5 ms·

Apple should stop making their own productivity software as it is pretty poorly done. Mail is OK, but I would not recommend anyone to use it. I works is probabl

by kyrra 14y ago

Apple should stop making their own productivity software as it is pretty poorly done. Mail is OK, but I would not recommend anyone to use it. I works is probably some of Apple's weakest software. They should really just retire the suite.

arrrg 14y ago
? I love iWork! Keynote is a masterpiece!
- eckyptang 14y ago
  Until you have to share with someone using another office platform at which point it falls to bits instantly.
  - arrrg 14y ago
    Sure. Why do you expect that to work? The import/export is obviously only for emergencies. You should never try to integrate it in workflows with other office platforms. That's true for every single office platform. There is no way around that. Isn't that obvious?
    - eckyptang 14y ago
      Because people share stuff? I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation. OpenOffice/LibreOffice <--> MS office is pretty painless. iWork, not so.
      - arrrg 14y ago
        Ok, then it's not for you. Simple. LO is an Office clone, something iWorkdoesn't even attempt to be. I don't want iWork to be an Office clone. LO sucks because of that. (And import/export is far from painful.)
        emp_ 14y ago
        S/he switched, so it was not for her/him. S/he spent some money on things you kinda expect to work, s/he may have the go to say why s/he switched and paid the price for not knowing beforehand, literally.
        arrrg 14y ago
        Tough luck. Not all software works for all situations. That's how it is.
        sjwright 14y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
        WildUtah 14y ago
        http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
      - snowwrestler 14y ago
        Not for complex presentations.
  - lloeki 14y ago
    And the converse is true too. Any properly designed PPT or ODP fails on other office suites, because you just designed it with stuff that is implemented either differently, or absent. Then I might as well use the best tool available to me, and that's Keynote, hands down. If one collaborates to produce a presentation across suites, you should focus on content and use the common denominator, which works perfectly fine. If it's distribution problems, well, sharing a presentation is always lacking. Slides by themselves miss most of the content. Anyway, Keynote has an interesting export system which creates an MPEG 4 video with chapters and stop points. That's the only way to produce a result with 100% accuracy (unless you design your slides in HTML5).
    - andreasvc 14y ago
      Exporting slides to PDF is better (being a vector format), as long as they contain no animations or multimedia.
freyr 14y ago
The three components to "I works" (or iWork, as it's more commonly known) are now sold individually through the App Store. And they vary in quality from poor to excellent. Keynote is probably the best presentation software available on any platform, in my experience. Pages is the word processor and page layout tool. It's just OK for light word processing but pretty good at page layout. I haven't used Numbers much, but apparently it doesn't provide the advanced functionality offered by Excel. But I certainly prefer it to the Google's web-based spreadsheet tool.
- goatforce5 14y ago
  Keynote was originally designed for Jobs, and so i'd guess it got a disproportionate amount of attention from him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(presentation_software)#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(presentation_software)... And, FWIW, I only occasionally need a spreadsheet at home and Numbers works perfectly for my limited requirements.
  - freyr 14y ago
    I actually agree, I don't use Numbers often, but it does whatever I need for basic at-home use without a hitch. In Numbers' case, I was going by claims I've heard from Excel power users, who say it lacks Excel's advanced functionality. I edited my original post to reflect this.
flatline3 14y ago
I have no idea what is wrong with Mail or why you wouldn't recommend someone use it. Mail was Steve Jobs' baby ever since NeXT, and it was built to be used (and useful) internally at NeXT/Apple. It's the best mail client I've ever used, in a sea of extremely poor mail clients.
- tsycho 14y ago
  On my Macbook pro: Mail is horribly slow with my 5gb of Gmail. And searching in Mail is even slower and worse, unreliable. I have had better luck with Sparrow, but even that has its bouts (its slows down all of a sudden and then comes back, which makes me suspect its doing some background compaction/garbage collection). Even though I am no longer a huge fan of the Gmail web interface, it still works the fastest.
  - flatline3 14y ago
    I have somewhere between 15-20GB of e-mail in IMAP and Mail is quite responsive, and search is both fast and reliable. Perhaps it's related to either your specific hardware, gmail, or Mail's support for gmail?

