Review: The productivity suite formerly known as iWork

Updates move Keynote, Pages, and Numbers from a state of limbo to a state of flux.

Read the whole story

 

[dmsilev]

With a 70,000 line CSV file, the old Numbers says that it loads 65,533 lines and does so in 74 seconds. The new Numbers loads the file in 107 seconds but only the first 65,535 lines without saying so.

Yikes. That's a hell of a "feature".

Keynote is a wonderful program; I vastly prefer it even compared to the newest version of (Mac) Powerpoint. Pages and Numbers I haven't found much use for. Word gets the job done, especially when working on collaborative pieces, and my data analysis needs call for specialized tools rather than general-purpose spreadsheets.

 

[Ledgem]

Thanks for the review. I’ve been meaning to spend some time learning the new applications, but haven’t gotten to it. This review was a nice way to learn some of the new behaviors and features (or lack thereof).

I also wanted to comment on your mention of Keynote Remote. It isn’t just for using iOS devices to control a Mac running Keynote. You can control one iOS device from another, too. For example, I present off of my iPad mini and use the iPhone as a remote to control the slides and occasionally glance at my presenter notes. I’ve been in a few presentation setups where it would have been difficult and/or uncomfortable to control from the iPad and to see the iPad’s screen; Keynote Remote allowed me to step away from the iPad and give the presentation. (As a bonus, this type of presentation setup is new enough that people think you’re oh-so-cool.)

For those wondering about the technical limitations, Keynote Remote allows you to create a list of multiple paired devices. When you select the device to connect to, the connection is attempted over the wifi network. If that connection can’t be established (as is the case with most corporate networks), the connection is made over Bluetooth.

In practice, Keynote Remote has two viewing modes: one with the active slide and presenter notes, and the other with the active slide and the upcoming slide. You can’t easily switch between the two, and as far as I can tell, you can’t switch between the two during a presentation. Comments from other users indicate that Keynote Remote is not optimized for the iPhone 5 screen size, but the rumors are that the application will be receiving a major update soon.

Whether you’re presenting off of a Mac or another iOS device, it’s a useful little tool to have. It was worth the cost at $1, but now Apple is offering it for free. I can highly recommend it.

 

[Theala Sildorian]

Hmm. I've never found iWork to be the superior product to Office. It was too clunky and hard to get Pages to do what I needed it to do as a word processor. Ditto for Keynote.

Not to say I'm in love with Office. I'd rather use WordPerfect than Word, but it's no longer available for the Mac (hasn't been for years). Power Point does do some thing inelegantly, but when I have to present on a Windows machine I don't have the problems I do with a Keynote presentation.

What Power Point lacks is an easy way to turn slideshows into podcasts. That is one thing Keynote does VERY well. My nursing lectures are podcasts (I use the flip the classroom model of teaching). I make them in Power Point, convert to Keynote (I do have some issues with colors when I do that, which ticks me off), then record my lecture and save to an iPod compatible format. PP won't let me do that, so I have to take the extra step. I can even edit out any "uhms" or stammers in iMovie.

I'll probably try the upgrade to Keynote for that reason, but I'll pass on Numbers and Pages.

 

[pkirvan]

Thanks for the thorough and excellent review! The one part that I would take exception to is the comparison to Maps. I doubt Apple executives, other than perhaps Scott Forestall, truly though Maps was OK. I think they did it anyways because it was in the long-term strategic interests of the company (they now have turn-by-turn without having to follow Google's rules. Can you imagine if iOS STILL didn't have that? They also have much better versions of Google Maps and Nokia Maps on the platform). In that sense, the missing features from iWork are much the same. Apple knew it was going to be an issue (hence leaving the old versions installed) but did it anyways because fixing the file format compatibility problems and delivering a unified interface as well as features like iCloud editing was in Apple's strategic interest. Indeed, Apple has done this repeatedly. OS X was released without full feature parity to OS 9. Same thing with Final Pro X and QuickTime X (sadly the latter seems to have been abandoned).

