Pages 5 features checklist

Dalavia wrote:

The question that keeps nagging in my mind is this - given the stated goal of merging the file formats of Pages in iOS7 and OSX, why couldn't the file format already used for OSX be adapted for iOS rather than vice versa, as seems to be happening?

The Macworld article (by Ted Landau) on the OSX/iOS Pages file structure changes that I quoted above is indeed a fine article, presenting chronological sequence of facts as the author uncovered them. "Just the facts, M'am."

Even so, in one instance, the Author reports: "Although Apple hasn’t offered an official rationale for this shift, the speculation is that the smaller binary .iwa segments allow for faster loading in iCloud and on iOS devices." That indeed does make sense, but again: no word from Apple (not that we expect any such low-level programming announcements), not even to a Macroworld veteran writer.

So, was the particular file structure change sequence inevitable? Was there no way around to achieve the opposite, to make the Pages '09 file structure losslessly legible to the iOS Pages?

Without a full programming background and details on the iOS file system, we will never know. We may hazard a guess (as Ted Landau did) that iOS (with the current CPU line) could not handle the OSX file structure with reasonable speed.

Note also that the file structure changes are also forced by the overall drive towards fast and efficient iCloud sync'ing. As advertised in the past, this is acheved by sending and receiving not the whole file but by extracting "deltas" = fragments that describe the change from one version of the file to the next. The file structure is then adapted to permit the extraction of such "deltas" more efficiently, and how this is to be done does depend on the OS architecture, which is optimized for the hardware to which it is intended. And, in this paticular case, it is an obvious fact that iOS devices (hardware+OS+apps) are less capable than their OSX counterparts, but that Apple forced the file struture to be optimized for the lesser-capable of its two systems on the other, so they sync efficiently.

Could Apple not have found a way to include "non-iOS" features into the file structure, which the iOS Pages would ignore and the OSX Pages use? I'll hazard another quess: yes, it could have. But, Apple deemed it (semi-consciously, unwittingly) cost-prohibitive; it would have taken more programmer-hours than the project exec determined was cost-effective. [Top exec: "Cross-device sync'ing is soo cool! Make it so." Project exec: "Yes, Sir." (thinking: "Do I dare ask for more programmer-hours, or do I drop the stuff I can't get done in the expected time? What to do, what to do...") The "we'll fix it later, in an update" meme runs strong whenever corporate yokes development.]

I think the rose colored glasses aren't necessary when you consider this is significantly more disclosure than Apple typically allows. Significant meaning greater than zero. I suppose you could put on many different colored lenses, including a deep gray.

The fact remains, Apple could go either way on this.

Tristan,

My deepest apologies. I don't normally flame people on blog and posting boards. I have misunderstood your earlier comments. It seems that there are a lot of Apple enablers posting comments recently. Anyone who disagrees with Apple is considered second class on the Apple Posting Boards. The whole thing is frustrating since I’m rebuilding documents that have been destroyed by an “upgrade”.

It seems to me that the professional business community and small business users of Pages were left in the cold. Rather than having a functional, integrated word processor - Apple has decided to have a dumbed down text editor that is limited even by cell phone and tablet standards.

I have deleted Pages 5 and we’re trying to restore our documents this week. Until Pages is truly upgraded to include the primary functions of a word processor, I’ll just not upgrade my OS or my desktop systems.

At least that will buy me time to decide if I have to bite the bullet and return to WORD. WORD is frustrating, less intuitive, and impossible to work with at times. But at least it’s predictable.

Again, sorry for the flame. I was speaking from frustration.

My guess is more time constraints than cost, corresponding with the release of iOS 7 and Mavericks. Certainly this was ordered from above, and they shipped what they had finished.

Tristan Hubsch wrote:

Could Apple not have found a way to include "non-iOS" features into the file structure, which the iOS Pages would ignore and the OSX Pages use? I'll hazard another quess: yes, it could have. But, Apple deemed it (semi-consciously, unwittingly) cost-prohibitive; it would have taken more programmer-hours than the project exec determined was cost-effective. [Top exec: "Cross-device sync'ing is soo cool! Make it so." Project exec: "Yes, Sir." (thinking: "Do I dare ask for more programmer-hours, or do I drop the stuff I can't get done in the expected time? What to do, what to do...") The "we'll fix it later, in an update" meme runs strong whenever corporate yokes development.]

We're all behaving according to the 4 stages of acceptance, as plainly explained by Peanuts

At the risk of getting flamed yet again, and perhaps sounding conspiratorial, I think we are all missing the 'big' picture.

I believe the print media is facing a paradigm shift analagous to when HDTV came out, to when DVDs entered the market, BETA Max vs. VHS, etc. I believe there are just too many ePub formats currently for the industry to go forward. Every company, Apple, Amazon, B&N, all have their own standards making publishing and transitioning from one company to the next cumbersome and costly. To this end, somewhere, semi-secretly, whatever, all these companies have gotten together and decided to work towards a standardized format, a new protocol for print media.

Unfortunately, many of the professional print media features we've come to know and use make little sense in a standardized ePub format. For example, the books I write are academic. While I think they are important, they don't get great sales (as does most most academic style books). I would love to transition to an ePub format for greater exposure, yet I've tried several different programs, none work - they all lose 'features.' Again, for example, footnotes make little sense on an ePub document. Often I include a fact that needs heavy referencing, sometimes far more extensive than the item being referenced - in brief, the footnote may take most of the page. This makes little sense in an ePub document. ePub is literally a web page in disguise - the page is continuous - there is no 'foot of the page.' Hence, footnotes get converted to endnotes, which most readers find cumbersome and don't read. Endnotes are simply less integral to the document. Yes, there would be simple ways of solving this, a half-page arising from the bottom if a footnote is clicked, disappearing once read, yet nobody does this. You can float a balloon over a footnote number, but this is hardly adequate for an academic text. I think you will find many of the lost features of Pages 5 are features that make little sense, or are hard to implement under a new standardized ePub protocol. And it is this standardized format, by virtue of its 'share-ability' that will dictate the future of all professional correspondence.

