Pages has everything I need, love the layout, functionality and simplicity, its been working everyday for me in my business and has never let me down. These days I never touch anything else! I barely have to even think about what I need to do , I just do it, very intuitive.
The standard Apple way of doing things with new products seems to be to release basic functionality in the first version, be it iWork, iPhone, iPod or whatever, and if the product proves commercial, they start adding more features, with the pattern continuing through the life of the product. Sounds commercially sound to me!
I think the Numbers thing is Apple taking an entirely new take on spreadsheets, making spreadsheets available to everyone to use for the first time. Sounds like the Apple way of doing things to me (and isn't that the same thinking that has just made Nintendo a smash hit again!) Expect the next version to have more new features in accordance with its market acceptance, and continue improving in power and functionality from there on.
Even if Apple had the same resources to spend on program development as MS, and made iWork as big, bad and ugly as Office, it still wouldn't make 1 iota of difference to market share, if anything it would turn Mac lovers into Mac haters. What Apple has been doing right now to promote market share is perfect, and no one could have even predicted the amazing turnaround of the last 10 years!
As for Office Mac, YUK! Obviously done on purpose, like the hand out to save Apple, Uncle Bill does the minimum he has to, to prevent the deserved breakup of his company that was imminent under Clinton before Bush stopped it... Americans think.... Standard Oil.... Bell...
Neo Office, UGLY, SLOW, CUMBERSOME, WINDOWS-LIKE, TOO COMPLICATED, CPU HOG.
Abiword, YEP that just crashed again! (sorry just taking a moment to remember my Windows days of crashing computers!)
Another old debate could be whether it should be free with the sale of a new Mac, especially in Australia, as we seem to get the privilege of paying far higher Mac prices than the rest of the world for some reason, and no thats not tax related
Only thing I'm not happy about and need, is the option of exporting in HTML, which was there in '06 and lost in '08. Pages is so easy to use to quickly mask, shape and alter images for my other site(not J), I find myself switching between both '06 and '08 constantly. If anyone else knows how I can export images I make into png or jpg any other way in '08, please let me know!
To sum up, always a very happy Mac user and iWork all the way!
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