Reported: Apple’s Microsoft Word Killer
The new package, said to be named “Document,” includes 100% import and export functionality with Microsoft Word files, but goes much farther than that venerable word processor has ever managed in giving the user a full-scope document development environment (a term used by one of our sources in describing the new product).
It is said that Apple Document will draw heavily from the experience gained within the KeyNote development team, but has been a completely independent project within Apple. And, many of the rich feature concepts evident in KeyNote will also be present in Document, with full implementation of the Aqua interface and of Quartz graphics, including anti-aliased text.
Sources say that Document will seamlessly import and export components in a large number of formats, from Word, Excel, and Photoshop, among others. And, most interesting is a report that it will also provide many alternate output format choices, including advanced .PDF (with selectable compression), several levels of HTML (including DHTML), a wide assortment of multimedia formats, and will provide easy to use tools for adding XML tags to documents.
Hmm, very intresting. I hope it , or something pretty close to it, is comming from Apple.
[via reality bytes]
8 replies on “Document?”
Can anyone say “OpenDoc”?
The good news for Apple here is that because it is a new program on a new platform, they have the ability to do something really cool without legacy.
The bad news is that 2% of the computer population will actually give a damn about this
Engle, your point brings arise to an interesting question. What steps is Apple putting into place so that in 2 – 5 years they will not be hindered by “legacy code” or “backwards compatability”?
I wasn’t talking about legacy code, I was talking about legacy paradigms (paradigm isn’t a buzzword anymore, is it? can I use it now without sounding like a freaking suit?). It isn’t a matter of coding style, but rather one of the mental landscape of computers.
OpenDoc was WAY ahead of its time. It is how computers should work.
That is, it is how computers work until someone comes up with a better idea (which they haven’t).
If Apple does follow through on a new and improved (that is, EXISTENT) OpenDoc, then it is just time until Microsoft does its own bastardization of it and the idea gets into the public consciousness.
That seems to be the way things work right now: Apple innovates, Windows steals, Linux makes it free….
…Then the next Big Thing comes along.
Actually Microsoft is already working on it’s version of an OpenDoc reader/creator in OneNote. They will probably screw it up but there is lots of poetntial in use of XML and SOAP in there.
Yum. SOAP.
(I’m taking a 2 week course on SOAP now)
Yeah, I’ve heard of the MS research into this and it may have some potential, esp. if they market it as Office2004 or something.
And maybe, just maybe, they will get it right. How long will it take OpenOffice to do the same?
Which brings me to the next thought. Take the ideas behind the standard productivity suite, word processor, spread sheet, database and personal organizer. Now XMLify the whole thing, interconnect with SOAP/XML-RPC and throw in some brain dead easy scripting language.
Well OpenOffice already has the XML part, actually has the scripting, now it also probably has the SOAP/XML-RPC or it should be a drop in from one of the Apache projects.
So why has no one tried to do something with all the potential?
MS is already doing a lot of SOAP/XML stuff…. but that doesn’t mean that it is going to be anything like OpenDoc. The OpenDoc idea is more of an interface issue (lots of small programs interacting to make a document… like UNIX for the GUI) than it is a scripting/programmatic issue (file formats, scriptability, etc.).
MS *WILL* get the scripting right, I have a feeling. It is the interface that they will complexify to death.