ILife '05, however, ranks as a smashing success compared to iWork. Part of the problem is what's in this $79 bundle -- specifically, Pages -- and part is what's left out.
Pages started with the right idea, making desktop publishing cheap and easy for home users, but in practice it's Apple's worst release in years. It's so slow Apple would be more honest calling it "Paaaages."
| | | | ___Personal Tech E-letter___ Washington Post personal technology columnist Rob Pegoraro answers reader e-mail and expands on themes he touches on in his weekly newspaper column. The e-mail version of this weekly feature includes links to the latest gadget and software reviews.
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On a three-year-old iMac G4, Pages was borderline unusable; just dragging text boxes around brought the program to its knees. On a new Mac mini, it still staggered when confronted with basic tasks such as resizing a picture. Merely saving a file imposes a measurable delay -- which may explain the lack of an auto-save option.
Pages' toolbar does look refreshingly clean and simple, but that's only because common functions have been herded into menus, submenus and a series of cramped secondary windows that, when open, block your view of the document. Yet it still lacks common features of both word processors (checking your grammar for you) and page-layout programs (nesting text inside a non-square area).
The one worthwhile innovation in Pages, quick access to your iPhoto library, is awkward to use because of the way Pages lets a picture automatically bump text out of the way -- a photo can easily wipe an entire page clear until you resize it. Apple also forgot to tie this program into Mac OS X's Address Book database; Pages can create snazzy "we've moved" postcards, but it's not smart enough to enter your friends' addresses for you.
Pages can read Microsoft Word documents, but it can't write in that format with any reliability. Designs that looked great on the screen usually flew apart when saved as Word files (or Web pages, another export option).
The updated version of Keynote, the slide-show program that represents the other half of iWork, adds such features as iPhoto library integration, the ability to embed Web pages in presentations and a presenter mode to help you time your show. It's not enough to redeem this bundle.
Even setting aside Pages' sorry state, there's no great reason to upgrade from Apple's aging AppleWorks to iWork, since the former still comes free on consumer Macs. Nor should most potential Microsoft Office buyers give iWork a moment's thought, since iWork lacks a spreadsheet to take the place of Microsoft's Excel.
Both iLife and iWork show some unsettling signs of haste -- bugs and usability mistakes Apple should know not to make. IPhoto '05 hides some commands behind right-click menus; iDVD will let you wipe out an entire menu screen if you drag an image in the wrong place; Keynote keeps trying to enter your home page's address when you embed a Web page in a presentation. It's one thing for Apple to expect customers to ante up every January for yearly updates like these, but it's another for it to let quality slide in the process.
Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro at rob@twp.com.
