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The Low End Mac Mailbag

iWork Can Replace AppleWorks, Classic a Best Feature of OS X, and Apple II AppleWorks on a Mac

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- 2007.08.21

iWork a Good Replacement for AppleWorks
AppleWorks Lives on My G3
AppleWorks Holdout
What Killed AppleWorks
AppleWorks R.I.P.
'Classic' Has Been One of the Best Features of OS X
Running AppleWorks for the Apple II on a Mac

iWork a Good Replacement for AppleWorks

Dan Palka of System 7 Today writes:

Here I am writing to you again this week, this time about something else.

I have to say that while AppleWorks was a great program, iWork is great too, and iWork '08 is downright awesome. I used AppleWorks a lot in the past, just like everyone else. I even have a page about it on my own site and still have it installed on all my System 7 machines. But I'm now an avid fan of iWork and recommend it to all my friends.

AppleWorks was getting rather long in the tooth and wasn't really that compelling against other suites towards the end of it's life. People who mourn the loss of AppleWorks and at the same time belittle iWork clearly don't use iWork all that much. Unlike AppleWorks, iWork really impresses people (especially non-Mac users) when they first see it in action. For what it can do, Pages, Keynote, and now Numbers continues to blow my mind in it's ease of use, elegant, and powerful way of doing things. iWork '08 is a breath of fresh air and excitement in the rather dull category of productivity suites.

Overlooking all the positive aspects of the iWork apps just to nit-pick about the few differences from AppleWorks is just plain silly. I think many AppleWorks users are just looking for any reason to scoff at iWork.

I would never ever go back to AppleWorks. It's time to lay it to rest.

Dan Palka
System 7 Today

Dan,

Thanks for writing and for the great resource System 7 Today is.

I can't compare AppleWorks to iWork, as I haven't tried Apple's new software suite. I know that AppleWorks perfectly meets my word processing and spreadsheet needs, and that after using it for ages, I'm very comfortable with it and don't yet see a reason to switch.

When I have some time, I'll have to download the iWork 30 day trial. If it's as easy to use as AppleWorks, Apple will have a convert.

Dan

On Aug 20, 2007, Dan Knight wrote:

Thanks for writing and for the great resource System 7 Today is.

Compliments on LEM always!

AppleWorks is fine at what it does, I agree. iWork is excellent at what it does. I'm confident you'll agree once you give iWork a good week's use.

When I have some time, I'll have to download the iWork 30 day trial. If it's as easy to use as AppleWorks, Apple will have a convert.

Just be sure you have a fairly recent Macintosh before you do that (G5 or up). iWork is way slow on G3s and G4s.

Dan Palka
System 7 Today

Dan,

I have a dual 1 GHz G4 as my main production machine, which I hope will be up to the task. If that's sluggish (I sure hope not!), there's always the MacBook Pro....

Dan

Hmm well I had a 1 GHz PowerBook G4 before my Mac Pro, and iWork '06 ran, but didn't run very fast. I'm not sure if iWork is aware of multiple processors. Please let me know how it turns out.

Dan,

I'll be sure to share my findings on Low End Mac.

Dan

AppleWorks Lives on My G3

Brian Bettenhausen says:

Dan, I just read the couple day old articles about the death of AppleWorks and its transition over to iWork. I went and bought a brand new G5 iMac when they first came out with 10.3. I remember trying iWork and thinking, "What the hell is this crud?" I was not a fan - then again, as pretty as OS X looks, I'd rather work with Windows than X. But when the end of the day is near, I come home to enjoy my nice boring life as a single unmarried geek. I park it in front of the G3 All in One running 9.2.2. I am thinking of putting X 10.1 on here, but honestly it would slow the machine down too much. Just stay with what I have and enjoy.

Out of mourning, every version of ClarisWorks & AppleWorks has been installed on the G3 that I own. That's versions 3-6,s o half the product life cycle is right there :-)

Brian Bettenhausen

AppleWorks Holdout

Hello Dan,

Thank you for your article; forwarded to me by my MUG President who knows I am the lone AppleWorks fan, holdout.

Very unhappy to hear about AppleWorks demise.

When I entered the Mac world from PC back in the late 90's, I was pressured to go with MS Office. The cost, $500+ compared to AppleWorks already included or a $65 upgrade, sealed the deal. I have never regretted it, but often smugly proud that I have remained MS free.

Since then I have managed to avoid the exploitative CAD software prices of $3,000 and up.

As a Kitchen & Bath and Interior Designer I have created selection sheets the envy of my colleagues with "drop & drag" images from sinks to appliances, drawn up "tech sketches" showing detailed ceramic tile layouts and even kitchen cabinet floor plans and elevations.

I have done everything on AppleWorks.

Steve Jobs is doing us all a disservice here.

Best wishes,
Gerre Heron
Gerre Heron Design

Gerre,

Thanks for writing. In addition to excellent spreadsheet and word processing modules, AppleWorks has a very competent drawing module as well. Maybe iWork 09 will add that....

Dan

What Killed AppleWorks

Otto Schlosser writes:

Hi, Dan. Just wanted to throw in my two cents. I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but the reason that AppleWorks has not been updated for years was what computer experts call "Way Too Much Work." AppleWorks was probably written in CodeWarrior using Carbon (and even pre-Carbon) API calls, so any attempt to modernize it would involve three massive tasks: pull it into Xcode, weed out and replace all the obsolete calls, and, oh yeah, fix all the outstanding bugs. I agree that AppleWorks has earned the right to ascend to open source nirvana, but anyone who wanted to work on it would need to decide if they wanted to dig out their old CodeWarrior disks and simply fix bugs, or commit to what would amount to a ground-up rewrite. Whichever way they chose would give them a hobby for years.

ojs

Otto,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As long as Apple supports Carbon (what legacy feature will they drop next?), a version that fixes the most egregious bugs would be a good start. I doubt anyone would have the time to rebuild AppleWorks from the ground up.

