Mac OS X Mavericks 'upgrade' ruins iWorks Apple has massively upset its Mac productive app users by dumbing down Pages, Numbers and Keynote to match fondleslab versions. When the Mac OS Mavericks upgrade came on line, an upgrade of the iWork suite to v4.3 of the Pages (word processing), Numbers (spreadsheet) and Keynote (presentation) applications followed. After the …
I still prefer the old Office 2003 interface vs. the new "fluent" user interface of Office 2007-2013. It matters on what you are comfortable with. Office 2013 isn't bad with a toolbar for pull down menus added. iWorks shouldn't have made the same mistake as Microsoft did. Forcing the changes on people with the iOSizattion of OS X. Hopefully Apple will fix the changes or people will continue to use iWorks 09. Mavericks so far seems to get good reviews. Hope the future of the Mac OS isn't turning it into an expensive accessory for an iPad. Balancing the cross platform makes sense but the Mac version shouldn't loose functionality to match the iOS version.
iWorks is something I've never used
As a Mac user I am a little hypocritical and rest my laurels on MS Office for Mac.
As for the Maverick upgrade, again I've played the waiting game and read articles like this with a smirk on my face knowing that I've not become a victim of the "first out of the starting blocks" upgraders
I recall the 10.7 Lion issues that were reported when it was first released.. although the iMac on my desk runs Mountain Lion.
Sometimes it pays to sit back and wait...
Lastly, I still run OS X 10.6.8 on my MacBook because it just fucking works..
But i feel Tim Cook is slowly destroying what was a marvellous thing of beauty.
Maps - crap
iOS 7 - WTF was Johnny doing / thinking? Its got some great features, but i really want my old interface back, or at least something far more pretty, it now looks like Windozes phone 7 has humped iOS 5.
iWorks - dumbed down
Steve would not have let this happen, i just hope things get much better - but i don't think they will be getting better. Sadly there is only 1 Steve Jobs, and looks like no one else at Apple can fill his shoes.
The new Macbook Pros are cheaper than the old. The 15" isn't a like-for-like comparison because the new entry level omits the discrete GPU and the old didn't, but last year's 13" was $1,499 at the time of discontinuation and the new is $1,299. That's a bit more than 13% cheaper.
I also think we're already several years past the point where people who like to upgrade their computers would consider a Mac?
I also think we're already several years past the point where people who like to upgrade their computers would consider a Mac?
I dunno. There's a difference between laptops not being that upgradeable, and not even being able to jam more RAM into it. With the new Macbooks you can't easily replace anything. Custom hard drive, RAM soldered to the motherboard (seriously Apple, piss off), etc. I'm typing on a Macbook Pro right now, and the first thing I did when I got it was shove 16GB of RAM into it. Apple were going to charge me 300 quid for an upgrade that cost me 100 quid, so I did it myself. Bollocks to the new Pros - this one's already had two hardware failures that I fixed for $100, and replacing those parts in the new ones would have cost me thousands.
>> Steve would not have let this happen
>Yes he would. Wasn't slowly turning OSX into iOS one of his master plans in the first place?
I doubt it. The thing Apple got right was that you can't stick a keyboard/mouse interface on a phone, something MS has been trying (and failing) to do for ages. If they have forgotten that lesson, their design prowess is shallower than I thought.
Having said that, I'm sure they dream of the day they might return to proprietary silicon, so moving OSX towards ARM via iOS shouldn't be off the cards.
I doubt it. The thing Apple got right was that you can't stick a keyboard/mouse interface on a phone, something MS has been trying (and failing) to do for ages. If they have forgotten that lesson, their design prowess is shallower than I thought.
It was 2011 when Lion started the conversion of OSX into iOS, with its pointless Launchpad crap and the ditching of Rosetta (which is fair enough in a way, but was still part of the strategy). Jobs was still around then, just about, and I don't doubt for a second that it was his idea.
"The thing Apple got right was that you can't stick a keyboard/mouse interface on a phone, something MS has been trying (and failing) to do for ages. If they have forgotten that lesson, their design prowess is shallower than I thought."
The thing that Apple got right was spotting that you can fool some of the people all of the time.
Re: "Steve would not have let this happen...", actually my reading os Steve is that the great god would have punished everybody severely for posting anything so negative. Then he would have punished his own people for letting it be posted. Steve would have cut even more features and told you to like the new cleaner user interface that didn't let features get in the way of how pretty it is.
This will serve to lessen the appeal of Macs to die-hard Mac fans. Making the software free and including it with new Macs would appeal to a PC user who might be thinking of buying a Mac this time round, who generally would only use the word processor to write a letter to the bank or make a shopping list.
But I fear Apple's long-term strategy doesn't really include Macs at all. By dumbing them down and upping the ante on their now faster and faster ipads, there'll be little need for Macs at all.
"Making the software free and including it with new Macs would appeal to a PC user who might be thinking of buying a Mac this time round, who generally would only use the word processor to write a letter to the bank or make a shopping list."
To be brutally honest, the sort of user who "generally would only use the word processor to write a letter to the bank or make a shopping list" doesn't need a (n IBM-compatible) PC or a Mac. They would be best served by a pen and paper - more reliable, more portable and faster boot time. If they really feel the 'need' to use a computer something like an Amstrad PCW512 would be more than ample for their needs. Why, if they ever aspired to novel writing it would still serve them well.
