Third Office for Mac 2011 Beta Reveals New Icons, Splash Screens, more

[rawr_boy81]

Yeap. Although it isn't anywhere as bad as Transmission.

Transmission 2.0.4 is pretty snappy in regards to exiting from my experience.

Microsoft wouldn't know what fit and finish is even if it hit 'm in the face. The company is oblivious to detail.

It still isn't as bad as Apple and their refusal to add something as important as bibliographic functionality to iWork.

[.Neo]

Transmission 2.0.4 is pretty snappy in regards to exiting from my experience.

That depends on now many files you download and how large they are. The quitting time deteriorates pretty fast.

It still isn't as bad as Apple and their refusal to add something as important as bibliographic functionality to iWork.

The way I see it iWork is still in its early stages. It's also aimed a different market. In a sense Office and iWork are a bit like Aperture and iPhoto. With the exception of Keynote, that application is amazing. But it's also the oldest one.

[Quillz]

Microsoft wouldn't know what fit and finish is even if it hit 'm in the face. The company is oblivious to detail.

And so has Apple in the past few years, in both their hardware and software.

[.Neo]

And so has Apple in the past few years, in both their hardware and software.

Such as?

[Calum Veteran]

If Microsoft optimized their applications for a change they wouldn't need splash screens to keep us distracted while the thing is taking ages starting up.

They have splashscreens on many of their Windows applications. Splashscreens are often a nice touch.

[.Neo]

They have splashscreens on many of their Windows applications. Splashscreens are often a nice touch.

See, here's the thing: Mac OS X isn't Windows.

[rawr_boy81]

They have splashscreens on many of their Windows applications. Splashscreens are often a nice touch.

True, and I'd sooner have a splash screen telling me what it is doing, whether it is loading or is hung because of a corrupt file or something - end users are click happy if they don't see something to show that there is activity hence the merits of having a splash screen with maybe some sort of progress bar to provide feedback.

[.Neo]

Mail, Pages, Numbers and Keynote don't require a splash screen yet Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel do?

[rawr_boy81]

Mail, Pages, Numbers and Keynote don't require a splash screen yet Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel do?

Because Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel are magnitudes more complex than the dinky toys Apple puts out. Start comparing the two when Apple implements some basic functionality like bibliographical functionality.

[Xtreme $niper]

Word, Excel and Powerpoint load within a half second on my machine, and would load even faster without that splash screen. Maybe they should just give an option to disable it. I thought they used to do that?

Maybe for slower machines splash screens with progress text is handy, but it's not useful for me since it disappears before I can even read anything on it anyway.

[saxondale.]

Because Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel are magnitudes more complex than the dinky toys Apple puts out. Start comparing the two when Apple implements some basic functionality like bibliographical functionality.

You clearly haven't used iWork.

[rawr_boy81]

You clearly haven't used iWork.

I have, and iWork doesn't have bibliographical functionality - and no I am not going to pay for a crappy third party application to do something that should be in the application itself. It is clear that YOU have never used iWork.

[Xtreme $niper]

So just because Pages doesn't have bibliographical functionality, it's a dinky toy? Hmm...

Aside from that glaring exaggeration, I think you're over-estimating the number of people who actually use the bibliography functionality of Word. Most people just create their own Works Cited and do their own embedded citations.

[Motoko.]

Wow.. looks sheek

[rajputwarrior]

So just because Pages doesn't have bibliographical functionality, it's a dinky toy? Hmm...

Aside from that glaring exaggeration, I think you're over-estimating the number of people who actually use the bibliography functionality of Word. Most people just create their own Works Cited and do their own embedded citations.

word does a GARBAGE job of bibliograhy. My professors would laugh at anyone who used their tool.

[.Neo]

word doesn't a GARBAGE job of bibliograhy.

You sound like a corrupt mp3 stuck in a loop. Just because Pages lacks a very specific feature you obviously need doesn't mean the application itself is a dinky toy. At least Pages doesn't require you to launch a second major application to edit a simple piechart...

[rajputwarrior]

You sound like a corrupt mp3 stuck in a loop. Just because Pages lacks a very specific feature you obviously need doesn't mean the application itself is a dinky toy. At least Pages doesn't require you to launch a second major application just to edit a simple piechart...

suppose to be does**** caught me before i caught it myself ;)

[.Neo]

:p

iWork is relatively young and you're right it lacks certain advanced features. However the applications are much better written dan the Office ones.

Because Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel are magnitudes more complex than the dinky toys Apple puts out. Start comparing the two when Apple implements some basic functionality like bibliographical functionality.

