Q: Pages 5 features checklist
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Nov 3, 2013 4:51 PMby Peggy,Hirschkorn wrote:
"As long as I can" means that, even after Apple abandons version 4.3, I'll install Mountain Lion (or Mavericks) in a virtual machine like VMware or Parallels and I'll still be able to use the old - but useful - version.
Or as I have done for AppleWorks, I've kept another Mac running Snow Leopard that I can access via screen sharing for those times I need to use it. I also have an older PPC iMac running Tiger for running Classic apps.
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Nov 3, 2013 8:39 PMby enteecee,jSimon0202 wrote:
Am I foolish for hoping for a "New Coke/Coke Classic" ending?
There are obviously a few of us unhappy with the change. Is that number large enough to make Apple even flinch and reconsider...
Any chance they will break off Pages 4.3 under a new name as mac based software for the specialist not the ios masses?
Do we think there is a chance Apple will make a statement about future direction for those of us who need a robust, Mac based, word processor and DTP?
They're NOT going to go back to the Pages 4.3 files- they've done this in order to build a new file type that gets them the benefits they want (cross-platform).
The best we can hope for is speedy implememntation of in the new version of the features we need.
The best way to get that is to leave plenty of feedback here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html
I even left feedback pleadingfor SOME indication of their future plans.
Good luck- we're alltryign to figure out next steps.
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Nov 3, 2013 9:40 PMby crumvoc,I have sent the following message to the Apple Feedback site:
I am a small business owner that uses about a half-dozen Macs in my business for wordprocessing primarily. These machines are of various vintages. Some cannot use Mavericks and therefore cannot use Pages 5. Since it is impossible to have a mixed system that uses both Pages 4 and Pages 5 because there is no interoperability, over the last two days, I have had to convert roughly 500 of my 5000 Pages 4.3 documents to a Microsoft Word format and I have now switched, at least for the time being, to Nisus Writer Pro, which involved more expense. I have exclusively used Pages for my business since 2006. I have attempted to use pages 5 and it is completely inadequate for my purposes. I am very disappointed with the situation. Apple needs to tell it's commercial users what to expect now and in the future regarding pages.
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Nov 4, 2013 12:42 PMby oliverj,Perhaps Pages 4.0's strongest feature was style management and losing the Styles drawer is mildly depressing. I didn't want to go back to Word, but I can't seem to figure out a workflow that allows me to do proper Style assignment for documents longer than a few pages.
Overall, it looks like they are planning on making Pages more like TextEdit (lightweight app for your grandparents), rather than a professional tool that I was hoping it would be. Economically, I get it, but what a shame.
Here's crossing my fingers (naively) for a Pages Pro version...
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Nov 4, 2013 2:47 PMby crumvoc,On the app store, you can hit the flippy triangle and discover what the rating is for all versions of Pages. As of yesterday, by subtracting out the current version ratings, I found the following ratings for the previous versions:
1 - 2 stars 15%
3 stars 9%
4 - 5 stars 75%
CURRENT Ratings for Pages 5:
1-2 stars 69.3%
3 stars 6.4%
4-5 stars 24.16%
Apple improved Pages by introducing 5.0 such that the ratings for the product have essentially completely reversed. Before it was rated as a very good product. Now it is rated as a very bad product. Nice going Apple! Thats makin' progress and keepin' the customers happy!
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Nov 4, 2013 6:36 PMby israfelli,It's very important to add your review to the app store if you haven't yet. Apple might listen to us if the rating average continues to slide down. Pages 5 currently rates two stars. The average for all versions is now 3 stars, a slip from 3.5.
Please rate Pages, it might be the only way we have a shot at getting the features back that we need.
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Nov 4, 2013 6:58 PMby enteecee,At this point, I have to wonder whether Apple kept the names of the iWorks apps, rather than introducing them as the new products that they are, in part so that the largely positive ratings for old versions would prop up ratings that they knew wouldn't be so strong.
I'm also kind of shocked that they're getting 24% positive ratings.
And has anybody else notived tha tthe top reviews ranked as "most helpful" haven't changed in days... and are more positive than the consensus- even though they have very little content?
"Thanks for the Arabic support!" is not what I would guess would be rated the MOST helpful review for days on end.
