THE TRANSMUG REPORT
With the onset of 64-bit processing on the iPad, the time is coming soon for truly mobile translators. Should TransMUG’s mission include iOS devices?
FASTER, STRONGER…CHEAPER! Have the iPhone® and the iPad® sucked all the oxygen from the Mac®? It sure did feel like it for a while this year, until the unveiling of OS X® Mavericks and the renewal of the iWork® productivity suite. And with only one really new computer, the new Mac Pro®, assembled in the USA, Macs were not big news.
So for us translators, it turned out to be a year of limited, incremental upgrades. Of course, it didn’t include Office for Mac, already a year late on the PC version. And there is still no iWork format that would work with a CAT tool, nor is there any native CAT tool, either. We are left with iWork—and more precisely Pages®, and OS X Mavericks as pièces de résistance. But wait, now they are free!
Mavericks is bringing a sweet list of improvements including a smarter Calendar, a faster and more efficient Safari®, synchronized passwords and autofill, easy tagging in Finder®, advanced management of multiple displays, and efficient management of memory and battery life. For Pages, it’s a mixed bag. First, the file format has changed once more, but its compatibility with Word is decent. Second, a handful of power features (if you consider the vertical ruler a power feature) have been removed—to ample chagrin on the Support boards, but the overall look and feel is clearer, simpler, and still full of well-organized tools for writing and laying out your document.
There is a hint of the new iOS 7 style in the new Pages for Mac, but it’s not yet the “flat look” now displayed on iDevices. I am curious to see how this look will eventually translate on the Mac. After Microsoft’s Metro UI misstep, I imagine that the good people in Cupertino are not in a rush…
On the hardware side, the whole lineup gained speed with newer chips, and cheaper starting prices in spite of higher performance. The latest machines integrate new, faster, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and USB 3 connectors throughout. Thunderbolt 2 has even found its way onto the Mac Pro as well as the new MacBook Pros®. When you consider this landscape and the fact that the youngest computer users are now bypassing PCs altogether in favor of tablets, and now with the onset of 64-bit processing on the iPad, the time is coming soon for truly mobile translators. Should TransMUG’s mission pivot and now include iOS devices? Become iTransMUG? Let us know! Check us out at TransMUG.com and become a member of our MUG by signing up with our Yahoo! Group. YA
Translorial is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, Finder, iPad, iPhone, iWork, Mac, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, OS X, Pages, and Safari are trademarks of Apple Inc.