And that has anything to do with launching times because...? Hell, when Microsoft put out Office 2008 Photoshop CS4 managed to launch faster than Word 2008. You don't see that happing with Word on Windows. Face it, Office on Mac OS X is still stuck in the Mac OS 9-era and performs as such.

[rajputwarrior]

:p

iWork is relatively young and you're right it lacks certain advanced features. However the applications are much better written dan the Office ones.

And that has anything to do with launching times because...? Hell, when Microsoft put out Office 2008 Photoshop CS4 managed to launch faster than Word 2008. You don't see that happing with Word on Windows. Face it, Office on Mac OS X is still stuck in the Mac OS 9-era and performs as such.

+1

[AltecXP]

You guys can bitch about Office when Apple gets iTunes and Quicktime on Windows right. Till then STFU.

[.Neo]

You guys can bitch about Office when Apple gets iTunes and Quicktime on Windows right. Till then STFU.

If you want to go down that road, let's talk about Microsoft's other (former) applications on Mac OS X: Internet Explorer 5, Windows Media Player, Windows Media plugin for QuickTime and Messenger. Doesn't matter how you spin it, iTunes doesn't perform anywhere near as poor on Windows as the mentioned Microsoft applications on Mac OS X. Even QuickTime 7 Pro is pretty much feature complete on Windows compared to the Mac OS X version, we can't say the same about Messenger and Office on Mac. Also, iTunes is a free product.

[AltecXP]

Since no one in their right mind would use iTune unless they purchased an iPod or iPhone I don't consider iTunes free. I have never had any problem with Messenger on OS X, it's not "pretty" but it's never crashed on me.

I dont see people complaining about Adobe using splash screens or mentioning that fact it's got MANY more features than pages or the fact it's a business standard for a reason. If Pages was "just as good" then I'm sure companies would buy it for their Mac users because it's so much cheaper. Our company has an active ban on Keynote because we have had so many cases of a user making a presentation in Keynote then failing to convert it before giving it to others and then no one else can edit the presentation or even re-use it. 9 out of 10 times the only reason that Keynote looks more "pretty" than Powerpoint is that they assign a designer to make the Keynote presentation and when they want a Powerpoint presentation just just assign some assistant to do it. It's like complaining that a paint brush is total **** because I can't paint as good as Leonardo DiVinci.

iWork is useless to 80% of the world until PC users can edit/create files in iWork format. Until then its ONLY useful in companies that are all Mac.

[Elliott]

Since no one in their right mind would use iTune unless they purchased an iPod or iPhone I don't consider iTunes free.

I must be crazy then. Even if I didn't have an iPhone or iPod, I would use iTunes.

I dont see people complaining about Adobe using splash screens

I complained. :p

or mentioning that fact it's got MANY more features than pages or the fact it's a business standard for a reason. If Pages was "just as good" then I'm sure companies would buy it for their Mac users because it's so much cheaper.

As you said with your company's Keynote policy, it has more to do with interoperability (and just a lack of education about the two products) than features. For a solo user, iWork works just as well as Office in most situations.

9 out of 10 times the only reason that Keynote looks more "pretty" than Powerpoint is that they assign a designer to make the Keynote presentation and when they want a Powerpoint presentation just just assign some assistant to do it. It's like complaining that a paint brush is total **** because I can't paint as good as Leonardo DiVinci.

If you gave an assistant PowerPoint and gave the same assistant Keynote, I'm betting that the Keynote presentation would still look better.

iWork is useless to 80% of the world until PC users can edit/create files in iWork format. Until then its ONLY useful in companies that are all Mac.

It's such a shame that iWork doesn't have Office document import and export capability. Oh wait...

[DrCheese]

It's such a shame that iWork doesn't have Office document import and export capability. Oh wait...

Still fail tho, I work in education and I will from time to time have a student bring in a .pages file that we can't open at all, as we have no macs on site so they have no choice but to go home and re-export the work, it just wastes people's time. All of which could be saved by Apple creating something like Microsoft have, i.e powerpoint/word viewer.

[Elliott]

Still fail tho, I work in education and I will from time to time have a student bring in a .pages file that we can't open at all, as we have no macs on site so they have no choice but to go home and re-export the work, it just wastes people's time. All of which could be saved by Apple creating something like Microsoft have, i.e powerpoint/word viewer.

Or that student could've just exported a DOC file. You can't blame Apple because the kid didn't think before he saved the file.