Letters to the Editor
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Is iworks intended to compete with office?
I don't think so. As a word processor pages is a better user experience than word, but not so powerful. I think it is intended for a different market. On the other hand, keynote is on the whole superior to powerpoint as a presentation tool, at least in the view of a scientist.
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iWork =/= Office
I agree that I don't think iWork (or AppleWorks) is a direct competitor to Microsoft Office. The price alone sets them apart ($79 vs. up to $300 or more, pirated copies notwithstanding.) Also, Office has a lot of packed-in advanced features and bloat that a lot of people don't want or need to deal with. I use InDesign when I'm putting together a layout project; I use iWork to type up a quick letter or edit my very simple financial spreadsheet. Office would just be too much to handle those simple tasks.
Also, I honestly shudder to think the world is really moving away from desktop applications. Web and network apps have their place, sure, but even in the best conditions web access can be slow or interrupted at times, making simple work on a document difficult. Also, I don't want all my personal documents sitting on someone else's server outside of my control, no matter how secure it is. And finally, there are a lot of times I throw my work onto my laptop and go somewhere specifically without wireless access, just so I can get away from all the distractions of being constantly connected to the rest of the world. Nope, I'll stick with slim little desktop apps like iWork, thanks. :)
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Regarding Mossberg's iWork review...
One of his biggest gripes about iWork was its lack of inclusion of email and calendar programs, as MS bundles Outlook with its Office Suite.
Could there be a more stupid and erroneous critique?
One of the prime advantages of the Mac/OS/x platform if you will, is the integration of applications, and the mail and calendar apps BUILT IN work fine and certainly owe no apology to Outlook. Heck, Mail even integrates with MS Exchange servers. Another email app/calendar app would be absolutely unnecessary and confusing.
Sorry, Walt, you lost me there. Should have stopped your critique regarding the lack of pivot tables in Numbers- that is a relevant criticism...
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Stick a fork in it.
I gave up on AW years ago, as soon as TextEdit came along and let me use italics. AW crashed constantly, on various Macs I owned. I think it was about the time Apple renamed it AppleWorks (after Claris had renamed AW ClarisWorks). It was as if, having bagged their quarry, Apple engineers put AW up on the trophy case and forgot about it. My wife continued using AW, however, because she doesn't like change. When she got her new MacBook, and it had the latest TextEdit on it, she grudgingly tried it out. And that was the end of AppleWorks in our house.
It's unfortunate, though, that the only alternative to AW will be Pages, a bewildering program that pulls off that neat Apple Inc. trick of looking dead simple ... until you pop the hood.
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End of the line? Not at all...
Yes, iWork is a replacement for AppleWorks more than for MS Office. But if you're one of the people who use only non-advanced features of Office (e.g., you are content with only one table of contents per document and only 65,535 lines per spreadsheet), it could be a replacement for Office, one that lets you accomplish more while efforting less.
Here are two reasons why iWorks is not "at the end of the line":
1. Integration. All three iWorks apps effortlessly pull in media and data from the other iWork and iLife applications. When you open a letter or envelope template in Pages, it's magically filled in with your name/address/phone/etc. (from your Address Book). Without leaving Pages, flip through your iPhoto library and insert your picture right into the bordered, rotated template image. In Numbers, drag a group from Address Book to create an instant spreadsheet of your contacts. Integration is also why the much-maligned Dot Mac service is actually worth having. Apple applications work together smoothly on your desktop.
2. Apple still leads in user interface design. AJAX is an improvement, but I don't see it catching up with Apple's interface features, which continue to improve. I've already forgotten whether it's command-K or command-shift-K to delete/insert a row. Now I just drag or click on quick little contextual popup menus.
Bonus reason: From all I've seen and heard, Keynote kicks PowerPoint's patootie (Keynote is the presentation app in iWork).
Sure, call me a wimp--I'm using iWorks, getting my work done, and enjoying it.
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No database
But why did Apple jettison the database capability? AppleWorks has it; iWork does not.
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Less is More
I've used Excel and Word at work daily for the past 15 years, and consider myself moderate power user of both.
The fact is that both are textbook examples of bloatware. I spend 90% of my time using 10% of the features.
I'm looking forward to switching to iWork on my home Mac precisely BECAUSE of the pruned feature list.
That's a feature, not a flaw.
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Notes
I know what you mean, but the Apple II application AppleWorks was not directly related to ClarisWorks. On the Macintosh, ClarisWorks 1.0 came along in 1991 as competition for Microsoft Works (introduced in 1986), so the application was more like 16 years old when it died last week. And its roots (if not code) really lie in the MacWrite, MacProject, MacDraw, and MacPaint family of applications (all introduced in 1984, with development taken over by Claris in 1987).
Pages '08 is a huge improvement over the previous versions -- you can now use it like a regular word processor if you like. It's no longer limited to a page-layout paradigm.
I doubt iWork will ever have a standard database, partly because of the existence of FileMaker. What I would look for as an additional application for the iWork suite is something like DEVONthink.
On Web-based apps, perhaps I'm wrong, but I doubt they will truly replace desktop apps anytime soon, or ever. They will be one option, but I don't think the distribution of desktop apps will slow down much in any of our lifetimes, at least. As long as small developers can make money from them, they'll still be where most innovations take place.