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iWork '08 | 
 enlarge | From: Apple
Category: Software
List Price: £55.00
Buy New: £49.98
You Save: £5.02 (9%)
New (6) from £49.98
Rating:  12 reviews
Format: Cd-rom
Platform: Mac Os X
Media: DVD-ROM
Operating System: Mac OS X
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 19.7 x 19.7 x 19.7
MPN: MA790Z/A
Model: MA790Z/A
UPC: 885909140244
EAN: 0885909140244
ASIN: B000BQXTSS
Release Date: August 31, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1 to 4 weeks
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Apple's amazing productivity suite for the Mac, iWork '08 includes three application...
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| Customer Reviews:
 Amazing value and nice to use August 18, 2007
J. J. Thatcher
30 out of 32 found this review helpful
This seems to be an amazing package for the money based on my short acquaintance with it . A nice spreadsheet with particularly good chart and graphic display properties and an easy to use word processor with good layout tools - and a (arguably) better than PowerPoint presentation tool in Keynote. All 3 apps have that certain "Mac feel" to them and are pleasant and intuitive to use.
I would baulk at saying this is a replacement for Microsoft Office though. What you get with iWork is good, but the range of features in Excel and Word are far more extensive. E.g. I cant find pivot tables in Numbers? or have I missed them? and mail merge support in Pages seems limited to address book fields. Also the export to Word & Excel tools in both Apple apps seem a little crude, generating an "Warnings Report" almost every time they are used.
Anyway, if you don't need all the bells and whistles and 100% Office compatibility this isnt a problem. At 55 for full commercial use iWork is a snip - thats about a sixth of the price of the Microsoft product!
 Fantastic value, Elegant design. But Apple is still more play than work... September 29, 2007
Mr. F. Ahmed
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
As a recent switcher, my main worry was whether or not I would be able to "work" on the Mac OS X, the way I was able to in Windows XP, with their Microsoft Office 2007 package. I have to say, iWork '08 has banished those concerns, for the most part. Pages works beautifully. The templates are truly extraordinary. Apple knows how to make things look good, and their templates are just amazing. Best of all, they are so easy to use. Want to create a report with that wow factor? iWork '08 is undoubtedly the best software for that, and that includes MS Office 2007.
However, the layout, of both Pages and Numbers, although aesthetically pleasing, is not as functional as MS Office 2007. Apple have gone for simplicity, but this can sometimes get in the way of usability. I have found myself, more than a few times now, sifting through menus trying to find out how to apply simple commands, which were literally a one-click job in MS Office.
However, minor issues like these aside, iWork '08 is a MASSIVE leap from its predecessor, '07. To sum up, Apple have finally given the user a worthy replacement to using MS Office. Although it does not quite tick all the boxes, it does more than enough to satisfy the average user.
Who needs to wait for MS Mac Office 2008? August 15, 2007
A. M. Field (Sussex, UK)
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
I'm a recent mac switcher and as a user of Office 2007 since initial beta, I was extremely disappointed with the feature set of mac office 2004. Microsoft released an Word 2007 -> Mac Word 2004 converter which was poor at best.
iWork 8 easily matches the features and functionality of Office 2007 and includes full interoperability, nearly 6 months before MS will deliver the same.
At last, something even I can use! December 5, 2007
C. Barnes (UK)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Having just upgraded from a PC to an iMac I have found myself a bit short on useful software. I've always struggled to use the Microsoft Office suite. It isn't intuitive and as I'm not someone who needs it everyday I've always found the programs very difficult to remember how to use. Without regular use and practice Excel is just too daunting, but also Word, if it's not technology you've grown up with, can be tricky to master. I started a college course last year and having to be able to use these programs is just about mandatory. Not being too good at them is a real disadvantage. As an alternative there is the Open Office program which is free of charge and downloadable and appears to be identical to the Microsoft product and therefore doesn't solve my big headache which is that I hate to use it!!!
iWork and MS Office came as 30 day free trial products on the iMac. After a couple of weeks of using the trial MS I was distraught as it costs a fortune and I thought I was going to have to buy it (Open Office being very slow and clumsy on my machine). It was then that I decided to try the iWork word-processing program called 'Pages', and blow me if I hadn't picked it up within a very short while and felt completely at peace with it. It's a lovely tool to use and it comes naturally. I've taken a look at the 'Numbers' program and it appears to be elegant and usable too, not as powerful as Excel, but I never needed most of what Excel can do. Numbers is a breeze, to the point of being fun, yes fun! As for the 'Keynote' presentation program.....It is a joy to use. I had to make my first Powerpoint presentation last year (on the agronomy of the pea if you're interested) and it was a nightmare to do. This year I have to do another (on grassland management for invertebrates) and I'm almost excited at what I will be able to do. People who know how I react to techy stuff will shocked to see these words written by me. I'm usually a Luddite, but perhaps that's just because I'd not had to work with Apple products before. At 55 it's a real bargain and shames Microsoft who charge hundreds of pounds for their monster........ Now, onto that assignment...
Delicious alternative to that other office suite November 3, 2007
MM Turner (Birmingham, England)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
What do you like?
If you want to have exactly the same applications that everyone else has, and don't mind how clunky or slow they are, then you get Microsoft Office.
If you want complete compatibility, but are somehow morally opposed to paying money for software, then you go with Open Office.
If you want very high -- but not necessarily complete -- compatibility, and you want a delightful, smooth and efficient set of applications, and you want to do presentations that leave the other applications stranded, then you choose iWork '08.
Actually, I already owned Microsoft Office, and I use it for compatibility. And I've installed OpenOffice for people: it's good software. But the other week I saw a presentation done on iWork's Keynote, and I was absolutely smitten. For the price of a reasonable Photoshop plugin, this application is amazing, with full cinematic effects that cannot be reproduced in PowerPoint.
Having bought iWork, I'm astonished at the sleek, beautiful interface, the speed of operation, the intuitive design, and the superb feature set. I haven't enjoyed using a word-processor or a spread-sheet like this for years.
That's it really. It imports the vast majority of things that Microsoft Office opens, and exports back seamlessly. It lets you know when there are unsupported features, and even informs you when fonts are missing -- something that Word signally fails to do.
Of course, there are lots of features that Office supports that iWork doesn't. Mailmerge, for example, and creating organigrams. On the other hand, for the price of Microsoft Office, you could buy FileMaker Pro and iWork, which, alongside the Mac's installed tools such as OmniGraffle, would give you vastly more functionality. Microsoft gives you Entourage as well, of course, but, since Entourage doesn't really work very well with Exchange Servers (less well than iCal and Mail, for example), this is hardly a disadvantage.
Pound for pound, iWork is vastly better value than Microsoft Office. I'll go out on a limb here and say it is better designed software, with a much clearer understanding of what most users want.
Of course, I'm not deleting MS Office. If you want compatibility, then only MS Office can really guarantee it. But for most Mac users, this is software at a price you can afford, delivered in a style that you desire.
Apple has done something I really wouldn't have believed: they have made office applications sexy again.
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