by kyrra 14y ago

arrrg 14y ago

? I love iWork! Keynote is a masterpiece!

eckyptang 14y ago
Until you have to share with someone using another office platform at which point it falls to bits instantly.
- arrrg 14y ago
  Sure. Why do you expect that to work? The import/export is obviously only for emergencies. You should never try to integrate it in workflows with other office platforms. That's true for every single office platform. There is no way around that. Isn't that obvious?
  - eckyptang 14y ago
    Because people share stuff? I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation. OpenOffice/LibreOffice <--> MS office is pretty painless. iWork, not so.
    - arrrg 14y ago
      Ok, then it's not for you. Simple. LO is an Office clone, something iWorkdoesn't even attempt to be. I don't want iWork to be an Office clone. LO sucks because of that. (And import/export is far from painful.)
      - emp_ 14y ago
        S/he switched, so it was not for her/him. S/he spent some money on things you kinda expect to work, s/he may have the go to say why s/he switched and paid the price for not knowing beforehand, literally.
        arrrg 14y ago
        Tough luck. Not all software works for all situations. That's how it is.
        sjwright 14y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
        WildUtah 14y ago
        http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
    - snowwrestler 14y ago
      Not for complex presentations.
- lloeki 14y ago
  And the converse is true too. Any properly designed PPT or ODP fails on other office suites, because you just designed it with stuff that is implemented either differently, or absent. Then I might as well use the best tool available to me, and that's Keynote, hands down. If one collaborates to produce a presentation across suites, you should focus on content and use the common denominator, which works perfectly fine. If it's distribution problems, well, sharing a presentation is always lacking. Slides by themselves miss most of the content. Anyway, Keynote has an interesting export system which creates an MPEG 4 video with chapters and stop points. That's the only way to produce a result with 100% accuracy (unless you design your slides in HTML5).
  - andreasvc 14y ago
    Exporting slides to PDF is better (being a vector format), as long as they contain no animations or multimedia.

freyr 14y ago

The three components to "I works" (or iWork, as it's more commonly known) are now sold individually through the App Store. And they vary in quality from poor to excellent. Keynote is probably the best presentation software available on any platform, in my experience. Pages is the word processor and page layout tool. It's just OK for light word processing but pretty good at page layout. I haven't used Numbers much, but apparently it doesn't provide the advanced functionality offered by Excel. But I certainly prefer it to the Google's web-based spreadsheet tool.

goatforce5 14y ago
Keynote was originally designed for Jobs, and so i'd guess it got a disproportionate amount of attention from him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(presentation_software)#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(presentation_software)... And, FWIW, I only occasionally need a spreadsheet at home and Numbers works perfectly for my limited requirements.
- freyr 14y ago
  I actually agree, I don't use Numbers often, but it does whatever I need for basic at-home use without a hitch. In Numbers' case, I was going by claims I've heard from Excel power users, who say it lacks Excel's advanced functionality. I edited my original post to reflect this.

flatline3 14y ago

I have no idea what is wrong with Mail or why you wouldn't recommend someone use it. Mail was Steve Jobs' baby ever since NeXT, and it was built to be used (and useful) internally at NeXT/Apple. It's the best mail client I've ever used, in a sea of extremely poor mail clients.

tsycho 14y ago
On my Macbook pro: Mail is horribly slow with my 5gb of Gmail. And searching in Mail is even slower and worse, unreliable. I have had better luck with Sparrow, but even that has its bouts (its slows down all of a sudden and then comes back, which makes me suspect its doing some background compaction/garbage collection). Even though I am no longer a huge fan of the Gmail web interface, it still works the fastest.
- flatline3 14y ago
  I have somewhere between 15-20GB of e-mail in IMAP and Mail is quite responsive, and search is both fast and reliable. Perhaps it's related to either your specific hardware, gmail, or Mail's support for gmail?