WTF - no footnotes & endnotes in Pages for iPad?!

Apple tells you what iPad Pages doesn't do here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4065

You will see that footnotes/endnotes is the first item on list.

You aren't talking to Apple in these forums, just other users like yourself. So best to repost your comments addressed to them in the channel they have set up for that:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages_ipad.html

You know, Tom is right. Go to the feedback forum with this. But I have to tell you that even a little exploring before you purchased the app would have told you about footnotes in Pages. At the App Store, there are ample user reviews at the bottom of every app's description page. You'll notice that the number two customer review of the latest version very pointedly complains about its lack of footnotes. It was in one of the first reviews of the original version too, as well as virtually every professional review I ever read about it.

There's a philosophical misunderstanding happening with many new iPad users. It was never billed as a computer replacement. It was billed as a mobile device. Apple may yet expand it enough that it actually may some day make a bold claim to be a computer replacement, but not soon. In order for Pages to handle endnotes and footnotes, as well as all the other rather advanced things that full fledged word processors like Word handle routinely, it would have had to be a far more complex program. There is currently, by design, a limit to the complexity of iPad apps. There's only 256K of RAM on the thing, after all. It's designed to be very quick and huge programs aren't quick. Apple also wants to keep apps as simple to use as possible.

Again, Apple may alter its design philosophy of the iPad in the future. But right now, nowhere is Apple claiming that it does everything a full computer does. But it comes close enough to be most compelling to many people. But if you want it to be a robust photo and graphics editor and designer, or a full fledged CAD platform, or a CEO's spreadsheet platform, or a movie editor, or a programming platform, or a fully loaded word processor then you're barking up the wrong tree. It just isn't designed for that. It would be really hard to do all that in a less than half inch thick slate weighing 24 ounces that lasts 10 hours on a charge and doesn't get warm. Until they figure out how to do that without sacrificing any of those, then it is what it is. But no one ever said it was anything else, certainly no one at Apple.

jwdakota,

Please forgive our Mac enthusiast (didn't want to use the term 'fanboy') friends for their rather rude responses to your post. You're ABSOLUTELY justified to be complaining about this, especially the way Apple has marketed these apps. If you read the product pages in the App Store or on the web site (at least last I looked), there is nothing to give the impression of these limitations, and everything to make one assume they work interchangeably with the desktop apps in file-format. You shouldn't have to dig down into knowledge-base articles to figure this out! And, you're also completely correct that lack of footnotes/endnotes in Pages kind of eliminates it for academic use. Our friends here must not have higher education experience.

That said, I love the iPad and can't wait to get one. I still think it will be a great device for students, as long a they have access to another computer (to do things like write their papers). I totally understand that it isn't meant to be a laptop/desktop replacement for everyone, though I think it will be for some. Apple just needs to be really clear about these kind of limitations, because these things will make some people quite upset. If the apps weren't compatible, they should have given them different names and just said there is some compatibility.

I'm sure Apple is going to fix the footnote/endnote thing. Sorry to the other responder, but that isn't exactly a 'high end' feature analogous to CAD/CAM. I use CAD and 3D animation products, and I'm not expecting them to show up on the iPad. I do expect footnotes though. It is a pretty basic thing nearly every word processor does.

Other things like Keynote not handling all but a few templates... or the iPad not doing more than the built-in fonts, etc. are going to be harder for some to swallow. Those things I'm not certain Apple is going to 'fix'. Apple needs to be more clear about these limitations as well. Those things, while I don't like them, I can work around them and still use the programs for what they are intended for... I just need to realize I'm not going to be exchanging between the iPad and OSX versions for the most part.

