Technology iWork vs. Office Mac

[WashMe]

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Ok forgive me I'm a heathen son of a b**** for posting this here instead of the tech forum, but I actually wanted it to get some views before it gets moved to no-man's-land.

I've never used iWork but it seems to get rave reviews. Also, it opens most (all?) types of common Office 2008 files and is way cheaper than the student edition of Office Mac. I don't want neoOffice or OpenOffice; I know they are free but I've used them and don't like them.

Do any of you use iWork? If you know about iWork-- could I get by solely with iWork if I wanted full functionality and interoperability with Office files?

 

[nick_carraway]

I loathe Pages until I'm doing something artsy fartsy with special layouts that are more difficult in Word.

I love Keynote, however, and always insist on using my own laptop for presentations because I hate how clunky Powerpoint is.

I hate Numbers because I don't understand how to use it.

Overall, I prefer Office for day-to-day minutiae because I'm used to it. I guess I really only use iWork when I need something aesthetically wonderful. I'm sure that you can get used to iWork if that was your only option. Be prepared for compatibility issues between Keynote 09 and Powerpoint if you trade presentations with other people. That's really my only caveat.

Go ahead and download a free trial of iWork 09 from Apple and see how you like it.

 

[witness23]

what email client does iWork use?

to me, Outlooks pretty much makes Office

 

[WashMe]

I loathe Pages until I'm doing something artsy fartsy with special layouts that are more difficult in Word.

I love Keynote, however, and always insist on using my own laptop for presentations because I hate how clunky Powerpoint is.

I hate Numbers because I don't understand how to use it.

Overall, I prefer Office for day-to-day minutiae because I'm used to it. I guess I really only use iWork when I need something aesthetically wonderful. I'm sure that you can get used to iWork if that was your only option. Be prepared for compatibility issues between Keynote 09 and Powerpoint if you trade presentations with other people. That's really my only caveat.

Go ahead and download a free trial of iWork 09 from Apple and see how you like it.

Thanks for the advice. Quick question: what compatibility problems should I expect b/w Keynote 09 and PPT? You know more than I do b/c you have used the stuff, but (according to apple's website) isn't keynote able to open .ppt and pptx, and also save keynote presentations with .ppt/.pptx file extensions?

Also, doesn't pages open certain kinds of docs that word can't open?

 

[WashMe]

what email client does iWork use?

to me, Outlooks pretty much makes Office

not sure. I use MS entourage currently as part of the old office mac suite. It is certainly nothing special...

 

[nick_carraway]

what email client does iWork use?

to me, Outlooks pretty much makes Office

I enjoyed Outlook for the PC and found Entourage to be okay.

Nowadays I just use iCal and Mail.app to organize my life. No problems so far.

As for the incompatibility between PPT and Keynote, you can open files fine if Apple says you can (I've never tried it since .pptx /.ppt open in Office). The issue is that character spacing, text box location, fonts (between Windows and PC) and all these other little issues will make your life complicated with group projects. A few of these issues are seen between Powerpoint 2008 and Powerpoint 2007 too, so it might not be a deal breaker for you.

 

[amph119]

This is how I see it, and how I will be doing it:

What is 150 bucks for a student edition of Mac Office in the long run? It's 150k vs 150.15k in debt, who cares? Might as well get Mac Office so you will be more compatible with everyone else than risk running into issues down the road with iWork.

 

[wellhereigo]

Office ALL THE WAY. I actually bought both iWork and Office for Mac after reading about and looking at pictures of iWork. I made a presentation using Keynote but my laptop wasn't jiving with the projector the day I had to present so I had to copy my presentation over to another person's laptop who only had Office. I converted it to a powerpoint file and EVERYTHING went awry and I ended up doing my presentation the next day (but the slides on Keynote did look good though and they have some other pretty neat funky stuff- still, I have completely abandoned it).

Just stick with the norm and stay with Office so you're 100% compatible with everyone else

 

[WashMe]

This is how I see it, and how I will be doing it:

What is 150 bucks for a student edition of Mac Office in the long run? It's 150k vs 150.15k in debt, who cares? Might as well get Mac Office so you will be more compatible with everyone else than risk running into issues down the road with iWork.

I've already used this logic to justify the laptop I'll be buying... Unless there are system updates in the next 2-3 months, I'm looking at:

15" Macbook Pro
2.93 Ghz & 512 Mb 9600M GT
4 Gb RAM
320 Gb 7200rpm HD

Yeah boooooiiiiiii.That bad boy should be powerful for several years, and when it slows down I'll just pop 8 Gigs of RAM in it (yep, you can in fact do that with the 2.93Ghz 15", it has the same chipset as the 17") and keep it for a few more years.

Thanks for the input, everyone🙂 I'll probably just go with Office b/c I'm familiar with it and most other people will have it, even if is is an extra $75 bucks (small in the long run...)