Hopefully the new versions reach feature parity with the old ones quickly.

 

[malorian]

Excel is used for serious number crunching in science, ...

I seriously hope not. You can do some interesting things in excel, but if you are doing analytics or modeling its time to move on.

 

[Pablius]

I find Keynotes, even the new version, superior to PowerPoint for my particular use

It may be there are less features (at least less buttons to press for sure) but I wouldn`t trade Keynotes animations, transitions and simplicity for something like Smartart

Stiil, I was hoping for more not less, collaborative use is not in my top five wanted features list, support for 3D figures would be nice, but perhaps it is too much for a presentation app

 

[HarveyM]

The unfortunate aspect to this is the lack of iWork file convertors.
As an iWork ’09 user I’ve lost the ability to work on Pages, Numbers and Keynote on my iPad and get it back onto my Mac.

 

[atmartens]

More so than with other aspects of computing, I find that using free (libre) software is especially important when it comes to ensuring that you will have access to your files in the future. I have a lot more confidence that the open document standard and open/libre office will be around than any proprietary software. Why risk losing access to your own work?

 

[wgscott]

The new Keynote has destroyed my ability to create podcasts of my lectures. I am in the middle of teaching a Biochemistry course and the students find that if I record the slideshow and narration, it is of great help to them. In the previous version, you can simply "export" to a podcast, or, if like me, you need to compress the bajeezus out of the audio and video in order to make a reasonably-sized podcast, the ability to export to a custom quicktime presentation is essential. Both options are removed in the latest keynote (including the bug-fix that was just released). The only remaining option (unless I missed something -- please point it out if I did) is to export to a pre-determined quicktime setting. This results in a ~750MB "podcast" for an hour lecture, which is untenable.

For that reason I cannot upgrade; I am in the middle of a class.

Apple is making an effort to get us (the academic community) to make podcasts and deposit them with iTunes U. Yet at the same time they remove the features from Keynote that made it very easy and straightforward to do so. This is extremely frustrating. I hope they will consider adding back in this capability (or at least making the default quicktime output to something of reasonable size).

 

[Engelsstaub]

wgscott[/url]":195fx99y]The new Keynote has destroyed my ability to create podcasts of my lectures. I am in the middle of teaching a Biochemistry course and the students find that if I record the slideshow and narration, it is of great help to them. In the previous version, you can simply "export" to a podcast, or, if like me, you need to compress the bajeezus out of the audio and video in order to make a reasonably-sized podcast, the ability to export to a custom quicktime presentation is essential. Both options are removed in the latest keynote (including the bug-fix that was just released). The only remaining option (unless I missed something -- please point it out if I did) is to export to a pre-determined quicktime setting. This results in a ~750MB "podcast" for an hour lecture, which is untenable.

For that reason I cannot upgrade; I am in the middle of a class.

Apple is making an effort to get us (the academic community) to make podcasts and deposit them with iTunes U. Yet at the same time they remove the features from Keynote that made it very easy and straightforward to do so. This is extremely frustrating. I hope they will consider adding back in this capability (or at least making the default quicktime output to something of reasonable size).

I know it's an extra step but you really can just do this within QuickTime itself.

 

[yticolev]

I'm wondering about running a Keynote presentation directly off of a iPhone. Is it pulling content from iCloud, or does all the content reside on the iPhone? It seems risky if the former and wifi fails in the convention hall during your presentation.

 

[Xiao-zhi]

Keynote is vastly superior to PowerPoint.

Pages, once you get acclimated, is generally easier to use than Word although for some publications, Word will be preferred or required, putting Pages at an unfair advantage.

Numbers, nice as the chart formatting is, lacks too many of features and is really what holds back many Apple users such as I from seriously committing to iWork and leaving Office behind, which we would do if it was better.

The changes in the new release did come as kind of an unwelcome downgrade, but the good news is upgrading does not delete the old which still reside in Applications ==> iWork '09 and can be used to edit documents created with them and now a bit buggy in the new version, which does remove some complex formatting options particularly in Pages.

