Pages 5 features checklist

Well, this was closer to half this morning, but that's what I'm basing it on. http://www.tuaw.com/2013/10/28/poll-did-apple-ruin-iwork/

Look, I know you're angry. I guess you have the right to be. But when someone comes in amnd tries to help you fix a very difficult situation and you treat them like crap, well, I wish you all the luck in the world. Nobody's trying to hurt you here.

pinkuff wrote:

robogobo wrote:

Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Half the users are asking for iPad compatibility and half are asking for robust features. That's not possible now, but this was the best time, apparently, to bring them together and then add features back to both. Just be patient. I bet a solution will present itself.

weiland555 wrote:

Gosh, this *****!! Hating Apple right now. Yes, I've submitted feedback. And yes I've (intelligently) flamed this version in a review on the app store.

robogobo wrote:

Unfortunately that's the hitch. In order to have cross compatibility, you'll have to use Pages 5 with the new iPad apps. Achieving this parity was the whole reason for the rewrite of iWork, and why it's so controversial.

weiland555 wrote:

Thanks so much! One last question: I'm hoping to pick up the iPad Air soon. Will there be any way for me to have Pages 09 on it? I do not currently own an iPad, so I do not have an iPad version of Pages 09 backed up anywhere (like I do for my iPhone).

Robogobo, sorry to say this, but you are souding way too much like a corporate drone. Do you mind supporting a little the truths you are administering?

On exactly which piece of research is this statement "Half of users were asking for iPad compatibility" based?

How is possible that none - not one, except perhaps yourself - of these are chipping in here?

robogobo wrote:

Great! Hopefully this means everyone can get back to their old files and continue working in '09 until the feature set is restored to 5.0. Now we can all stop clamoring about Apple intentionally damaging users' work. I was 1000% sure that wasn't the case. After "Save As" was depricated, Autosave and Version History are part of a normal workflow (except for those who rejected the whole idea of auto save - but Apple didn't), which explains why files were not explicitly duplicated with the upgrade and no warning was issued.

Congratulations: you have discovered "versioning" (introduced in OSX 10.7, three years and a week ago), whereby TimeMachine stores (via a background daemon) local "versions" of your documents interleaved with the versions that it stores on your designated backup drive during the visible backup process. 🙂

But, before you (and Apple) run your victory lap, read on. Again. As I reported earlier in this thread (admittedly not in as much detail), there is at least one workflow that will irrevocably kill your work. So, 'allo-'allo: "listen carefully, for I will repat this only once."

1. Create a document with Pages 4.3 and store it in iCloud. Here is a mock-up: <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/54668219/Pages43.jpg>. Notice the rotated chart and the textbox-linking (just two of the features lost in Pages 5.0).

2. Open it with your iOS 7 version of Pages. It will warn you that some formatting will be lost and offer to open a duplicate. Open the Pages 4.3 original anyway.

3. Edit in iOS 7 version of Pages (the chart is un-rotated and the textboxes unlinked) and close. iCloud now has the upgraded Pages 4.3 document.

4. Try opening the same (iCloud-stored) document with Pages 4.3, and you are told that you need a newer version of (OSX) Pages: <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/54668219/Pages43-iP.jpg>.

5. Open the same (iCloud-stored) document with Pages 5.0, and it looks the same as on the iPad, with the bemoaned Pages 4.3 functionality and formatting lost.

6. Now try, from Pages 5.0's "File/Revert To>" menu command, to see (and hopefully recover) the earlier version using the 3-years old versioning feature of OSX, and I at least get stumped: <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/54668219/Pages43-iP-5.jpg>. [Disclaimer: the only Photoshop-editing on this image was to crop and to increase visibility in the oval where it says "No previous version available/Error retrieving versions from Time machine"]

So much for the interoperability between the iOS and OSX devices—while trying to use Pages 4.3 to its fullest.

I do not doubt that some of the work discombobulated by iOS 7/Pages 5.0 can be restored from various kinds of backup. And yes: no one was killed by the upgrade, nor were any governments toppled. And yes: no one held a gun to my head to upgrade, or to attempt using both my iPad and my Mac to edit a document. I'm sure Apple's EULA covers their collective...

But, as surely as the Sun will rise tomorrow morning, Apple has lost my trust. And, it would seem, not only mine.

BTW, any probability reported to be outside the 0-100% range immediately signals self-contradiction; and, in a self-contradictory system (of thought, for example), everything is true—and also false, at the same time.

