Two developments trouble me greatly...

[Warren2]

Two recent developments trouble me greatly.

1. It is possible that Appleworks' days, as such, are numbered. Apple has gone to iWork, which does not have a spreadsheet. Appleworks is no longer included on new Macs

2. I took Mr. Job's announcement (regarding the shift to Intel CPUs) to mean that such things as "Carbon" apps will not work on the upcoming Intel-Mac box, unless the producer of the software re-writes the software for this new Intel-Mac box. As far as I know, Appleworks is such a "Carbon" app.

Put these two things together, and a worse case scenario is that Apple does not re-do Appleworks for Intel, and it won't run.

I am not trying to engage in the generation of FUD, but as someone who has used Appleworks heavily for 10 years, I am very worried that our favorite program is about to become abandon-ware in about a year.


Warren

[haumann]

You seem to be reading pretty intently between the lines here. Given that Apple probably can't work on everything at once, and giving just a little credit to the various decision makers at Apple, I would imagine that a doom, the likes of which you have so eloquently identified, would not have escaped notice in Cupertino. I would imagine that if they suspected that the success of the corporation hinged on the AppleWorks application, the response would have been much more immediate. After all, ClarisWorks rose from the ashes of the original AppleWorks (which was put to rest with the Apple-II).

AppleWorks may indeed go the way of Cyberdog, Publish and Subscribe, and the Newton. Rest assured, the world will not end because of it. Personally, I think it's too early to tell either way, but many of those who need a more powerful spreadsheet are already using Excel, while Pages™ is rather unique and has little in the way of competition for what it does, and how it does it.

If you were in charge of limited resources, and given the choice of updating an application that mostly works and already has significant competition in the marketplace, or rolling out a spiffy newsletter publishing application to capture the imagination, what short-term allocation would you make?

Another related question... If, as I suspect is the case, Apple is working on a replacement to (or revision of) AppleWorks, do you expect Apple to release it now, or would it seem more appropriate to hold off for 12 months when the new hardware is released?

Doesn't seem to me that there is much to worry about just yet. Do you really need the wrinkles?

John@was

[Dale]

Two recent developments trouble me greatly.

1. It is possible that Appleworks' days, as such, are numbered. Apple has gone to iWork, which does not have a spreadsheet. Appleworks is no longer included on new Macs

There's nothing "possible" about it. AppleWorks' days are numbered. Apple's press release for iWork '05 stated that it was the result of Apple "building the replacement to AppleWorks". Given iWork currently doesn't match AppleWorks' functionality it seems reasonable to believe that future versions of iWork will do so by adding a spreadsheet and other goodies eg iWork '06.

However, AppleWorks isn't going anywhere in the short to medium term. Contrary to your statement above, AppleWorks is included on new consumer level Macs ie iMacs, Mac minis, iBooks. It is not bundled with pro level Macs like PowerBooks and PowerMacs. The owners of these pro Macs get a different software bundle with their purchase.

2. I took Mr. Job's announcement (regarding the shift to Intel CPUs) to mean that such things as "Carbon" apps will not work on the upcoming Intel-Mac box, unless the producer of the software re-writes the software for this new Intel-Mac box. As far as I know, Appleworks is such a "Carbon" app.

Mr Jobs announced the shift to Intel chips and specifically stated that Carbon apps would run on this new architecture. Indeed, he even demonstrated the current Carbon-based, PowerPC versions of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop running on an Intel-based Mac. This is possible because Apple have bought some software called Rosetta, which translates PowerPC instructions to Intel instructions. NB That Classic applications will not operate on the Intel based Macs or be translated by Rosetta.

Visit Apple's QuickTime web site and watch the WWDC 2005 stream to see these demos and get the facts directly from Mr Jobs.

Put these two things together, and a worse case scenario is that Apple does not re-do Appleworks for Intel, and it won't run.

I am not trying to engage in the generation of FUD, but as someone who has used Appleworks heavily for 10 years, I am very worried that our favorite program is about to become abandon-ware in about a year.

Unfortunately, you've put incorrect information together to come up with this scenario. Based on the facts the only alternative is to conclude that AppleWorks 6.2.9 will work very well on an Intel based Mac.

However, AppleWorks will be a Carbon program that is translated by the Rosetta program and will only run at less than 100% of its current speed. In other words, I don't expect Apple will port AppleWorks 6.2.9 to run natively on the Intel based Macs. This is because, when the Intel based Macs are released in 12 - 24 months, I expect a more functional version of iWork will be available.

Cheers.

Dale

[Warren2]

Will iWork eventually have a spreadsheet that reads AW/CW spreadsheet files?


Warren

[haumann]

Will iWork eventually have a spreadsheet that reads AW/CW spreadsheet files?


Warren

You might consider redirecting this question to the iWork discussion.

John@was