Apple iWork '05 (Mac)

Rating:
Summary: Fun and easy to use!
Review: As a long time AppleWorks user, it's great to see that Apple finally got around to writing a *modern* word processor in Pages. AppleWorks had grown quite long in the tooth and the user experience was basically unchanged from Mac OS 9. Not a big fan of Word (too slow, UI inconsistent with the rest of OS X), I had grown used to using the bundled TextEdit program which comes with every Mac. TextEdit takes advantage of OS X system wide features like as you type spell checking, speech, floating font and color palettes, etc.. However, TextEdit can't do advanced things like multi columns, wrapping text around pictures, etc.. So the choices on the OS X platform were rather meager - slow an inconsistent Word, underpowered TextEdit, or old and clunky AppleWorks (aside from a few other third party tools which aren't very widely used).

Pages is basically TextEdit on steroids - all of the major features 95% of people expect a word processor to have are present and much easier (and faster) to use than in Word. The regular OS X features such as customizable toolbar, floating font and color palettes, as you type spell checking, etc. are all present. Moving graphics around is quick and seamless even on a slightly older Mac (667MHz G4). Also, the import and export options seem to work very well from my limited testing - most importantly, it imports and exports from Word without any problems that I can see.

Sure, there are some things which Word can do that Pages can't, but most of them are not things I'll ever use any way. I'd much rather have an easy to use and efficient word processor than have to deal with Word.

Keynote 2 (the other half of iWork) is also a great program. I can't really compare it to PowerPoint since I haven't used Powerpoint much, but I have to say that it was incredibly easy to learn how to use. The master styles are very handy for applying consistent features across your presentation, and the transitions and animation effects are nifty looking as well as easy to create. The import and export from Keynote to Powerpoint also seems to work seamlessly. It also allows you to export as QuickTime, Flash, PDF, etc..

All in all, highly recommended - especially for the very reasonable price.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Start
Review: iWork is a nice start to an alternative to Office on the Mac but for most people it won't replace it.

Pages is a fine v 1.0 product. It has its flaws and isn't for everyone. If you need .doc compatibility you may want to stick with Office. On the other hand if you want to creat great looking documents for printing or saving as a PDF which most people can view then Pages is perfect. The templates are of the highest quality and you can really create stunning documents very easily. Think of Pages as Publisher for the Mac, but better.

Keynote which is also included is probably the finest presentation software you can buy. It really puts anything created with PowerPoint to shame. File compatability with PowerPoint is a little less important especially if you are running your own presentations off of a PowerBook or iBook.

I'll give it a 4/5 because Pages doesn't play too nice with .doc or .html files but I hesitate to even do that since it has so many positives. At $79 it is worth it for Keynote alone at $49 educational price from Apple, I highly recommend it to any student that needs to do presentations, they really stand out.

Rating:
Summary: Pages of fluff
Review: Pages is a bunch of hype. Underpowered and not really a Word Processor. It's a very confused piece of design - a hybrid publisher and text editor package - but it is for the most part well designed.

I found it to perform badly and regardless of your opinion of Microsoft Office, there will be the inevitable need to share documents with the majority of people you know who are probably using it. Pages supports a very small subset of Word's features, exports badly, messes up layout and line breaks, and performs terribly in exporting and importing.

Apple have pulled off their usual usability feats with Pages, but still there are some annoying behaviors. Font formatting can start to give birth to palettes, the inspector is very discontiguous - example: changing table borders requires setting the options for change in one tab and then actually changing them in another; this is a loathsome idea.

All in all - the most impressive part of Pages are the templates. Don't try share em with Word users though - they'll look awful. They look great in Pages though and print well too. But that's all that's REALLY impressive about Pages and templates won't write your book, college report or white paper. Everything else is an approximation or a rethink of what already exists in Word. The only things that Pages has that word hasn't are minor stylistic feature such as the ability to apply dropshadows to table borders and in-line text. Styles are static and hard to create or modify, tables are preschool looking and are constrained to 1pt borders, all color choosing has to go through the color picker: this makes it difficult to keep any color use history.

I love how it shows margin and footer guides. This is a must have for those tired of printing woes and region exceeding alerts. Live wrapping and picture resize on insert are also fantastic features. Apart from that however, Pages leaves me very underwhelmed and, alas, booting up Word again. I don't think Apple ever really intended this as a realistic competitor with Word, however, at least not as a v.1.0 anyhow, but it does have the potential to be nifty little app once they get themselves straight on feature-set, compatibility and intended market. Let's wait and see, but for now, $79 doesn't really seem worth it unless you want to create predesigned newsletters or good short text files.