 

[witness23]

I've already used this logic to justify the laptop I'll be buying... Unless there are system updates in the next 2-3 months, I'm looking at:

15" Macbook Pro
2.93 Ghz & 512 Mb 9600M GT
4 Gb RAM
320 Gb 7200rpm HD

Yeah boooooiiiiiii.That bad boy should be powerful for several years, and when it slows down I'll just pop 8 Gigs of RAM in it (yep, you can in fact do that with the 2.93Ghz 15", it has the same chipset as the 17") and keep it for a few more years.

Thanks for the input, everyone🙂 I'll probably just go with Office b/c I'm familiar with it and most other people will have it, even if is is an extra $75 bucks (small in the long run...)

yo how much that come out to?

i'm thinking of going with the Air so i could hide it in really tight spaces

 

[WashMe]

yo how much that come out to?

i'm thinking of going with the Air so i could hide it in really tight spaces

hide it? lol

w/ the student discount, doing all upgrades through apple, the setup I mentioned costs $2614 (not including my local tax; $163.38...). Shipping is free, so it adds up to $2777.38. There may be an iPod promotion this summer (I would keep the iPod) and I'm going to get the $100 printer for free (w/ the rebate) to sell on eBay/Craigslist for $75 or something.

I considered the Air because it has a nice screen and is light/thin, however I think it is slow (limited, underclocked processors, 2 Gb RAM limit, integrated graphics). It could not be further upgraded and might be obsolete in a few years. If you also have a nice desktop, the air would probably be bomb. I, however, will have to use my laptop as my sole computer. It would be fast for a long time (4-5 years) and I could upgrade to 8 Gb of RAM at that time because it will be much cheaper. I think the laptop I mentioned will get me through 4 years of medical school and 5 years of residency without ever being sluggish.

 

[nick_carraway]

I just want to vent here because I just spent a whole day annoyed as hell with my Mac.

So I have the Unibody 13'' and bought a Mini Displayport to DVI adapter when I moved to SF for my post-bacc since it's my only computer and I needed the extra screen space. It cost me $29, but I use it every day.

Well, this semester I have 3 presentations all using my Mac so I thought I'd grab one of those DVI to VGA adapters that come with every monitor/video card you buy these days. Ends up I tossed all of mine before I moved out so I had my GF send me one of hers. It arrived today, but it has more pins on the DVI side than the Apple adapter has holes. I yanked off those extra pins in desperation, but--you guessed it--didn't work. BS, I cried! So I went to the store to see if they had any that fit the Apple adapter. Nope. Doesn't exist.

Ends up I had to spend another $29 to get a Mini Displayport to VGA adapter today for these 3 presentations. If Apple changes the ports again--as they're fond of doing every generation--I'm going to stab myself. I already have old DVI and a VGA adapters for my old Blackbook and Powerbook that're just sitting in my drawer.

Thanks, Jon Ives. I appreciate it. +1 for PC industrial design.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Ok forgive me I'm a heathen son of a b**** for posting this here instead of the tech forum

*sigh*

Moving to Technology.

 

[WashMe]

*sigh*

Moving to Technology.

lol sorry Spurs

thanks for letting it run its course 🙂

 

[wellhereigo]

Unless there are system updates in the next 2-3 months

There's rumors that the new OS "snow leopard" is going to be released June 8. There's also rumor of some October update although this is really up in the air about what exactly Apple will present. Sucks that your system might be outdated in a matter of a few months but that's the way things just are in the computer world. I think you should wait for June if you don't need it right away

Good choice with the MBP. Don't even consider the Air please

 

[TMP-SMX]

See if your school has a cheap version of Office 08. That's how I got my copy. If they don't have it, buy it from Amazon for $109.

As for the MBP, I hope you use that GPU because otherwise you are wasting your money. 8GB? Why? 4GB is one thing ($60 or so at the moment) but it's going to be a long time before 8GB of DDR3 is a reasonable price ($670 at the moment at OWC). If you are really going to upgrade the 5k320 HDD to a 7k320 at least buy from a third party and put the old drive in an external enclosure and use it for backups. If you need a place to find a 7k320 try the WD drive from Newegg for $79.99. By the time you buy, the price will probably go down. As for the enclosure, it's up to you. OWC makes good mobile 2.5" enclosures and also 3.5" enclosures. The benefit of the 2.5" is that it doesn't require power. However, you are obviously limited to 500GB but if you only have one computer that should be sufficient. At 3.5" you can fit up to 2TB but at a greater expense. I'd recommend OWC either way and their empty Mercury On-The-Go enclosures range from $28 for USB only to $88 for USB/F400/F800 and are about as reliable as they come. Make sure when you do your Apple/Newegg purchases on ebates as there is 1% cash back at Apple and 2% at Newegg.

