I was curious about the iWork and as such looked more into the offerings. The following are key items of the iWork ‘09:

Pages ‘09

This is the word document for iWork and is said to be an advanced tools for writing and easy page layouts. The main features include Full screen view, dynamic outlets, mail merge with numbers, enhanced template chooser, MathType and EndNote.

Numbers ‘09

This is equivalent to the Microsoft spreadsheet excel which has easy to use formulas, one click charts, and table categories. Key features include: Easy formulas, Formula list views, table categories, advanced charts, template chooser, and more ways to share.

Keynote ‘09

This is equivalent to the Microsoft presentation which has cinematic animations, transitions, and effects in Keynote to get you captivated. Key main features include: Magic move, theme chooser, more transitions, chart animations, keynote remote, and more ways to share.

Compatibility

The iWork can open and save Microsoft documents, word, excel, and powerpoint presentations.

Visit the official website for iWork.

Image from Apple.

Post from: EveryJoe

iWork 09 is Business Ready?

Here’s a quote from the review

iWork ‘09 makes many of the already user-friendly features from last year’s version even easier. While there is some learning curve to get up and running for former Microsoft Office users, iWork ‘09 offers an extremely intuitive interface and has plenty of advanced time-saving features to make it a worthy replacement for the much more pricey Microsoft solution. The lack of an integrated business-level e-mail client is still a disappointment, but Apple’s included Mail program pre-installed on Macs will suffice in most cases. Though iWork.com is a welcome addition for sharing iWork files online, we would have liked a more collaborative online solution, but we expect this is probably slated for future versions.

Read the full review here.

Post from: EveryJoe

Cnet Reviews iWork09

Apple has decided to drop the anti-piracy measures on it’s iWork 09 productivity suite. Specifically the feature that asks you to input a serial number prior to using iWork 09 for the first time.

Previous versions of iWork needed a serial number to work past the 30 day trial period or when installing a fresh copy of iWork.

Apple has deemed that the benefit of having that anti-piracy measure doesn’t outweigh the nuisance that it causes users.

In my opinion, as much as Apple wants to make the experience a little easier, they’re also not that concerned with piracy. They probably wouldn’t mind and look the other way if people install iWork 09 in more computers than they should. I think they want to build up a bigger user base for iWork and in a way this will do it. It’s like having an indefinite trial version for iWork. Hopefully when the user base is large enough, iWork will become a stronger force in the productivity suite market.

Post from: EveryJoe

iWork 09 to Anti-Piracy Measure: Buh-bye!

I was following the keynote last night via Gizmodo and MacRumors (before the site was hacked). I was only getting the text update and the images provided by Gizmodo. At that time I was a bit underwhelmed. This morning though when I got up, I watched the streaming video of the keynote. I must say that my opinion changed.

Phil Schiller is no Steve Jobs but I think he did ok. Not spectacular but I wasn’t bored to death. That had a lot to do with the products that they presented.

The heart of the keynote was the software. iLife 09 and iWork 09 in particular. I must say, from the keynote they did a wonderful job. I love how Apple uses technology that’s already available but pieces it together in a way that makes you just say, wow!

iPhoto’s new features includes Faces, a facial recognition algorithm that allows you to tag people in your photos and from that it will look at your other photos and look for the people you’ve already tagged and ask you to confirm if that’s indeed them. If it is, it can group photos according to the person.

Another feature is Places which uses geotagging to group photos according to where you took them.

iMovie 09 also sports wonderful new features.

iWork 09 is also updated. Pages haas been given a new full screen feature. This has been done before by other software but Apple recognized it’s usefulness and adapted it as well.

Numbers got updates as well and improved sorting and other features to make using spreadsheets better.

Keynote got some new transitions, new ways to build slide animations as well as a new remote application for the iPod Touch and the iPhone that will allow you to control your presentations via your device.

So the software was the focus this year and it’s really great once I saw it. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

The third thing they talked about was the new 17″ MacBook Pro sporting the new unibody design. What makes this baby standout is the fact that it doesn’t have the removable battery. Instead it has a new built-in battery which is specially designed for the MacBook Pro. Apple says because of this, it has been able to design a battery that will last 8 hours on a single charge and can be charged for 1000 times. This battery has a typical life span of 5 years. More than double the industry standard.

Another option for the 17 is a $50 anti-glare option. This is a feature that most pros have been clamoring for.

