| First thoughts on iWork: Keynote and Pages | | Date Created: 12 Jan, 2005, 03:45 PM |
 As predicted in this blog back in October, Keynote 2.0 came to fruition at today's MWSF Keynote.
What wasn't predicted but rumoured by others was combining Keynote with a word processing/page layout program called Pages. Steve Jobs made it very clear that these two applications were bundled as iWork, and the same development team had worked on both.
This is the Apple Trojan horse to usurping Microsoft Office in the hearts and minds of creative types who wish to use words, graphics and animations to get their ideas out there for others to comprehend. To influence, sell, buy or enjoy.
What's missing is an Excel-type application, but perhaps Apple is happy to cede this territory to Microsoft, given the 100% compatibility between versions for Windows and Mac. Eschewing the purchase of Office still means forking out US$299 for Excel separately, but those who see Excel as a must have for the business will concede this to be the toll to pay Microsoft to work in this domain.
Pairing Keynote with Pages will bring some very interesting consequences. Watch how schools and educational institutions lap up this offering, and I expect to see Apple run excellent bundling costs when selling Mini Macs, eMacs (boy, was that almost overlooked today) and iMacs to student-based establishments.
Combine that with how even grade school students are using movie editing software for their projects, and you have a set of applications whose ease of use will be very hard to best.
I do have one fear though with bringing Keynote front and centre by combining it with a word processing application. I am so hoping users value its simple power.
By that I mean, acknowledge that it is capable of performing presentations which would have stretched a professional's capacities five years ago, and doing so with legendary simplicity and ease of use.
We know what has happened with the use of Powerpoint in schools and industry. I am hoping (perhaps against hope) that Keynote's simple power will let users' ideas shine through, rather than Keynote's capacity to generate ooh's and aaah's through its visual abilities, such as transitions, text, and new special features I had hoped would make their appearance in version 2.
I am also hoping that the Keynote user community, who has been long suffering while watching Powerpoint play catch up in the absence of an upgrade, will evaluate Keynote 2.0 carefully and provide much feedback to the development team.
I can't see Apple letting it languish as before, especially now that it has been paired with Pages, which is at the beginning of its development cycle.
I'll evaluate iWork when I get my hands on it, and can do some presentations, perhaps the first to my local Mac user group, and offer a blog entry.
For now, it's great to see Keynote is once more on the radar for Apple, and it was a joy to hear the Keynote audience today give its upgrade announcement a roar of approval. |
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