I thought I would mention that because (a) some people now tearing their hair out don't have to, and (b) it may be useful when repopulating your toolbar.

I'm actually quite interested to read through the "missing features' lists to see if I would add to them.

Lastly ...

malorian[/url]":1nn58geu]

Excel is used for serious number crunching in science, ...

I seriously hope not. You can do some interesting things in excel, but if you are doing analytics or modeling its time to move on.

Absolutely correct. However, for personal use, most people find MATLAB or Mathematica a bit expensive, or the time investment for developing code for GNU Octave or Scilab a bit daunting. So in many cases, they rely on Excel which, actually, can perform quite a few sophisticated analysis using the built-in functions and has the advantage of nearly universal availability and use, facilitating collaboration.

So I have to speak-up on behalf of Microsoft and prod Apple.

Dear Apple - You know Numbers sucks. Get serious about it, it would not take so many millions to develop into a first rate spread sheet without complicating the interface or trashing the canned templates for the great unwashed of iCloud.

Minor edit to improve clarity.

 

[Xiao-zhi]

Four years ago, we wrote that Pages "still has no idea whether it wants to be a word processor or a layout program when it grows up." The verdict is now in, and word processor it is. All the page layout templates are gone. If you open a document created with one of these in the new Pages, you may lose some formatting. In particular, the old Pages made it possible to link text boxes so that text overflows from one to the next. The new Pages can't do that, so it's much less flexible when it comes to positioning text on a page. Or at least, if you want to be flexible, you have to manually keep track of how much text can go in each text box.

Not to be obnoxious by repeating what I already stated in another comment, but some of the formatting bugs in the new Pages you refer to really would be a frustrating time-killer for some users, so I repeat that if you have these problems, the Pages '09 will NOT have been overwritten when the upgrade was installed and should still be on your Mac in the folder .... Applications ==> iWork '09 ... and you can still edit, update and publish using the old versions.

Or just use them instead of the new ones.

To the down-rate trolls : if you dislike this comment, please just let it stand, my purpose is to help people that might be inconvenienced, not to piss you off. Happy Day!

 

[salamanderjuice]

Xiao-zhi[/url]":q44buhfp]

malorian[/url]":q44buhfp]

Excel is used for serious number crunching in science, ...

I seriously hope not. You can do some interesting things in excel, but if you are doing analytics or modeling its time to move on.

Absolutely correct. However, for personal use, most people find MATLAB or Mathematica a bit expensive, or the time investment for developing code for GNU Octave or Scilab a bit daunting. So in many cases, they rely on Excel which, actually, can perform quite a few sophisticated analysis using the built-in functions and has the advantage of nearly universal availability and use, facilitating collaboration.

So I have to speak-up on behalf of Microsoft and prod Apple.

Dear Apple - You know Numbers sucks. Get serious about it, it would not take so many millions to develop into a first rate spread sheet without complicating the interface or trashing the canned templates for the great unwashed of iCloud.

Minor edit to improve clarity.

While you "can" do sophisticated analysis it's not very good at it. For instance it's matrix inversions are at least in 2010 and below completely off in some cases and radically different from what MATLAB, R, etc. produce and can change the outcomes of various statistical tests. It's probably dangerous that they have those functions in there for people who don't quite know what they are doing.

 

[Hagen]

I bought an iPhone 5C for my kids yesterday and set them up w/their own iCloud email (for separate texting), and using my AppleID for the app store so we can share apps. However, the iWork apps show the $9.99 price. Since it's a brand new phone, shouldn't those list as free? Or do I just click on them and Apple doesn't actually charge me? I'd rather not get nailed for $30 right now, so if anyone has recent experience w/that I'd appreciate it.

Worst case I'm going to the mall that has the Apple Store in it in an hour or so and I will ask them

 

[wgscott]

Engelsstaub[/url]":2ziyc3gd]
I know it's an extra step but you really can just do this within QuickTime itself.