But you're right to recognise that the majority of computer users may be really, mostly, shopping list writers.
I dunno about that. Although I think the problem here is likening "a letter to the bank" with "a shopping list", what sort of freakishly nonsensical comparison is that? A letter to the bank is something I need legible, dated, addressed and I almost certainly want a permanent copy of, a shopping list is a totally throw away item that needs only be legible to myself.
The sort of user who "generally would use the word processor to write a letter to the bank" is me. A developer of 30 years experience and the (unfortunate) go to top-level technical guy of my circle of friends. Why else would I use a word processor at home? But trust me I need a PC. Because believe it or not, both I, and people of a less technical persuasion, do more than run a word processor on their box. But yes, including a halfway competent and free one that comes with the OS is a nice thing that gives people value.
Now the sort of user who "generally would use the word processor to write a shopping list" is who? Do they exist? Really? You type a new document and print it? for a shopping list? Are you sure they exist?
"But yes, including a halfway competent and free one that comes with the OS is a nice thing that gives people value."
In the same way that "value" is given when something "free" is added to anything that has been vastly marked up in the first place.
There are surprisingly many who are persuaded by such marketing deception that targets the hard-of-thinking.
I'm sure in the management meeting it sounded like a great idea to make all the programs the same across all products - tablets, laptops and desktops. "Only one version needed for everything? Think of the savings we can make when we dont need different product teams!"
Still surely someone in engineering must have pointed out that it doesnt really work that way, and that all you will do is dumbdown the product (which will annoy the high end users), introduce an interface thats clunky (which will annoy everyone), and instigate a rash of bad press (which will hurt the bottom line).
But then again, when has management ever listened to common sense when the big dollar signs are floating in front of their eyes?
"Looks like Apple have contracted the same thing that Microsoft caught while they were designing Windows 8: in an attempt to "harmonise" platforms..."
I don't think there have been armies of users clamouring for the amalgamation of desktop and tablet O/S and applications. MS and Apple both seem to have decided that their users must be herded down this path.
I like the bleeding edge.
MythTV - now at v0.27
But yes, when there are commercial factors at play, you don't jump in. I think it must be the casino effect of lit buttons/screen. When a button comes up which says, "press me to get stuff" people do so without thinking.
Because you didn't try to install it in VMWare Workstation: it's VMWare video driver package is buggy and disables video acceleration. It was know since September 2012, but because the "stable" release was already frozen, the patch didn't get into it. When "stable" means "stable bugs"...
People use iWork? I took one look at iWork a long time ago and with the exception of Keynote, I poo-poo'ed iWork almost immediately. Numbers looks like it's having an identity crisis, unable to decide if it's a spreadsheet or a presentation tool. Pages, while ok for a word processor, uses a stupid file format (actually a folder with multiple files inside, abstracted into a single object by OSX) that makes it impossible to email unless you use Mac Mail, or zip the thing up.
Kinda sad that stuff has been stripped from Keynote, though. It would be nice if Apple expanded it's repertoire of shapes and object styling.
"actually a folder with multiple files inside, abstracted into a single object by OSX"
Actually that is very good file format in systems which have no internal structure to "files", but it should really behave like a single "package" (like the OpenOffice files, which are actually jar files, which are actually zip files of a file tree)
"Actually that is very good file format in systems which have no internal structure"
Only if you're a developer who can't code a file format which can keep different "structures" inside. After all WordStar *developer* did it on 8086 machines with a few kB of RAM.... it shoudn't be so difficult for developers working for the Mighty Apple - but maybe Apple prefers to spend more money building futuristic HQ buildings than paying good OSX developers....
"Apple fucked something up... no that can't be right, shirley."
Apple always has f***ed stuff up, same as everyone else. What's different is that the recently expanded user based, courtesy of iThings, now includes a higher proportion of people who know that a piece of shit splaying out from the iFan is just that and not a little shower of magic fairy feathers worth inflated dollars by virtue of their magic fairy featheredness.
iShit was always mixed in with the good stuff, same as for all technology.
I do wonder sometimes and try to understand why software people make so many changes and partly concluded that it must mean additional coding hours. So on a short-term contractual basis anything that ups the total hours also ups the total income = very good for the coders?
Sidebar? (I much prefer pallets - remember them? Even better still: dockable pallets - uh-ha baby )
[doo doo doo di-de doo doo]
And the way all things Apple and all things SM are going I think I may just prattle about in android for a while - it also seems cheaper in case they wish to wreck things there too no?
Didn't Macs once come with Adobe PhotoShop and some other neat software which was dropped unceremoniously from subsequent OS updates.
Supposedly, iPhoto and iMovie are still available to me after the upgrade to Mavericks, but this is another loads of old bollox, the App Store has been downloading and installing them back again without managing to pull it off. They no longer work on this Mac Book Pro and in the process I had to sign in to the App Store about a dozen times. Oh yeah, and reboot the machine a couple of times too many.
Just confirms everything I ever thought about Apple. There's very little to choose between Micorsoft and Apple as manufacturers of iTech tat. "Could do better", is what appeared on my school reports, even when I was top of the class.
"There's very little to choose between Micorsoft and Apple as manufacturers of iTech tat."
MS make computers now? I hear there tablets where a great success, so obviously laptops and desktops next.
And yes, think like a meercat. Never be the first one out of the burrow, or a x.0 user as the case may be :)
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