Apple’s “One More Thing” for this keynote is the announcement that iTunes is going DRM free. Yahoo! It is abandoning the single pricing scheme though. Apple will be pricing songs in three price points. 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29.

Apple is also opening up it’s iTunes Store to 3G network. A feature previously unavailable. iPhone users can now access the same store via 3G. Allowing users to download songs wherever and whenever.

However in my opinion the biggest show stopper of the keynote was neither software or hardware. It was Tony Bennett. A fitting closer to a great MacWorld tradition.

All in all it was a good keynote. Not great. But it was ok enough. I will surely miss MacWorld Keynotes, a ritual of mine for the past several years.

Post from: EveryJoe

MacWorld 09

Well there are compatibility issues. It’s not to say that you can’t move files to and from but there will be problems. John Rizzo wrote a great article on MacWorld to describe what potential pitfalls you might encounter when shuffling files from both suites. Depending on how much work you’ve done on a particular file will determine how well it will translate to the destination app. Read his article to see what you should and should not do.

The last paragraph of his article sums it all greatly.

In general, the simpler the document, the greater the compatibility between iWork and Office. Complex documents don’t do well moving back and forth between been Office and iWork, because you’ll lose something with every translation. In particular, going from PowerPoint-to-Keynote and back to PowerPoint can result in the loss of a lot of effects and general deterioration of the look of the presentation. If you need to have multiple rounds of edits with Office users, you may have to bite the bullet and install a copy of Office.

But for reading Office files and sharing your documents with Office users, iWork can be completely adequate. How much compatibility is enough is up to you

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Post from: EveryJoe

Office to iWork and the Other Way Around

One of the features of Word that I need is the word count. I could always see the number of words I had typed at the bottom of my document window. So it was easy to keep track of how long my article is. I needed that with Pages as well. I couldn’t see it at the bottom and so search I did. I found it eventually and here I am sharing it with you.

To get the word count and other document details:

1. Open the Inspector palette. You can do this by either clicking on the Inspector icon on the top right part of your document. Another way is by clicking on the View -> Show Inspector on the menu of pages or by hitting the shortcut keys Command + Alt + I.

2. In the Inspector palette make sure you’re on the Document Inspector pane. The left most icon resembling a page should be highlighted. Click on the info tab to reveal document information such as word, page, line, paragraph, section counts and other information about the document.

There you go! It’s still pretty much easier in Word since it’s already available at the bottom of your document but I think it’s not that difficult to access in Pages.

Post from: EveryJoe

Pages Tip: View Word Count and Other Document Details

iLife 08
iPhoto has received a significant upgrade for this version. Apple has introduced “events” based way of sorting out your photos. You also now have the option to hide photos that you probably don’t like as much to clutter your photo library but don’t hate enough to delete. You can choose to hide these photos to give your library a more streamlined look. iPhoto also lets you “skim” through your photos. It’s hard to explain what it is here. You’ll just have to go view the demo at the Apple web site.

iMovie has been rebuilt from the ground up. Steve Jobs says that the new iMovie will allow you to create a decent home movie in 30 mins. One of the notable features of the new iMovie is the ability to share and publish your videos to YouTube. There’s a one click button that allows you to encode and send your video to YouTube.

iWork 08
This version of the software suite is definitely exciting. Keynote and Pages receive significant upgrades. For pages, the distinction between word processing and page layout is much much clearer. You can select what you want to do and it’s clear. Keynote gets new transitions, text effects, point-to-point animation and a whole lot of other new things.

The biggest thing to come to iWork 08 is the new application called Numbers. It’s spreadsheet for the rest of us. I was floored on how Apple made doing spreadsheets so easy and fun. What I love about Numbers is the ability to move around your tables in the page without affecting formulas, calculations, etc. You also have a fit to page option to scale your work to fit either one page or how many pages you want it to fit. Numbers is awesome. Oh, did I say that it also imports and exports Excel compatible files. Although some say not all Excel files can be imported.

There’s a trial for iWork 08. Check it out and see if it’s good enough for you. The license is $79. Definitely cheaper than MS Office.

Before I go here are some links to help you explore these two babies.

1. iLife 08 press release
2. iWork 08 press release
3. iLife 08 product section
4. iWork 08 product section
5. iLife 08 Tutorials
6. iWork 08 Tutorials

Post from: EveryJoe

Apple Releases iLife and iWork 08