I debated whether to get into this or not. We really don't mean to be rude, it's just that when you interact a lot in these iPad forums you get a lot of complaints like this that really amount to, basically, why isn't it the way I just presumed it would be instead of the way that it actually is? They get doubly frustrating when people are surprised by something they discover after the fact (of buying it, that is) when, really, the most basic research would have told them. You certainly don't have to dig down into knowledge base articles to learn that Pages doesn't support footnotes. As I said, the second customer review talked about it. I don't buy 99 cent apps without reading a few customer reviews that are right there on the same page you're buying the thing from, let alone for a ten dollar app like Pages. And I am not a Mac fanboy. I don't own one, I use Windows 7 on my 64 bit laptop and I like it just fine. But I am a fan of the iPad and I will defend Apple's decisions regarding it because I think they bear defending against unfair complaints. Yes, Apple does advertise the thing as the bearer of all gifts, but when have you ever let advertising decide you on a $600 plus buying decision or even a ten dollar one? I suppose you might get the impression that a mobil device with 256M of RAM and 16 G of storage would be able to do everything that a computer with 4 Gigs RAM and a 500 G hard drive with a CPU that's five times faster could do. People who have such impressions also generally fail to see the difference between a 1080p 50 inch HD television and their mother's RCA.

Footnotes are not a minor programming detail. They are quite complex requiring a good deal of both programming size and memory requirements since they must reformat the entire document to work properly. They are basically a sub-document that must be integrated into the main one. They are indeed a "high end" feature. As far as education, you could also say that Apple ignores business needs since there isn't any mail merge in Pages either.

Anyway, we could argue all night. I'm sorry if you and your friend here have been disappointed and let down by the iPad, but I really think you need to take at least some responsibility for it. Blaming it all on Apple for not giving you what you thought it was or for not giving you what you wanted it to be isn't fair.

I agree with most of what you are trying to get across, except that I think there are a few problems when applied to the issue at hand (footnotes on iPad Pages).

1) Yes, I agree the OP could have found out. I haven't bought an iPad yet, and this is one of the reasons (along with issues with Keynote), and the fact that I until these things are solved, my MacBook Pro works fine. However, here are a few lines right from Apple's product page on the iTunes store...

- View and edit existing documents by importing Pages '09 or Microsoft Word files from Mail attachments or web.
- Share your work by exporting to Pages '09, Microsoft Word, or PDF and sending it via Mail. …
- Transfer documents between Mac or PC and your iPad using File Sharing in iTunes.

Now, combine that with the fact that this isn't called 'Pages Lite' or iPadMiniWrite... one sure gets the impression that things are going to be more seamless. Not even a little asterisk noting some feature difference in files or that you lose certain document aspects when going back and fourth. You'd have to be fairly tech-savvy to pick up the word 'export' and 'import' and imply this from that. One would guess that for MS Word or some other word processor, but not when the app has the same name and the above statements are made.

2) Yes, I realize footnotes aren't trivial, but they are a basic feature of every word-processor I've ever used (mail merge probably as well)..... I'm pretty sure even back on computers with several times less processing power and RAM than the iPad has. There are some incredibly complex applications for the iPad. Unless there is some really crazy limitation I can't conceive of, footnotes aren't a technical limitation issue.

3) I'm not blaming Apple for anything other than being pretty unclear about this. Make it clear... then let the user decide. While I love Apple, this is walking a pretty fine line near deception IMO. I do remember finding this out and being somewhat ******-off at the time because I had been tricked after the keynote (speech), and reading EVERYTHING I could find on the topic. This didn't come out until some real reviewers got their hands on one and discovered and exposed it. I certainly wasn't the only one who was shocked by this. That isn't cool, and isn't the Apple I know.

4) I don't really think it is an unfair complaint. This is something Apple should implement (and hopefully will)... and be clear about until then. At the very least, if the iPad can't support footnotes, it should at least somehow preserve them in the file so that if you save and go back to the desktop, it hasn't stripped them out.

BTW, sorry for inferring you were a fanboy... and welcome to the world of Apple. I think you'll find that long-time Apple users can be extremely critical of Apple products when we feel they aren't living up to expectations in some way. And, believe it or not, Apple often does listen..... which I think is at least part of what has made them a great company.

I agree with the complaint about footnotes, and it's an absolute dealbreaker for me. I was on the verge of purchasing an iPad -- and hoped to be able to do my one core business: academic writing, while traveling.

It's a real shame. One can live with a simplified word processor that excludes a lot of functions and fonts, but footnotes are absolutely essential.

It's a further shame that Microsoft has indicated that they will not release a Word App for the iPad, and there are no other word processors that support footnotes. Is it really technically impossible? If a 386 with Windows 3.11 and an early version of Word can support footnotes, there's no reason an iPad shouldn't.