Tristan, I didn't just "discover" Versioning (I actually suggested using it very early in this thread and in another), but I previously thought it was tied to Time Machine. After my previous attempts to help were met with "what if we're not using Time Machine", I went back to work trying to find a solution, because I'm such a nice guy. Then I discovered Versions are not tied to Time Machine. That means even people who don't use it could still recover their files. I'm one who embraced auto save and versioning the very first day it came out. But thanks for being condescending, anyway.

Now, when I get some time I'll go ahead and try your workflow.

BTW, any probability reported to be outside the 0-100% range immediately signals self-contradiction; and, in a self-contradictory system (of thought, for example), everything is true—and also false, at the same time.

Thanks so much. I'll try to remember that next time. You're so good to point it out because it's really important that I satisfy your needs. BTW, the sun doesn't actually "rise", rather the earth rotates to reveal it. FYI.

(what are you trying to prove, man?)

In Pages 5, if I insert a comment, the comment appears as a tiny colored box at the left side of the text. To read the comment you have to click on the little box. So you cannot read a running series of comments... Is this right? Anyone have any suggestions for how to make them all appear in series down the page?

Tristan,

I agree. While Robogobo has had some useful insights, in general he has mischaracterized Users experiences countering them with half truths and unsupported speculations. Further, he has ridiculed and mischaracterized Peter, the initiator of this thread, and subverted the stated and intended purpose of the thread to his own 'save Apple's reputation' theme. We spend as much time defending our experiences as we do moving this discussion forward. We are now almost a week into this thread and only now are we finding work-arounds for Pages 5 behaviours. This is hardly software I would consider up to Apple's stated standards and the advertising rhetoric Apple itself has hiped. Essentially, everything we speculated on and struggled with a week ago is still true. Might I say taking a week to figure out how to undo damages done by Pages 5 is still not a realistic workflow for a professional. Pages 5 should have been released as a Beta under a different name - I think everyone agrees to at least that. That in itself is not responsible behaviour for Apple.

Robogobo, I respect your point of view. No one has 'treated you like crap.' You seem more intent on proving other people wrong than sticking to the stated goal of the thread. Your view does have some value, but you should start your own thread. You are entitled to your opinion - so are we.

robogobo wrote:

Just the ones you've opened and saved in Pages 5. They weren't altered until you hit Save.

weiland555 wrote:

...

Not sure about that, I think that is only if you have turned off auto-save.

If I recall correctly, some users got their files converted without hitting save as files are autmatically saved by default on OS X when they are closed.

That is true in my case. Close document = recode to new pages 5 format... arghhh

As a professional user of Macs, I'm worried what the future holds for Apple's software. Are we going to have to wait until mobile devices become advanced enough to handle professional features before we get them again on our Macs? I know that many people want compatibility across devices, but I also know that many people use a real *computer* (remember those?) to do their work, and want something more powerful than a stripped-down piece of software that happens to be compatible with the word processor on their phone.

We can talk all day about the specifics of the change, who it was for, user polls, etc. The hard data is this: After two years of using Pages, I've switched back to Word, and I can't be the only one. This is not an "Apple has lost a customer" rant -- I'm way too deep into Apple-land to even consider that. But I no longer use Pages.

I even went so far as get a Microsoft SkyDrive (gag) account for safe backups and easy access anywhere, similar to iCloud. If a piece of software can make a die-hard Apple user switch to a Microsoft product called "SkyDrive" then it must be pretty bad.

Great. You have your opinion and I have mine. But I did not mischaracterize Peter, not one bit. I got in here to try and calm the frenzy and suggest a little maturity and I got lambasted for trying to find solutions rather than bad mouthing and speculating on the motives of Apple and it's developers, which is what Peter, et al, we're doing.

You can try to take your anger out on me, but I wasn't the one who spoiled the objectivity of the thread. Peter do that all on his own, without ever having even used the software. It's comical how the mob mentality works. If this were real life you'd all have stoned me and burned me at the stake for trying to be the voice of reason. So be it. I don't really care. And yeah, I was treated like crap for suggesting a perfectly viable solution. Total crap.

But complainers complain because that's what they want to do. And they don't want solutions because they've taken the stand of ignorance and the momentum of disdain is much stronger than reason. Oh well. I feel like I've done my duty. It's just sad that people would rather moan about something they chose to do and be so short sighted as to jump ship at the first sign of a problem. Whatever. Have it your way.