Thinking it will last you 9 years is kind of funny. What's wrong with buying a good 2.4GHz MB right now and then buying a brand new one in 4 years? The price of both of those will be less than the single MBP today. Any notebook sold in four years will be far beyond the MBP would be. Think about the Powerbook G4 from 2005 compared to today's offerings. The GPU isn't going to help you when it doesn't have enough CPU for most things out there.

As for the display ports. The Mini port is here to stay from now on.

 

[WashMe]

See if your school has a cheap version of Office 08. That's how I got my copy. If they don't have it, buy it from Amazon for $109.

As for the MBP, I hope you use that GPU because otherwise you are wasting your money. 8GB? Why? 4GB is one thing ($60 or so at the moment) but it's going to be a long time before 8GB of DDR3 is a reasonable price ($670 at the moment at OWC). If you are really going to upgrade the 5k320 HDD to a 7k320 at least buy from a third party and put the old drive in an external enclosure and use it for backups. If you need a place to find a 7k320 try the WD drive from Newegg for $79.99. By the time you buy, the price will probably go down. As for the enclosure, it's up to you. OWC makes good mobile 2.5" enclosures and also 3.5" enclosures. The benefit of the 2.5" is that it doesn't require power. However, you are obviously limited to 500GB but if you only have one computer that should be sufficient. At 3.5" you can fit up to 2TB but at a greater expense. I'd recommend OWC either way and their empty Mercury On-The-Go enclosures range from $28 for USB only to $88 for USB/F400/F800 and are about as reliable as they come. Make sure when you do your Apple/Newegg purchases on ebates as there is 1% cash back at Apple and 2% at Newegg.

Thinking it will last you 9 years is kind of funny. What's wrong with buying a good 2.4GHz MB right now and then buying a brand new one in 4 years? The price of both of those will be less than the single MBP today. Any notebook sold in four years will be far beyond the MBP would be. Think about the Powerbook G4 from 2005 compared to today's offerings. The GPU isn't going to help you when it doesn't have enough CPU for most things out there.

As for the display ports. The Mini port is here to stay from now on.

As for the pro, I play video games and stuff (I know, I know; not in med school though, right? 🙁)... also I currently use a 3.5yo 12" iBook and I can't f***ing stand this slow-azzz computer anymore. I'm not talking about getting 8gb RAM now; I'm saying I could get it in maybe 5 yrs when it is cheaper. I guess the 5k HD would get the job done about as well as the 7k, given the large amount of RAM and the tasks I'll be doing... but I like the idea of swapping the HD's and putting the 5k in an external enclosure. I don't want to do anything that would void my warranty in the next few years though. Am I allowed to swap drives?

P.S. Good luck with Step I next month!!! 🙂

 

[TMP-SMX]

Yeah you can swap drives in the enclosure and computer. The latest models are very easy to swap drives with. That's what it is there for. 🙂 As for 7200 vs. 5400 RPM, obviously 7200 RPM is faster. SSDs are coming into their own now and are even faster on the high end models. Unfortunately the cost is still pretty prohibitive.

See how 4GB works for you and upgrade in 3 years if it isn't enough for you. I'm doubting the machine would last more than 5 years and still be usable for much. Technology grows fast. Plus I'm guessing by the time five years rolls around the cost of the chips may creep up from their bottom price as the supply is less and fewer notebooks will still be using the chips. Buy it when it is cheap.

It's good that you play games. Do it while you can. I'm able to avoid doing work on occasion but not that often. Only time are breaks other than that.

 

[Slevin]

Getting back to the original question... I prefer Pages and keynote to word and powerpoint. It's the simplicity and the feeling of being less bloated. MS products try to cram everything in there and as a result a lotta of times it doesn't work well.

I've never had a problem with keynote or pages opening documents in class or sharing them with other students.

If I was the OP I would use the 30 day trial to see if I like iWork and then go from there.


Oh the other thing is that on the UniBody macbook it's not so easy to put the ram in yourself as it was on previous models. Still can be done but will take about 10-15 min compared to the previous of 2-3 min. The price of RAM from apple is about the same as the rest of the market and if I would have known that I would have bought my ram from apple to put in my macbook.

Finally if you are trying to decide on either a macbook or a macbook pro I'd go with the macbook this way is small and portable and you can use the money you would have spent on an external display either the apple one or getting an adapter a different brand. It's the way I have mine set up and it is AWESOME!

 

[TMP-SMX]

It is true that it takes slightly longer to upgrade the RAM, but not much. Either way you have to remove screws. Apple is charging $90 for the upgrade in the education store (plus tax). If you do this, you just end up with the 2X2GB chips you buy. OWC sells a 2X2GB kit for $60.95 with delivery and no tax plus you still have the original 2X1GB chips to do what you want with them. You can keep them around or get a $12 rebate from them.