One of the few announcements on the ho-hum keynote at this year’s Mac Expo was iWork ’09, an upgrade to Apple’s business software suite and a bit of a ho-hum product itself if Apple had called at this sleek new range to update features to a point, we would have got. But when you consider that it sells for a modest $ 79 (there is no upgrade price), it is difficult to treat it too much.
Apple has slowly build up an iWork app at a time, and we had hoped that it contain an equivalent to Microsoft Outlook that time. The suite urgently needs a stable, unified e-mail, calendar and to-do-power plant, one that syncs with the iPhone and Me.com, but it should not be. Instead, Apple has some attractive effects keynote, a few pages to added productivity helpers and simple formulas in Numbers. Apple has also iWork.com introduced an online collaboration space (in beta).
Keynote ’09
It is not surprising that the star of the iWork is Keynote: it brings a generous dose of flair to Apple Boardroom PowerPoint presentations and makes like a Stone Age relic. The updates of this time is certainly every audience ooh aah and were amazed and so simple to use features that we try too often.
New transitions in Keynote, we move from one slide to another with flying colors. The Magic Move effect, let us choose an element of a film then move it to a new position on a second film. We could not change its size, angle and placement; Magic Move then generates the in-between animation. Even easier, the new object-effects that the film elements of the page and resize the new in with no setup is required. You are incredibly attractive.
Add text transitions looks as complicated, but we found it just as easy to use. We love the anagram transition in which the letters from an on-screen title, you switch to a new book form places. Other extras that include new 3D chart animations and eight new slide show themes (of 44).
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PowerPoint compatibility is an essential for the keynote, and we were glad we now have the option of saving work directly as a Powerpoint file. While you can import PowerPoint slides in Keynote, there are minor formatting problems, you have most of the film they tweak to get just the right look.
You can now take your presentations from an iPhone Remote App with the keynote (available for 99 cents from the iTunes Store). It must work on the same wireless network as the computer, but never a problem because AirPort can create ad-hoc networks. We stopped our iPhone displayed horizontally to our current slide, plus the next slide, or vertically with respect to the current slide with the presentation notes. We noticed a slight delay when you pulled the iPhone-what on the screen by a second, even though we like to change about the possibility of slides by shopping with your finger. All that is missing is a laser pointer.
Pages ’09
Pages attention was given with this version of iWork, but not much. The biggest new feature of Apple’s page layout word processor is a full-screen view that hides everything else on your desktop. Just tap the Full Screen button in the toolbar, and our document is now the only thing that shows, surrounded by black. We were able to mouse to the top of the screen, pop-up menu options, or the mouse to the left to see a pop-up navigator view page. (If the full-screen tool could shut down our e-mail and separate us from the Internet until we had finished writing 500 words, then it really would block all distractions.)
Other improvements include beefed-up pages outline (sketch creation and rearrangement to simplify), use the capacity numbers when creating a mail merge and coordinated new attractively designed templates.
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Numbers ’09
It should not a lot of improvements are possible with a spreadsheet program, once the basics are there but the tweaks to Numbers ’09 is helping challenged numerically.
The main improvement is the formula-browser, accessible from the toolbar, the more than 90 additional features in this version (for a total of over 250 covers) and a lot of support tools. After we selected a function to insert a helpful visual representation appeared to us was the correct replacement cells for the required values.
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Other enhancements include the ability to link maps to presentations and Pages documents, Keynote, and 12 new attractive models for real situations, such as tracking exercise times and results.
This latest version of iWork can not win many converts, as it is not as feature-packed, such as Microsoft Office, but it should maintain current users and please work on the Mac always made a little easier. It is a decent improvement over the previous iteration, and its nascent online sharing component in iWork brings the same Web 2.0 space as other document-collaboration tools. Where iWork ’09 outshines the competition with its Keynote presentation software. This feature alone will make the $ 79 prizes worth of investment for some.
