Apple iWorks To Support ODF?
Saturday, 2007-January-06
According to Redirect, Apple is set to announce an improved version of iWorks, with an added spreadsheet application called "Number". There is also some expectation that it will support the use of ODF file formats, but not as default.
iWork ‘07 will include a spreadsheet app (this has been well documented on Apple rumor sites. TUAW ran a story earlier today including what could be a real screenshot of the app — speculatively being called “Numbers” and “Charts”). Pages will include a format that’s practical for actual word processing. Apple will keep their dumb proprietary standard as default, but they’ll support OpenDocument (this is based on the fact that builds of Leopard for some time have been able to view ODF files in TextEdit — Apple generally seems to do things like that across the board.
One non-related item to include here: India's Tamil Nadu State has chosen to switch from Windows and Microsoft Office to Suse Linux and OpenOffice.org. If this trend continues, as I think it might, Microsoft will have to support ODF just to remain relevant.
Apple has been supporting OpenDocument on some applications since August, according to Impulsive Highlighter. Some user comments on that site show that some Mac fans have been asking for a portable format, such as ODF, for some time.
1. Life Outside PLT1 » Fear and Loathing in Redmond. | Tuesday, 2008-February-05 at 20:11
[...] partly after pressure from the Belgians and others. This means that you can now use ODF on iWorks, KOffice, Open Office and MS Office. One piece that i thought interesting is that the OOXML example [...]
2. iWork Not ODF-Capable Yet « Opportunity Knocks | Tuesday, 2008-February-05 at 22:28
[...] 2008-February-05 In January of 2007, I mentioned some speculation that Apple was going to add ODF capability to their iWork suite. Mac users know that this did not turn out to be true. In fact, iWork ships with [...]
3. Life Outside PLT1 | Thursday, 2008-February-14 at 01:15
[...] partly after pressure from the Belgians and others. This means that you can now use ODF on iWorks {edit: that was a rumour, and is not true}, KOffice, Open Office and MS Office. One piece that i [...]
4.
lnxwalt | Thursday, 2008-March-20 at 23:34
UPDATE: 2008-03-20 According to James, TextEdit can open ODF text documents in OS X Leopard (10.5).