My Introductory Thoughts
iWork 06 has always been an Apple product that offers good value for money with fantastic features that you would often find in more expensive software, however in this new version, not only do we see some interesting new enhancements, but we see the birth of a brand new application “Numbers”. This new application is a spreadsheet program similar to that of the well known Microsoft product “Excel” except with a greater emphasis on eye catching presentations and simplicity.
So lets examine these 3 applications in this suite, and answer the question is it worth the upgrade, and does it offer good value for money :-
Pages 08
Since I have used an Apple mac, this application has been one of the most used programs in my daily use of computing, it is easy to use giving the most pleasing results of any project I have undertaken. So it was with great anticipation that I studied the new features of this software. Recently I reviewed Microsoft Office for Windows and it seems that Apple have copied a feature from Microsoft, that feature is the Contextual Format Bar that displays different features according to your task at hand. Select a block of text and the bar shows font options. Click on a picture and the bar displays image-editing features. The only differences being that Pages offers no live previews of font and image changes as you hover over them. Pages includes the usual must have features for writers such as footnotes, bookmarks, dictionary, and thesaurus, as well as tables of content, Pages also now detects when you're typing a list and formats the bulleted points automatically as well. There are plenty of page templates even more to choose from than in the previous version, this is split into word processing and page layout, additionally you have the choice of a blank template if the other options do not appeal to you at the time. Page Layout mode has some great designs that can be customised giving pleasing results similar to those more expensive applications like Adobe InDesign and Quark Express. It is also very easy now to switch between Word Processing and Page Layout. The Instant Alpha feature also found in Keynote and Numbers, lets you cut out backgrounds in images without dealing with alpha channels, found in Photoshop like applications. Furthermore when adding images to your projects we now have the ability to add an attractive frames round our images as well.
Conclusively “Pages” has improved in performance and features and makes this application even more powerful than before, it integrates well with the other 2 applications in this suite, making this a simple but powerful application that any mac home user could not be without.
Keynote 08
Microsoft Powerpoint may cost a whole lot more money, but Apple Keynote '08 adds some fantastic features that PowerPoint lacks. Keynote offers numerous templates for composing a presentation. New Action Builds let you create basic motion animation, without needing to deal with advanced motion effects found in complex and expensive applications like Adobe Flash. Smart Builds enable animation, such as rotating photographs and defining other animation parameters, additionally there are new between-slide transitions and slide show themes too. New voiceover recordings enable you to narrate presentations with images with only a few controls. If you mess up a take, you will only have to re-record that section from the slide position you are working at.
Inserting images needs not be a laborious task because you can apply reflections, glows, and shadows as well as remove backgrounds through the new alpha feature, something that most applications cannot do, resizing and cropping images is also part of this applications ability too.
However what use would all this be if there were not a multitude of export options to choose from. You can export your project to Microsoft’s Powerpoint (ppt) file, or an Adobe portable Document Format (pdf file), so any Microsoft user could use your project. You can export to Quicktime movie, Flash Video, html, or as a simple image, it can be uploaded to YouTube, posted on your own website, transfer it too iTunes, use it to create a video pod-casts in GarageBand.
Conclusively this is a versatile professional simple application to use well, worth the effort in upgrading. You will not be disappointed.
Numbers 08
Looking at the newest addition Numbers it certainly reveals ease-of-use features that other spreadsheet applications do not provide. Excel from Microsoft is more sturdy for the professional user such as accountants and other business administrators, who perhaps want to use pivot tables for example. Yet the majority of users who rely upon spreadsheets for everyday domestic activities will be pleased to have this additional tool in iWork 08. What I like about this application is the fact that you can start with a blank sheet and insert images charts and little table grids, plus use the ready made formula’s at a touch of a button. Numbers comes with plenty of templates, which include travel planners, business expense sheets, and school science lab reports. Of course, it can also save and export Excel-readable files. This application pleases the eye and can make attractive spreadsheets.
The controls for working with tables were extremely easy to use. Sliders allow you to adjust the numeric values within cells, convenient if you are looking to make frequent adjustments to a range of values or make quick calculations. Resizing columns and rows appears to be a lot less of a hassle than with Excel. You can drag data from a file of contacts or into a Numbers table that will automatically separate information into the appropriate columns. There are the same amount of formulas about 150 of them as with Microsoft Excel. The Interactive Print View offers more controls than in Microsoft Excel, which easily leads to no cumbersome spreadsheet printouts as you get with other competitors. Numbers shows where a stray column might take up an unnecessary extra page. You can eliminate the overlap with a slider bar that instantly scales the tables, charts, and images on a page.
The overall impression I can see is that this application is big on presentation as with Keynote and Pages 08, it contains lots of nice templates to get you started, it comes complete with 150 default formula’s, it is simple to use, thus designed for the home user. Anybody who wants to perform the advanced functions of Excel will need to content themselves with Microsoft’s product. However we are pleased to have this added to iWork 08.
To Conclude
In this set of applications Apple has focused on making word processing and desktop publishing, spreadsheets, and presentations easy on the eye and simple to work with. The newest application “Numbers” offers more than enough formulas and features to keep the majority of users happy. Their are plenty of new features and enhancements in all the applications to justify the upgrade for previous users, and if you are new to Apple Mac you will find this an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office, and it costs a whole lot less. I am pleased with this new release, and I am sure you will be too.
Apple iWork 08 Review