Quicktime "Export" doesn't appear to offer any options for audio and video compression. All of the options actually greatly inflate the size of my mov file.

 

[Brutha]

I'd like to add that in addition to Mellel and Scrivener, Nisus Writer Pro is around too.

And there's still a contingent of WordPerfect users on the mac... probably exclusively in the legal community, mind, but still. It's a Sheepshaver based build that runs System 7.5.5 (or maybe System 9.0.4) in the emulator. With a lot of applescript gluing things together, like printing. Rather interesting from a tech point of view, really.

That said, I find that the old "Glory days" of the Mac word processor scene, the Writenows and the Wordperfects, even Nisus 6--all the old classic mac word processors--they do just about everything that todays word wranglers do, and frequently more. I still get a kick at one, Fullwrite Pro. It was panned on release because it used too much memory--1.5 megabytes!

Or even Appleworks: Does Pages and Numbers even do what Appleworks did? Appleworks I think would still be likely the second most powerful word processor package on the market, though Nisus's regex search capabilities and macro programming make it pretty powerful.

 

[Cerberus™]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

 

[doctor.robert13]

Jesus Apple really screwed the pooch with this one.
Tons of college students use Pages. It had good enough footnote support, was super cheap, and its layout features made it a capable enough program to make posters or projects outside proper design classes.
The new pages looks horrendous. I can't use that for even writing undergrad papers. It looks like it has the capabilities of textedit. Not good.

Keynote update doesn't look good either. Numbers should be irrelevant to most people considering excel is a million times more powerful and google docs will literally do everything Numbers does but with collaboration.

 

[Xiao-zhi]

Pablius[/url]":3eqquf6b]I find Keynotes, even the new version, superior to PowerPoint for my particular use

It may be there are less features (at least less buttons to press for sure) but I wouldn`t trade Keynotes animations, transitions and simplicity for something like Smartart

Stiil, I was hoping for more not less, collaborative use is not in my top five wanted features list, support for 3D figures would be nice, but perhaps it is too much for a presentation app

Amen. I wish I could have back all the time I lost debugging the crappy SmartArt my last boss loved and forced us to use. The day her departure was announced, I immediately switched back to my Keynote template (strangely, our company has both PPT and Keynote versions) and it was history,

Ever notice how PowerPoint turns a 200kb embedded photo into a metafile that increases file size by 2MB? Ultimately this will come back to bite Microsoft when they convert corporate users to the cloud and someone gets a bill for all the bandwidth.

 

[Xiao-zhi]

edit: repeat post comment deleted.

 

[death_to_novell]

However, Numbers' graphs are much, much better than Excel's

As long as you don't want to do something as mundane as make a scatter plot with dates on the x axis, sure.

How can something so basic be completely broken?

 

[tie]

After waiting four years for any update, the Keynote downgrade is pretty frustrating.

I also noticed that if you open an old presentation with the new Keynote, it converts it to the new format. There is an option in the menu to export back to the old format, but this destroys any movie files in the presentation. This hit me in a presentation yesterday, grrr.

 

[Xiao-zhi]

salamanderjuice[/url]":1681xxth]

Xiao-zhi[/url]":1681xxth]

malorian[/url]":1681xxth]

Excel is used for serious number crunching in science, ...

I seriously hope not. You can do some interesting things in excel, but if you are doing analytics or modeling its time to move on.

Absolutely correct. However, for personal use, most people find MATLAB or Mathematica a bit expensive, or the time investment for developing code for GNU Octave or Scilab a bit daunting. So in many cases, they rely on Excel which, actually, can perform quite a few sophisticated analysis using the built-in functions and has the advantage of nearly universal availability and use, facilitating collaboration.

So I have to speak-up on behalf of Microsoft and prod Apple.

Dear Apple - You know Numbers sucks. Get serious about it, it would not take so many millions to develop into a first rate spread sheet without complicating the interface or trashing the canned templates for the great unwashed of iCloud.

Minor edit to improve clarity.