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Nov 4, 2013 7:21 PMby PeterBreis0807,enteecee
Apple has deliberately planned on acquiring a flood of new users, who have never had the iWork apps ever so can't compare. They will be just grateful for the free App. Like "toothpick" food in supermarkets, it may be unpalatable rubbish, and may not even get consumed, but people won't criticise the "gift".
This has been the way they have kept on top since OSX was introduced. There are an enormous number of people who have never known better or even thought about it. They are reinforced by those who should know better but just bend under the yoke of "This best of all possible worlds".
I also suspect they are also "Managing Consent" from behind the curtains. It would be hard not to, when nobody is really watching.
The compliant Apple press is so firmly embedded in the Apple ecosphere they can be relied on to self-censor and bend the story without direction from above. Hence the totally unsubstantiated and patently untrue statements of "many" and "most" Pages users welcoming the new App.
Peter
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Nov 4, 2013 7:33 PMby Magnus Lewan,PeterBreis0807 wrote:
enteecee
Apple has deliberately planned on acquiring a flood of new users, who have never had the iWork apps ever so can't compare. They will be just grateful for the free App. Like "toothpick" food in supermarkets, it may be unpalatable rubbish, and may not even get consumed, but people won't criticise the "gift".
This has been the way they have kept on top since OSX was introduced. There are an enormous number of people who have never known better or even thought about it. They are reinforced by those who should know better but just bend under the yoke of "This best of all possible worlds".
I also suspect they are also "Managing Consent" from behind the curtains. It would be hard not to, when nobody is really watching.
The compliant Apple press is so firmly embedded in the Apple ecosphere they can be relied on to self-censor and bend the story without direction from above. Hence the totally unsubstantiated and patently untrue statements of "many" and "most" Pages users welcoming the new App.
To be fair, Peter, the reaction would have been similar if they had gone the other way. I can imagine if Apple had gone from 5.0 to 4.3, with millions of Japanese, Arabic and Hebrew users. Something like:
"How can they remove phonetic guides? They just made it impossible to use the product for everyone in Japan! And they add Mail merge! Who on earth uses such a thing!? Linked text boxes? Why waste resources on that? This is a word processor - not a toy layout program. Let's all go to the Apple Store and vote down the new version as completely unusable."
Leaving the existing users behind is always bad, no matter what it is that is removed.
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Nov 4, 2013 8:22 PMby PeterBreis0807,Of course Magnus,
But there would have been so many more enhancements the story would have been far more positive.
The list of new features in Pages is few, some of them like Object Styles and Right to Left text actually very good, but that hardly compares with the huge list of Pages '09 features removed.
If it had gone the other way from Pages 5 to Pages '09 people would have complained about the odd feature but not the overall direction as is happening now. Pages 5 documents would have been fairly easily openable in Pages '09 with little change.
All of what "may have been" is irrelevant to the hugely disastrous consequences of dead-ending the accumulated work of Apple's customers in Pages '09's file format. I can think of several ways Apple could have converted older documents to the new Pages 5 format and caused considerably less pain.
Apple has however shown its colors. Its repeated claim of focusing on the customer is demonstrable hogwash. It is patently plain they don't even think about them. Unless users suddenly decide to leave Apple in droves, you are just like the animals in the field. Kept to be occassionally shorn or slaughtered when Apple decides.
Apple's "Exceptionalism" is the ego extension of American > Californian > Northern Californian exceptionalism.
Since Steve Jobs came back, his secrecy has left the Apple head office isolated in a remote ivory tower with virtually no contact with their customers and no interest in communicating with their customers needs. Even if Apple permitted such a thing.
That they don't even use their own products, as confirmed in another post, just makes the isolated ignorance only the more poignant.
Peter
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Nov 5, 2013 2:51 AMby pinkuff,Very interesting - crossposting to Facebook
crumvoc wrote:
On the app store, you can hit the flippy triangle and discover what the rating is for all versions of Pages. As of yesterday, by subtracting out the current version ratings, I found the following ratings for the previous versions:
1 - 2 stars 15%
3 stars 9%
4 - 5 stars 75%
CURRENT Ratings for Pages 5:
1-2 stars 69.3%
3 stars 6.4%
4-5 stars 24.16%
Apple improved Pages by introducing 5.0 such that the ratings for the product have essentially completely reversed. Before it was rated as a very good product. Now it is rated as a very bad product. Nice going Apple! Thats makin' progress and keepin' the customers happy!
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=171435656389475&id=16928333327 1374