For whatever reason, I believe the industry in general has decided on a new electronic print media protocol/direction. Apple is merely the first to implement and move in that direction. As this is the new future, all the 'professional' features we've come to know are now considered Sony BETA max. If anyone remembers, BETA max was the superior format, but it became abandoned once an industry standard was declared. You can find examples of this throughout history, good ideas, viable products abandoned because they were perceived to be holding back a decided direction (think Tesla). Whoever, whenever, the new protocol has been set. Apple's feature content in Pages 5 reflects the feature content in other ePub publishing programs that are out there. In order to remain compatible, all of business and professional writing has been deemed obsolete and must now conform to the new standard placed upon us - they have written our future. The future is ePub and we are all being sentenced to that future. Those who do not adapt will be considered neanderthals.

Flame me if you like Robo, the features aren't coming back - only the ones they can fit underneath the new protocol without breaking it. As we found initially, there will be ways of mimicking layouts of the past using the new feature set, but they will be cumbersome, non-intuitive, and limited. They are predicting the end of the printed media, their prophecy will be self-fulfilling - whatever doesn't fit underneath the ePub unified umbrella will be made obsolete... that is unless professionals make a stink and send out a clear warning that we will drop them like a lead balloon. We are being plunged into this brave new world with Apple's hope that they will be leaders in the field. They are not about to let our whinings hold them back.

Flame away........

Cosmo, I think due to the rhetoric of the mighty Austrailian "we", you may have me pegged all wrong. I never was flaming any rational argument or mature discussion. I think you've got probably the first viable explanation for why the features might not return. That's IF they don't. I think most of them will return, because we're not quite there yet - the ePub age is riddled with controversy beyond Apple, and it's not an industry under Apple's control, yet. Personally, I'm sticking to believeing the thing was rushed out the door unfinished, and they're still figuring out exactly how to get there. ePub still needs a lot of the features that were removed.

But you might be right. This is the first explanation that would make sense. It's much more logical than "Apple hates its users and wants to destroy thier data."

I'm not into flaming. I said before it's not my thing. But I respond to it with great force, and I refuse to let up, especially with the rude and caustic kind. That's been my thing all along. The great "we" is your man if you want to see some flame.

I wouldn't know since I've never been in Apple's offices. I wonder why you would think that. Oh yeah, you know everything. I forgot.

I honestly wonder why you're still here, hanging around, bashing Apple, when it's obvious you've given up and are going to switch away from Apple. You're through with their products, so you say, and yet you're here just to complain about them. That sounds suspiciously like the very definition of trolling.

You may lead the angry mob, Peter, but you can't dictate my usefulness here. Simply calling out your misdirection is justification enough for my continued presence.

One has to wonder why you're still here though. You seem well "over it". Your guise of helping and list making isn't really masking your trolling.

Excerpt from a Macworld article (Can't trust this: Inconsistencies shake faith in Apple):

Lex Friedman wrote:

Apple has demonstrated, repeatedly, that it has no qualms about revamping its marquee apps—and that said revamping can include pulling beloved features. It happened with iMovie, with Final Cut Pro, and more recently with the iWork suite. Pulling features is Apple’s right as the company that makes the software. But if Apple yanks out a feature you rely on—even something as simple as a Keynote transition whose absence makes your presentation suffer—that can leave you with a Blu-ray-esque bag of hurt.

Say what you will about Microsoft (suggestions include “Haha, Zune,” “They got the Ballmer they deserved,” and “Haha, Zune” again), but that’s a company that doesn’t pull features from its flagship apps. Microsoft Word’s toolbars may eventually take up two-thirds of your screen, but you can bet your sweet bippy that the arcane feature you relied on in Word 2010 will stick around in Word 2013.

Microsoft doesn’t cull features; Apple does. Apple’s approach makes it hard for me to trust my most important data to its apps—I fear the backward incompatibilities of tomorrow.

Good stuff in that article. Very well written and balanced. Also the comments are full of good stuff.

Peter,

I agree this dumping of features is starting to be a real pain. Even the newest version of Garageband lost Export to MP3. Yes, I know you can send it to iTunes and with now multiple steps export from there, but now the simple workflow is turned complex because if I don't want the file in iTunes, I now get to delete it to.

I still love my apple computers, but for a stable workflow I am learning that Apple may not be the best software developer. So, I have switched to Word2011 - very functionally able, definitely not as intuitive as Pages 4.3, but has mail merge, linked text boxes, etc.

Also, thanks for being so helpful in these forums.

j kfrommorgantown wrote:

[...] It seems that there are a lot of Apple enablers posting comments recently. Anyone who disagrees with Apple is considered second class on the Apple Posting Boards. The whole thing is frustrating since I’m rebuilding documents that have been destroyed by an “upgrade”.

It seems to me that the professional business community and small business users of Pages were left in the cold. Rather than having a functional, integrated word processor - Apple has decided to have a dumbed down text editor that is limited even by cell phone and tablet standards. [...]

You are perfectly right about this; I was enraged too, as were quite a few of the posters on this monster-thread. I understand your pain and anger (and the misunderstanding 🙂)—and especially the "insult to injury" feeling when someone tells you that you are "overreacting." I hope you recover all your data! Live and learn, live and learn.