While you "can" do sophisticated analysis it's not very good at it. For instance it's matrix inversions are at least in 2010 and below completely off in some cases and radically different from what MATLAB, R, etc. produce and can change the outcomes of various statistical tests. It's probably dangerous that they have those functions in there for people who don't quite know what they are doing.

Good point. As a METLAB user I haven't really had occasion to discover such bugs, but my intent was not to suggest Excel is a replacement for these higher level tools, only to suggest that for a lot of routine scientific and engineering analysis (including some simple matrix calculations) Excel is a serviceable and commonly used tool.

But I also think sophisticated users will find the limitations, particularly when coding complex, iterative models beyond the capabilities of any spreadsheet, which I suppose was the intention of your original comment.

 

[bumba]

Been using Keynote from Day One. Used to work at Apple. Relied on it for countless presentations and application product concepts. It never was a very cleverly organized tool in terms of UX, but it had the merit of being simpler and more elegant than PowerPoint.

Now, it's obvious that Apple is levelling everything in its midst towards mobile-first. One would expect more innovative UX coming out of a new generation of young UX designers but unfortunately Keynote '13, like its siblings, is a functional abomination. It seems Apple is suffering from brain drain, with the best designers heading towards startups or less corporate environments.

This review is a bit superficial when it comes to UX. Look at the patterns your hand makes to navigate between your item of interest in your canvas, and the functions you need to access to modify it. Count the number of clicks, and look at how the user's gaze has to lose focus and concentrate on "reading" the user interface in order to get things done. This is UX design done by ignoramus, who hold no notions of Human Factors. Or if they do, they don't have the talent to translate it into *good design*.

The only good thing about the new products is the speed and memory improvement. Almost everything else is questionable and either feel gadgety or designed by people who don't use the software themselves, 8 hours a day.

In my opinion, this is a sign of things to come for Apple. It's a law of Nature, that what goes up... must become confused and gradually lose purpose.
Back in the day, the company was motivated by sheer enthusiasm. What mattered was to make a change. Today, the bottom line is what matters the most, and Apple applies a formulaic "Apple DNA" to most of its software projects. There are formidable talents inside that group, but the problems are structural. Ask Apple insiders if they see problems, and they'll usually say 'no' — they're disconnected; they're on top of the world. With the kind of profitability that this company is showing, you can bet your bottom dollar that there is zero motivation to change anything. So don't expect software innovation to come from Apple. It just won't happen and it's no longer their business model: Apple's new business model is to be in the middle of the value chain, and to place a posh shopping mall in your pocket.

Apple's not going to fall down. It has enough cash and momentum sustain itself, even becoming lame, for decades. The positive thing about all this is that Apple's relative inertia is suddenly making lots of room for a myriad startups which previously would've suffocated under Apple's sheer ability to build "good enough" software.

Suddenly, wonderful software doesn't come from Apple's or Adobe's bloated software sweat shops, but from two guys in Washington DC (Macaw.co), or five guys in Amsterdam (Bohemian Coding's Sketch). It's about time sheer talent would show Goliath a run for its money.

 

[NinjaNerd56]

What I miss...and wish has survived the transition from NeXT to 'new' Apple...is Improv. I still prefer it to any spreadsheet ever created, and I'm old enough to have used them all.

Numbers is decent, but I tend to use Excel because I have to use hyperlinks to Visio and Word a great deal.

Keynote is very good but I have a zillion PPT files for work, with company ordained templates and content, that's just too hard to back & forth with Keynote.

 

[Xiao-zhi]

fyzikapan[/url]":2c21hfju]

However, Numbers' graphs are much, much better than Excel's

As long as you don't want to do something as mundane as make a scatter plot with dates on the x axis, sure.

How can something so basic be completely broken?

Or chart with a secondary Y axis, LOL.

Basically, what people mean is the visual appearance of Numbers charts is much better than Excel.

And for that reason, the ONLY thing I use Numbers for is to make simple charts destined for Keynote presentations, and a lot of those are converted from Excel.

