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24 January 2009
Posted in
Apple
It's been around 17 to 18 months since iWork '08 came out...so it's been due for an update. I predicted iWork would be released at Macworld for this reason, so I wasn't let down. And now that it's out, I still haven't been let down.
Ease of use
Value for money
Price approx
$ 179 NZ
Software/Hardware Requirements
Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (500MHz or faster) processor
512MB of RAM; 1GB recommended
Approximately 1.2GB of available disk space
32MB of video memory
Mac OS X v10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later
QuickTime 7.5.5 or later
DVD drive required to install
Some features may require Internet access;
additional fees and terms apply
Available from
Apple Store NZ and
Buyers Guide
On the surface about the only thing different in iWork '09 that jumps out at you like a crazed weasel trying to latch onto your face is the iWork.com button. I described this button and the functionality in my review of the iWork.com site. This button is present in all the iWork apps and is your gateway to the new collaboration service developed by Apple (well more precisely, being developed by Apple). My previous review digs deeper into this so there's no reason to go into it here.
One thing that you might also notice before even using iWork '09 any further, is how much quicker it is to load up. Part of this may actually be because iWork '09 leverages features of Leopard and as such core features or technologies are already pre-loaded (putting it simply) thus reducing load time. Using iWork apps is more responsive as well and really shows up Office as being the dog it is.
To start the ball rolling with my iWork '09 review we'll look at Pages '09. At first glance the interface is exactly the same...but on closer inspection there are differences. One is a feature that has been missing from Pages since day dot of its existence...Word Count. Word count is often required when doing reports or even reviews...so to not have this kind of feature in previous versions limited the usability of the app. It wasn't a deal breaker, but it is a feature used by many many people. Now that it's in Pages, it's done in true Apple style, out of the way but there at a glance, with its position at the bottom of the document. It's not a big feature and not a big design changed but you'll be amazed at how handy this is.
There is a new button on the toolbar called Full screen. As you can imagine this puts Pages into a fullscreen mode which removes any distractions and hides your desktop so that you can get on with the job of editing. This has been done on a few shareware apps and once again a feature that seems pretty lame at the time until you use it...then you'll wonder how you ever got on without it.
What's cool about this is that the word and page count are still there and even more clearer. The menus are still available simply by moving your mouse to the top of the screen. What's nice about this is that the toolbar shows up so you can still easily change layouts without having to go out of fullscreen mode. Comments also show up in full screen mode but what would be nice would be the ability to show pages as well as small thumbnails in a sidebar (similar to Preview or Pages in regular mode), but maybe that might just be an added distraction.
Outline is an intriguing one. It removes much of the layouts choosing instead bullets and headings for the most part. It might sound like a bad option but it's designed for a specific purpose. When editing large documents it is easy to get things out of place and ahead of yourself and information all over the place. Outline's role is to provide markers for paragraphs, some images, and headings so that clicking and dragging you can move entire clips around into correct places. Dragging a heading will move all the text and images under that heading to the desired location. This level of editing is normally reserved for high end desktop publishing but is now available in normal word processing. (Comment from Phil - it's also often the way some publishers prefer documents to be submitted....ie, do the article in outline mode...making it easy to review...and let them decide how it all gets put together in terms of final formatting)
Page/Numbers and other applications/formats
Pages interacts with Numbers a lot better with linked charts. If you need to publish documents with the latest charts you simply add the chart from Numbers and the chart automatically keeps up to date in Pages when you edit figures in Numbers.
One of the biggest changes is also one of the more subtle ones. The Save Dialogue now has a tick box so that you can automatically save a document in either Word or Pages '08 formats. This allows for the ability to get documents out there to other people who do not use Pages '09.
There is still the option to manually export to these formats plus more but the Export function has now been moved to the Share menu just like the iLife applications. This is a nice change because it makes it so easy to find what you're looking for. I remember how my productivity increased in the iLife package when they did this because I wasn't trying to find where one option was...it was just there with the others.
There is another really nice feature... Reduce File Size. Where possible Pages will attempt to remove excess file size by removing unused data. This doesn't work well when the files are already compressed such as using JPG, PNG, MP4, etc but if you have formats like BMP or TIFF etc then it can work its magic and help you out a bit.
As with iWork '08 there is no option to export to HTML. This is interesting to me because I would have thought that Apple would have liked to do some powerful HTML with iWork in order to design great looking web pages. While it has the option to send the document to iWeb it is just that, a means of sending the document to iWeb. It wraps the document and sends a copy to the iWeb page as a link for people to download. It doesn't become an entry in an iWeb page. I guess I can understand that because in its own right iWeb is a really accomplished design program and so Pages isn't really needed but there are a few things that Pages does better than iWeb as you could imagine.
There's only so many features you can add to a word processor before it becomes too bloated for no real reason. Pages integrates a whole lot better than Numbers (but I'll describe that in the Numbers review), it has added a number of small changes that actually make it easier to work with Pages, and it has more templates (though I never really need to use those). It isn't bloated in any way which is nice. It's a perfect blend of required features with interface design not seen in any other word processing app and additional features that make it nicer to work with even though not really necessary.
You wouldn't buy iWork solely for Pages though. While a lot of thought has gone into Pages it doesn't make it worth the $179 asked for by Apple. Luckily though that you don't actually pay $179 for Pages then isn't it? There's more to come....
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Ben
said:
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Pages '08 has word counter I have iWork '08 and I know very well that Pages has a word counter I just find it's hard to find |
Darryn Lowe
said:
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Actually you're right. I forgot that it's in the Inspector under Page/Info but then hardly what I'd call a proper feature because there you are continuously swapping tabs to do things in your document. |
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