Inspirational Technology

Apple Office Suite

I've been looking around again for a word processor to use instead of Microsoft Word and in the process I decided to check out Appleworks. Man what a piece of garbage that thing is. It is oh so very Mac OS 9ish and given the fact it was one of the first apps ported to Mac OS X and has been there for close to two years, one thought just wouldn't leave my mind ... Apple has to be working on a new office suite. There can be no other explanation for why Appleworks has not had a major interface revision in all the time it's been out for OS X. I mean even mouse scroll wheels don't work in the thing. Anyway, this may just be wishful thinking, but I really hope they're working on something and that they truly take the opportunity to rethink the paradigm and improve things. The current state of the art here, is well, let's just say leaves a little to be desired. Apple's proven repeatedly that a simple application, with a smaller but more accessible feature set, can lead to an overall more powerful user experience. I just hope they do something similar in this space. Soon.

Anyway, I've been using Mariner Write for the last few papers I've had to write and given my simple requirements it does what I need pretty well. If something else better doesn't appear before my eval is up, I'll probably buy a copy.