{"id":2570,"date":"2013-12-15T12:13:15","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T17:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/?p=2570"},"modified":"2013-12-15T12:14:21","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T17:14:21","slug":"why-apple-broke-iwork-and-made-it-free-how-ms-office-on-mac-is-better-and-why-apple-doesnt-care-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/15\/why-apple-broke-iwork-and-made-it-free-how-ms-office-on-mac-is-better-and-why-apple-doesnt-care-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Apple broke iWork and made it free. How MS Office on Mac is Better and why Apple doesn’t care right now"},"content":{"rendered":"

My thoughts on no mail-merge in the new iWork, Free iWork for new users, where is iOS and OSX coming together, and how we work is different now than how we did when integrated office software was created. I recently had a conversation with my Mom about how to do a mail merge and not using Apple’s product Pages in iWork. \u00a0It reminded me of a discussion on the Apple support boards – soI wrote a response – an update to that response is below: Pages 5.0 – No mail merge?!<\/a><\/p>\n

is there no longer any mail merge possible in Pages 5.0? There seems absolutely no way to link to Contacts or using a Numbers Document to add addresses for mail merge. searched the app up and down and searched in the help files.. but it seems AWOL.\u00a0Please. How can that be? A word processor without mail merge? Am I supposed to add and print hundreds of addresses now manually?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have been using Mac’s at home forever, and at work recently over the past few years. I was recently at Intuit – a fairly progressive software company and many of the project managers there had friends (or even roommates) at Apple – also in product development. I’ll talk about the why this happened in a minute, first let me tell you the only way to really solve this is to move completely to Microsoft Office.\u00a0 Here is my point. I was recently laid off and went to do a mass mailing to many of my customers and friends (I’m 48, been in the industry for 25 years and so there are a lot of people in my contact list).\u00a0 My goal was to do an email merge – not a printed mailing – who does that anymore!\u00a0 Okay – yes people do print labels – my sister is getting married and had to print them and its making our mother insane – but she can use contacts for that and avery templates). So I had my newly minted MacBook Pro (had to turn in my old one to my former employer).\u00a0 I went to use Pages and was in the same boat many of the people on the discussion board. \u00a0Apple’s suggestion is to use the old copy of Pages – they cleverly didn’t delete it when you upgrade (similar to iMove – when it was upgraded and took away features). So I went to use Pages ’09 but although there is print merge, that didn’t work because there is no easy way to merge to an email!\u00a0 So I backed up and said – “I know this works for MS Office.” \u00a0I installed the copy of Microsoft Office – yes I purchased it, I need to work.\u00a0 With this I was able to easily do my mailing but wait there is more.\u00a0 In order to merge to email I had to do it with MS Outlook!\u00a0 So now Apple has lost me for Pages and Email and maybe even Calendar – that’s just stupid. So if you are able to purchase MS Office – you can do this easily with MS Word and MS Outlook. The emails are beautiful with custom fields and rich text.\u00a0 Apple is missing something here – they just made it really easy for me to consider a Microsoft Tablet.\u00a0I’m also frustrated because I use mail all the time and the calendar – and I like the way it all syncs with my table and phone and the cloud. In fact – I’m typing this on my iPad with a Logitech keyboard – hmmm.. More on product development – I just came from a Silicon Valley company so I’ll explain. This is common – its a practice that they calculate the impact of disappointing against the cost of investing resources to provide features they feel we don’t need. In fact that last part of the sentence is the key here – there is a relative arrogance in product development, specifically product management in the Silicon Valley and that is one of condescending feelings towards the masses – after their extensive field research showing that we don’t know what we want. But they aren’t really that evil – they are looking to become directors and so they need to show strategic thinking – something bigger. In fact most are much more intelligent than me; but we all know that can come back to bite you – this may sound like a cliche but experience counts too. \u00a0And they cannot ignore that warmth is just as important as competence (read The Human Brand<\/a>). The point is – they are thinking a few steps down the road, imagining how we work in 2018 not 2013.\u00a0 The question is always what amount of market share and customer dissatisfaction can we allow for while still making efficient use of development resources to remain incredibly profitable and be viewed as forward thinking. And believe me – those companies are about profitability as much as changing the world (don’t let the PR fool you). Further – this is likely part of something bigger they are thinking about.