 

[gordon942]

Cerberus™[/url]":3g4613xs]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

Lots of results. None of them are the actual station.

Google Maps: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qd4mxb0x3yret ... .34.58.png

Apple Maps:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kohu3lqpbrebt ... .35.08.png

What really bothers me is Apple's lack of support for crowd-sourcing. With Google Maps, corrections I submit are usually implemented within two weeks (users who have built up enough of a reputation can even edit without review in many cases.) I've probably submitted close to a hundred corrections to Apple Maps at this point, and as far as I can tell, not a single one has been implemented.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Cerberus™[/url]":7pcgf3q8]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

I've had an iPhone for two months now, and though I initially installed google maps, the built in mapping program has been solid enough in the Chicagoland are that I've relegated google maps to my seldom used apps folder way over on the very last page.

It's just too easy to do a long tap and ask Siri about the traffic or how to get somewhere and I've never been led astray. I keep google maps in case the need arises, but it hasn't yet.

 

[melgross]

gordon942[/url]":8hhvt0q7]

Cerberus™[/url]":8hhvt0q7]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

Lots of results. None of them are the actual station.

Google Maps: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qd4mxb0x3yret ... .34.58.png

Apple Maps:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kohu3lqpbrebt ... .35.08.png

What really bothers me is Apple's lack of support for crowd-sourcing. With Google Maps, corrections I submit are usually implemented within two weeks (users who have built up enough of a reputation can even edit without review in many cases.) I've probably submitted close to a hundred corrections to Apple Maps at this point, and as far as I can tell, not a single one has been implemented.

We need to remember that Apple uses Tom Tom for its mapping data. It's not Apple's mapping data. This makes crowd sourced changes much more difficult. Apple is responsible for the app itself, the rendering, etc.

But while Apple's app has problems, so do all other navigation apps. And, yes, it's gotten better. A lot of errors and missing info has been fixed, or added.

In fact, an article has shown that most iOS mapping users are now using Apple maps as opposed to Google maps. A major change-around.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... last_laugh

I do have to say that I'm disappointed in the decrease in features for iWork. I was hoping to see an increase in features. But, I suppose, as Apple has completely rewritten these apps, it was easier to remove features in an attempt to have the apps as bug free as possible upon release, and as they have said they would do, add features back in, hopefully, some orderly way.

As Microsoft said, or as Ballmer has said, Office for the ipad would arrive in late 2014, Apple has time to upgrade all of this by then. With Ballmer out of the picture, it's impossible to know what will actually happen.

I just hope that Apple will move forwards on this in full speed ahead mode.

 

[tensor]

For Mac users writing documents of any substantial length, I highly recommend Mellel.

It's a little quirky in some ways, and takes some work initially setting up document styles, but it is worth it. The way Mellel handles styles is the best (most logical) I've seen in a word processor. Its Headings/Table of Contents/Mentions/ features (all brought together by auto-titles) is simply excellent. Implementation of features is a little rough in some areas and brilliant in others. It supports advanced OpenType fonts with ease (unlike Word), including ligatures and real subscripts and small caps, etc.

There are some missing features that should've been added long ago, but when the developers finally get around to adding them, this will be a powerhouse of a Word Processor, well actually it already is. It's stable as a rock and handles long documents with ease. Try this out ESPECIALLY if you need support for multiple languages.

A huge gripe is lack of .docx support. You can export to .doc and .rtf, but any expectation of formatting goes out the window.

There is a trial version that I highly recommend you try out.

 

[gordon942]

RockDaMan[/url]":ba1um1o1]

Cerberus™[/url]":ba1um1o1]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

I've had an iPhone for two months now, and though I initially installed google maps, the built in mapping program has been solid enough in the Chicagoland are that I've relegated google maps to my seldom used apps folder way over on the very last page.

It's just too easy to do a long tap and ask Siri about the traffic or how to get somewhere and I've never been led astray. I keep google maps in case the need arises, but it hasn't yet.