Peter Knapp wrote:

If software is free, you can't expect to be treated like a customer.

I think this is a really excellent point, and maybe the most concerning aspect of the recent changes to iWork. I've always liked being a customer of Apple's because I am paying for what I use and voting with my dollars, unlike advertising based products, or loss leader products where the income isn't generated from the quality of the product itself.

This free software initiative clearly has some positive consequences, like creating a larger community of Pages users and making the software available to more people. However, for professional users (of which I am admittedly not in the category of), it changes the game quite a bit.

1) When Pages was paid software, as it was before, this means that a large number of people buying were doing so through a need for its features, and because their productivity with the software would offset whatever its cost was. I believe that this would have had the effect of the users of iWork and Pages self-selecting themselves as mainly non-casual users with plenty of pro and semi-pro users in the mix as a significant percentage of the user base.

2) By making iWork free and part of every Mac, iOS device, etc. the user bas now becomes anyone who would buy an Apple device for any reason. I believe that this almost undisputedly reduces the percentage of the user base who are pro users or have pro user concerns. This means as a consequence, that the needs of pro users are likely to be much less important in the broad view of the software, and Apple will be far less accountable to this particular segment.

So the above is not a happy state of affairs for pro users.

On the other hand, there has been speculation for a couple years now that Apple would abandon the niche market of pro users entirely, as it is relatively tiny compared to their mainstream market. Before the announcement in June of the new Mac Pro, pretty much every blog and commenter was betting on the discontinuation of that pro line of hardware. I've heard rumblings that the reason Apple hadn't updated iWork for almost 4 years was because it was no longer going to be developed, since that user base was again a tiny portion of their market.

So in all likeliehood, had Apple not decided to make the software a benefit to ALL users, and start on a very simple and basic foundation, the other option could have been abandoning it entirely. That would have been an even bigger loss, I think. So taking a positive perspective:

1) We now have Apple invested in iWork with a much larger total user base. This means more people wanting updates and features with a much larger collective voice. Optimistically, this could mean more development and frequent releases for this software, and almost certainly faster bug fixes, which is a plus. It also means that going forward, if a huge group of Apple's customer base are using the iWork software, and are "locked in" to Apple's services through that, it is very unlikely that Apple will pull the plug on the software entirely, which frankly was a very real possibility with the previous iWork model.

2) Apple NEVER had successful business / enterprise products until.... surprise: the iPhone. The iPhone was a trojan horse into the enterprise because consumers bought up tons of them, and then wanted to use them for work, forcing IT to adapt and adopt. Now, iOS is the most used platform for mobile devices in the enterprise. A surprising path to success for Apple. Now, Apple continues to focus on enterprise features with every update to iOS, and to preserve their lead in that space, with the result that many enterprise IT professionals actually consider iOS to have the best enterprise features of any mobile platform, regardless of what their employees think or want. It would make sense for Apple to take the same route with iWork, namely: a) release it broadly (and free) to their entire consumer base b) after cultivating cosumer users, who find it much more accessible and easy / fun to use and collaborate with than, say, Microsoft Office, use them as a trojan horse for enterprise adoption. c) Strengthen that adoption and foothold by continuously adding features for the enterprise that keep business users happy, and most importantly, happier than jumping ship to Office or Google Docs.

This is all speculation, but I think it makes sense given Apple's recent strategy. Also note that for all the features the new iWork is missing, it is already very strong in the most important features for enterprise: seamless collaboration and sharing, and the ability to run in a browser, making it useable on Windows, and even Linux for the first time ever in the history of iWork. Also, notice that change tracking / commenting is already implemented in this new version right out of the gate, whereas before, it was absent from Pages '05, '06 and '07 before being introduced in '08. Lastly, all of the "coming soon" features for Pages in iCloud, for example, seem to revolve around enterprise:

• Version history
• Editing charts and tables
• Support for additional browsers
• Printing

I think that for all the missing desktop publishing, book-writing, and college-paper features that were left out, the fact that the new Pages is rich in collaboration, change tracking, cross platform usage, and soon, versioning, make it already a very good general purpose enterprise word processor / document editor. And I don't think that's an accident.

So, I hope that some of the more specialized features of Pages regarding desktop publishing, authoring books and papers with citations, etc. will come eventually, but it may not be soon. However, I do believe that Apple will rapidly advance the features needed for using Pages professionally in a business setting, and will be advancing and maintaining the software for a long time to come. All of which is good news for many.