Dan

On Aug 20, 2007, Dan Knight wrote:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As long as Apple supports Carbon (what legacy feature will they drop next?), a version that fixes the most egregious bugs would be a good start.

My impression from the few folks I still know at Infinite Loop is that Apple supports Carbon to the absolute minimum extent possible. All Carbon calls are deprecated if there is any possible way to work around them with Cocoa. My guess is that if you complained to Dev Support that you had found hideous bugs in AppleWorks that rendered it completely unusable, the official response would be something like, "We have no fix date for that. We are advising everyone to upgrade to iWork."

ojs

Otto,

Agreed. With the Intel Macs, Apple broke from Classic Mode, and with Leopard even PowerPC Macs will lose Classic Mode. If I had to bet, I'd bet that Carbon will be the next legacy feature they kill off.

Dan

AppleWorks R.I.P.

A. A. Fussy says:

Hi Dan,

I was sad to learn that the first office suite that I used on a Mac (nine years ago - 1998) has been discontinued.

My experience with ClarisWorks/AppleWorks was versions 4.0 and 3.0 - it was light and very easy to learn and use.

Later on, I used version 5.0 and a pre-OS X 6.0 version at school. They weren't as familiar - strange and weird.

Still have ClarisWorks 4.0 (for OS 8 and Windows 95), and in May bought the last ever version released - and files I make can be used in Pages and Numbers 08.

A few years back, I also bought Homepage from Claris (still used on my Windows PC - but not too often).

Now it seems to be no longer sold, my AppleWorks copy will be a gem to treasure in the years to come.

RIP-AW, developed from 1991-2003 (but still sold until 2007)

-Anthony

Anthony,

Yes, the transition from ClarisWorks 1-4 to version 5 was a jarring one, but we got used to it. AppleWorks will remain in my arsenal for some time yet.

Dan

'Classic' Has Been One of the Best Features of OS X

Christopher Laspa says:

Hi Dan,

I still use AppleWorks 6 daily, but I also use Claris Impact 2.0v3 (1997) as well. Albeit perhaps a bit rough around the edges GUI-wise, it sure does do a lot of things I use often. One of the most cool things about OS X on the PPC side is the ability to use 'Classic' at the same time. What a plethora of super software I have available to me - some of it very reasonably priced!

Anyhow, congrats on the 6-1/2 weeks, and that is a very radiant photo! You guys look really really happy! I know what it is like.

Regards,
Christopher M. Laspa
Creative Director, Principal
999 Art Direction

Christopher,

Thanks for writing. It's years since I've heard anyone mention Claris Impact. And you're right, one of the coolest things about running OS X on PowerPC hardware is the access to so much old software that Classic Mode gives you. As someone still dependent on a single Classic app, that's what keeps me from going to an Intel Mac.

As for married life, it's wonderful. Neither of us has ever been so happy. :-)

Dan

Running AppleWorks for the Apple II on a Mac

Martin Albinger writes:

Can I add just one more story? As everyone one has mentioned, AW is a great program for doing a lot of things. I believe someone mentioned that AW6 was hobbled when the ability to use macros was lost in the transition to OS X. They are still accessible in Classic Mode for those that have computers that can run it. Over the past couple of years I have tried to move away from AW6, but it is just so easy (or I am so used to) doing things with the program.

My story deals with AW5 for the Apple ][. This was an awesome program even though only text, especially coupled with the rich Ultrmacros programming language that could be installed. I remember moving from my trusty ][GS to a Quadra 650 in the mid 90s. What made this possible was a program called Deja ][ by Randy Brandt that allowed you to run it on the 68000 series chip. This program is now more than several years old but what is most amazing is that the other day I had a large text document that needed cleaning up. I remembered I had written some macros to automate the process in AW5. I double click the icon, and lo and behold it booted up in Classic Mode! I imported the text file, ran the macros, and was out in about 5 minutes. There were a few display issues but nothing serious. All this on a trusty old G3/233 desktop with Sonnet 400 G4 card running OS 10.3.9. Does AW5 ever fly at that speed! A testament to the programmers and to backward compatibility we Apple users have in some sense grown accustomed.

I for one am going to really miss AW6 when I no longer have access to it. Given the state of my hardware, using the newer programs can be a tad slow, so until I have the hardware I just don't use the software.

Martin Albinger
just a long time Apple user

Martin,

Thanks for writing. I'm glad to hear you're still able to take advantage of your old Apple II software - and there's even a Universal Binary Apple II emulator for those using Intel-based Macs. Any software written for the Apple II should fly, especially since most of it was machine language and it was optimized to run on a 1 MHz computer.

Until Apple drops Rosetta support from OS X, it should be possible to continue using AppleWorks 6.x on the latest Macs.

Dan

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Dan Knight has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.

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The Low End Mac Mailbag

iWork Can Replace AppleWorks, Classic a Best Feature of OS X, and Apple II AppleWorks on a Mac

Welcome Image and Text

Recent Posts

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Archives

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iWork a Good Replacement for AppleWorks

AppleWorks Lives on My G3

AppleWorks Holdout

What Killed AppleWorks

AppleWorks R.I.P.

'Classic' Has Been One of the Best Features of OS X

Running AppleWorks for the Apple II on a Mac

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