their web site, I'd say it's compelling enough to buy iWork. I'm still using MS Office 2001 on my machine because it still works just fine, but this new thing looks like an entirely different way of approaching a spreadsheet.
First off, rather than starting with a huge grid, you have a blank "canvas" to which you can add "tables" each of which is similar to a sheet in Excel. I don't know about the rest of y'all, but just about every spreadsheet I have has various chunks of the sheet used for individual smaller pieces of the overall puzzle, so this will certainly clean up the look a LOT.
These tables are also "intelligent" - You can drag names over from your address book and the table will be populated automatically. You can use formulas like "=SUM(Total)" rather than "=SUM(L3:L7)" which will be nice because my spreadsheets have formulas such as "=IF(E376="","",IF(A376="Maintenance",0,IF(OR(D376=0,D376*1<G376),G376,D376*1)))" or "=OR(AND(J10<J18,J10>(J17+(J18-J17)*(I10-I17)/(I18-I17))),AND(J12<J18,J12>(J17+(J18-J17)*(I12-I17)/(I18-I17))))" which would be MUCH easier to figure out and debug with the plain-language cell references that Numbers now offers. (In fact, that's exactly how I do 'em... Plain language in a text editor, then I go and replace things with their cell references.)
And yes, all of the iWork apps read and save as their M$ Office equivalents, so no worries WRT compatibility.
It looks nice enough that I think I'll be heading on over to the Apple Store today to buy a copy. That's the other thing... It costs a whopping $79.
That sure beats the hell out of the $399 that M$ wants for Office. In fact, it's so cheap I actually want to BUY it instead of pirate it! (Software developers, RIAA, and MPAA, take note...)http://www.apple.com/iwork/numbers/
Frankly, I wasn't sure whether Apple was going to do this - Note that some time after Apple released Safari, Microsoft stopped updating IE for Mac. I still think that the Mac needs MS Office to at least be available, as many "switchers" aren't going to want to learn a whole new way of doing EVERYTHING... It's important for those folks to have the level of familiarity offered by Office even if it does suck. There's also plenty of folks who will want Office because it's Office even if Apple's apps did everything Office did and then some.
But, Steve Jobs was never much for caution anyway, was he?
I'll report back later once I get a chance to play with the new stuff a bit.