To the unfortunate users of '09 who are unlikely to have their needs met in the near future by the new Pages, I think the best options are to stick with '09 if it continues to meet your needs, or switch to specialized non-Apple software for your exact usage. But for many of us out there who wish to use Pages for business and small business, I predict that the future will of iWork will get better and better, and probably pretty quickly.

You should still be able to revert. Just close it as soon as you do. Auto save doesn't kick in unless you make changes.

Apple Customer experience is gone.

The new experience is dilssapointment and frustration.

Robo,

Please be patient and uncritical - I am genuinely trying to work through our differences so that this thread can move forward, hopefully with a list as Peter envisioned, but also to a conclusive statement of sorts.

We have both made speculations. My fear is that Pages 5 announced the end-of-life for Pages as a professional app. Your speculation is that it is not, that the missing features will be back-filled later. But don't you see this point? Pros must protect their livelihood - they cannot bank on speculations. I actually looked forward to a new version of Pages. I actually hope you are right and I am wrong. But past experiences tell me, like the 3 1/2 floppy and the DVD, Apple has made an end-of-life decision. If I remember correctly, it took Adobe almost a year to update Acrobat Pro to work with Lion. Apple unappologetically broke the compatibility and never offered a fix. For many of us this was a several hundred dollar oops. The very same thing happened to me with Sibelius music software. Apple has the right to take their software which ever direction they want, but they have the responsibility to inform us when it is going to break things. Their hubris is actually cost me hundreds of dollars. I don't like MS Word. Without Pages OSX loses its lead over Windows in this area.

I originally joined this thread to warn people that the advertised compatibility of Pages 5 was not entirely true. My initial experience were all 'bad' - this is why I called it 'bad behaviour' (malicious, 'mal' literally means 'bad'). As the thread progressed it began to apparent that this was not just 'bad behaviour,' but 'intentionally bad behaviour.' This is where we have had our differences. I think Peter has made a very good case that Apple had to have known the repercussions of its actions. You don't agree - but just because you don't agree means that that thought should be entirely shut down. But, again this is the point: Apple could very easily state its intentions, now, today, and neither one of us would have to speculate any longer. If you were right, I would very happily move forward knowing I will get a program I use daily back in confidence.

Again, here is the point: part of this argument is over 'bad behaviour.' To me, continued silence is in itself 'intentional bad behaviour.' This silence has fueled the flames of speculation, which we are both bound to do - we are both going to speculate in terms of our experiences and investments. What you might consider worth it, I, and others, might not.

mythmatic wrote:

1) We now have Apple invested in iWork with a much larger total user base. This means more people wanting updates and features with a much larger collective voice. Optimistically, this could mean more development and frequent releases for this software, and almost certainly faster bug fixes, which is a plus. It also means that going forward, if a huge group of Apple's customer base are using the iWork software, and are "locked in" to Apple's services through that, it is very unlikely that Apple will pull the plug on the software entirely, which frankly was a very real possibility with the previous iWork model.

2) Apple NEVER had successful business / enterprise products until.... surprise: the iPhone. The iPhone was a trojan horse into the enterprise because consumers bought up tons of them, and then wanted to use them for work, forcing IT to adapt and adopt. Now, iOS is the most used platform for mobile devices in the enterprise. A surprising path to success for Apple. Now, Apple continues to focus on enterprise features with every update to iOS, and to preserve their lead in that space, with the result that many enterprise IT professionals actually consider iOS to have the best enterprise features of any mobile platform

REALLY excellent points. Thanks for offering a practical and grounded positive perspective on what we're actually worried about, instead of just empty "But now it's interoperable" or "it's all be OK with faith" claims, or the appalling victim blaming.

cosmofromwatertown wrote:

I am genuinely trying to work through our differences so that this thread can move forward, hopefully with a list as Peter envisioned, but also to a conclusive statement of sorts....

This silence has fueled the flames of speculation, which we are both bound to do - we are both going to speculate in terms of our experiences and investments. What you might consider worth it, I, and others, might not.

I really hope that we can all agree on this much> The worst problem here is one of communication, and that CAN be remedied by letting us know what to expect so we can shape our work methods accordingly.

But I feel strongly, as you do, that if that communication doesn't come soon, Apple will have communicated to us to make other plans becuase they don't intend to be trustworthy enough to help run a business.