\u00a0 Two of the posters on the discussion board argue a good point – they are considering other apps that will plug-in or supplement Pages and why to and why not to. \u00a0I already shared that you can easily print mailing labels from contacts – it even supports Avery labels – my wife did this for several invitations for various parties. Stay with me here… so why not simply improve that function to include letters and email?\u00a0 Because this is going somewhere… Imagine this – the average new user (now power user like all of us) won’t think in terms of Word Processing but rather the task at hand.\u00a0 They think – “I want to send a mailing to my friends or customers”. Where do they go? They go to contacts. They create a group of contacts by tagging them and then they drag them on a template or simply start a wizard of the email they are ready to send. My point is – the functionality will likely come in the OS X or iOS – or within the contacts function, not Pages.\u00a0 Microsoft has created an environment to “work” and Apple has to think differently about it.\u00a0 Its the way the iPhone broke the cycle – and now we all create custom phones by putting the apps we want on it. These apps, with the new iOS7 work together even better as there are more access points via the operating system to share.\u00a0 Its why they build Maps – because everything needs it and Google had control. I could go on and on. We want apps to do things and we want them all to work together. Hence convergence of the operating systems, creation of apps and eventual re-building of the web via HTML 5.0 and Responsive\/Adaptive web applications\/sites to do the same. iWork will be replaced by integrated apps in the cloud, in a browser, on your phone, tablet and desktop. \u00a0That, is why they made iWork free on all new Apple computers. Get you in the ecosystem and move you along from there. Of course – we all suffer while this happens but for now – this is my theory on what is going on. Jim<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My thoughts on no mail-merge in the new iWork, Free iWork for new users, where is iOS and OSX coming together, and how we work is different now than how we did when integrated office software was created. I recently… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-thoughts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mX8K-Fs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24783,"url":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/01\/my-recap-of-tag-fintech-2015\/","url_meta":{"origin":2570,"position":0},"title":"My recap of TAG Fintech 2015","author":"Jimmyc","date":"March 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Some thoughts from this years TAG Fintech 2015 (Technology Association of Georgia). 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I've started this post a hundred times and each time I stop because things change so rapidly.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Banking Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Banking Tech","link":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/category\/banking-tech\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"20130929-172310.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/charanis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/20130929-172310.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":126,"url":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/29\/develop-deploy-and-interact-with-your-customers-in-the-way-of-the-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":2570,"position":3},"title":"Develop, deploy and interact with your customers in the way of the future","author":"Jimmyc","date":"September 29, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been exploring the world of mobile technology a lot more lately. Both the development of mobile apps or online applications and the deployment and security around these interactions. \u00a0After considering how my friends in the financial services industry have been deploying cash management, online banking and mobile banking solutions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Banking Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Banking Tech","link":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/category\/banking-tech\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/20130929-165302.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":37559,"url":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/01\/lack-of-vision-blind-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":2570,"position":4},"title":"Lack of Vision, Blind Faith","author":"Jimmyc","date":"March 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In the absence of vision there is darkness. And in the darkness anything can shed light. If the light that captures your attention is something visceral that reaches into your soul and enacts some irrational response then the consequences are what we have today. There is no vision or leadership\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/category\/thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11546,"url":"https:\/\/www.charanis.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/13\/book-review-greed-was-good-relationships-are-better-and-even-more-profitable-in-the-long-run\/","url_meta":{"origin":2570,"position":5},"title":"BOOK REVIEW: Greed was good – Relationships are better, and even more profitable in the long run","author":"Jimmyc","date":"November 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a repost of my Amazon Review\u00a0of the book: The Human Brand by Chris Malone and Susan T. 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