I admit that my CECILY+APPLE=2GETHER 4EVER posts get to be a little much sometimes, but believe it or not, Apple occasionally does things that rub me the wrong way.
I recently downloaded the trial version of Apple’s iWork 08 productivity suite. I’ve been using it pretty much exclusively at work (*shhh!*) for the last few days, and what I’ve seen of the application has finally convinced me that Pages, Keynote, and Numbers are mature enough for me to finally set aside any Microsoft apps when it comes to creating deliverables for work.
Because it is a trial version, each time I open an application, I see Apple’s iWork 08 trial splash screen:
If you know anything about Apple’s software, customizing installation options isn’t exactly transparent. Unlike when installing Windows-based applications, Apple doesn’t usually provide its users a choice between performing a “Typical”, “Custom”, or “Complete” installation. If you’re anything like me, you rarely read these screens anyway, but I digress.
I installed all three components on the same day at the same time.
As such, I would think that the software or the system would be smart enough to know that I already selected the “Try” option when I launched Numbers earlier today, so it shouldn’t show this screen again when I open Pages or Keynote later. Nor should it display the screen if I should close and re-open the application on the same day, unless I’ve had to reboot my system.*
If this were anyone else other than Apple — the company that touts the interoperability of it’s iWork and iLife applications — I wouldn’t expect as much of the user experience, but it is precisely because Apple makes such a big deal about being intelligent software that gets out of the way of what you want/need to do that this annoys me so much.
*(Come to think of it, Apple’s not the only one who does this. Adobe does it as well. So much for proving my objectivity when it comes to all things Apple Inc.)