I think if you mostly use Apple Maps for driving navigation, as opposed to walking and transit, and live in a major urban area in the United States, it's probably gotten good enough for most people. Its coverage of rural areas and most non-US cities is laughable. Even in the US, there is just no comparison with the level of the detail. I'll take what is literally the closest landmark to me, the UC Berkeley campus:

Apple Maps:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nup3eoehn6vdd ... .21.40.png

There is nothing technically wrong with this picture, the boundaries are correct, you've got most of the biggest structures labeled in more or less the correct locations, and the major arteries through campus identified.

Google Maps:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ayar9diu30eb ... .22.02.png

Not even in the same ballpark. You've got way more buildings labeled, roughly twice as many roads and paths (with walking paths denoted separately), 3D building outlines, environmental features (streams, glades, etc) identified, bus stations, etc. if I'm actually walking on campus trying to find anything, Google Maps is infinitely more useful. If I just needed driving directions to the main gate, I suppose Apple Maps would be just fine.

Again, this is in the SF Bay Area, practically Apple's backyard, and arguably Apple Map's best mapped urban area, and there's still just no contest.

 

[alansky]

Whatever Apple's motives, there is no doubt in my mind that they have thoroughly emasculated the new Pages. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that Apple has created something brilliant, let it languish for awhile, and ultimately dumbed it down for the masses.

 

[Oelph]

You can applaud Apple for a lot of great hardware design, but they sure drop the ball more often than you'd think when it comes to software.

 

[death_to_novell]

alansky[/url]":2rgg8ysu]Whatever Apple's motives, there is no doubt in my mind that they have thoroughly emasculated the new Pages. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that Apple has created something brilliant, let it languish for awhile, and ultimately dumbed it down for the masses.

This.

It's probably ultimately harmful to Apple, too. Why invest time and money into Apple software, when lately it seems like the expectation is that it'll languish for years and then a new version will come out that radically changes the program, rips out a ton of features, and breaks backwards compatibility?

 

[Deleted member 174040]

gordon942[/url]":16t3jfjw]

RockDaMan[/url]":16t3jfjw]

Cerberus™[/url]":16t3jfjw]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

I've had an iPhone for two months now, and though I initially installed google maps, the built in mapping program has been solid enough in the Chicagoland are that I've relegated google maps to my seldom used apps folder way over on the very last page.

It's just too easy to do a long tap and ask Siri about the traffic or how to get somewhere and I've never been led astray. I keep google maps in case the need arises, but it hasn't yet.

I think if you mostly use Apple Maps for driving navigation, as opposed to walking and transit, and live in a major urban area in the United States, it's probably gotten good enough for most people.

Absolutely. And the rest is just a function of google having been in the market for much much more time.

Apple will get that squared away with time. Perhaps a lot. But they'll get there.

 

[Tsa Szymborska]

Cerberus™[/url]":xk88cfwl]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

It finds Klimmuur Centraal. I kid you not. And it finds a lot of other things in Amsterdam with "Centraal" in the name, but not the station. So when we look for "Amsterdam Centraal Station" it finds Apple Centrum Centraal Station and the Nh hotel near Centraal Station. Conclusion: Maps is rubbish.

 

[Eldorito]

Out of curiosity, what hard drives were used with those speed results? As an office user putting office on a ssd was the smartest thing I've ever done, it opens near instantly. Other hardware doesn't change much.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Tsa Szymborska[/url]":182ql3lv]

Cerberus™[/url]":182ql3lv]

With the new Maps, Apple executives were apparently under the illusion that they had a great product—which went over like a lead balloon with customers. Tim Cook subsequently apologized, but nothing much happened to improve the situation. (The main train stations in Amsterdam and The Hague are still missing from Apple Maps to this day.)

Is this really true?? I live in Amsterdam, and I have never heard any of my Apple-loving friends complain about this. What happens when you search for "Amsterdam Centraal" in Apple Maps? No results?

Conclusion: Maps is rubbish.

For some, sure.

But not universally. Not even close.