We've all used Microsoft Word, the most ubiquitous word processor on the market, at one point in our lives. It still proves to be a staple, especially in education, but there are plenty of competitors vying for our word processing loyalty.
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I genuinely think this is the biggest software advance for writers since the word processor. Michael Marshall Smith, NYT best-selling author. Scrivener gives you the freedom to make a mess, the confidence to know you’ll clean it up, and the semantic relationships to tie it all together in whatever way makes the most sense to you. Bean is a small, easy-to-use word processor that is designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable. Bean is lean, fast and uncluttered. It starts up quickly, has a live word count, and is easy on the eyes.
If you aren't a fan of Word, aren't interested in purchasing a full office suite, or you really just need a new, free word processor, check out the best of the best below.
1. Google Docs
Likely the most popular word processor after Microsoft’s own, this list couldn't exist without Google Docs. Docs is available by way of Google Drive, which lets you upload the usual suspects — documents, photos, videos and files — to your 15GB of free storage.
The clean, classic Google design makes Docs easy to use, and it syncs across your devices. Edit as much as you want, and if you change your mind, Docs saves and tracks all your changes from the moment you start typing.
Docs is known as the saving grace of group projects both near and far — see what your teammates are doing in real-time, or easily chat with them in the sidebar.
Be sure to look into the Drive’s many other apps: play with Quickoffice to quickly open and edit Docs on your phone or tablet, Keep to stay organized, Drawings to add visuals, or Sheets to collaborate on spreadsheets.
Download the free Drive app for your iOS or Android device.
2. Textilus — Microsoft Word Edition
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Image: Knowtilus
iPad users are probably familiar with Textilus, Knowtilus' flagship word processor. This comprehensive, rich-text app supports more than 32 languages, is often updated and has a variety of formatting options — more than 60 different fonts has to do the trick, right?
Textilus lets you create and edit documents that can be opened in Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, Scrivener and Nisus Writer. Insert photos, charts, signatures and drawings. Export your work in various formats, and sync with Dropbox, iCloud, Evernote or Scrivener to stay updated.
Use the snapshot feature to take a picture of the current state of the document. This picture is sent to the app’s snapshots folder, where it can be shared or saved indefinitely.
You can also search directly within the program via Google, Wikipedia or the dictionary, and customize the 25 toolbar buttons for your convenience. Textilus documents are compatible with hundreds of other word processors, such as Pages, Microsoft Word, Notes and more.
3. TextEdit
Image: Apple
Ever since Apple acquired computer company NeXT, it has distributed TextEdit on OS X to replace SimpleText.
Similar in design to PlainText, you simple need to open TextEdit and type away. You can format and lay out the page, create tables and lists, work with HTML, and import images, music and movie files. It automatically corrects spelling as you type, and on OS X Mountain Lion, you can also dictate using TextEdit.
4. Kingsoft Office Writer
Image: Kingsoft Office
Writer is part of the entire Kingsoft Office suite (along with Spreadsheets and Presentation), and it creates documents that are highly compatible with Microsoft Word.
The program supports rich text editing, document encryption, 'night read' mode, picture and table operation, and more. Writer also opens emailed documents in almost every format, and it’s easy to grab files from various locations.
The 2013 release added a sections tab and three different skins, and it made creating an in-text table especially intuitive.
Still, it may not be as elegant and clean-cut as other word processors — take, for example, the oversized toolbar. (It’s recommended that you set the document to full-screen.)
5. Pages
Image: Apple
Apple announced on Sept. 10 that it will give iWork for free with all new iOS devices. That means each newly purchased iPhone, iPad and fifth-generation iPod Touch receives Pages, normally $9.99, free of charge.
And although Pages is primarily geared towards iOS and Mac users, Windows users can use the web version Pages via the excellent iWork for iCloud. On the web users can create, edit and collaborate on documents with many of the same features in the iOS and Mac apps.
Additionally, the company announced at the iPad Air launch event on Oct. 22 that Mac OS X Mavericks and iWork would be free.
Pages gives you all the tools you need to create beautiful documents. Text automatically wraps around inserted images, charts and tables. Access more than 60 templates, or start with a blank slate.
You can also track comments, save documents as Word files, share them with your coworkers and access your work through iCloud.
Image: Mashable composite. iStock, spxChrome, Wikimedia Commons
For the past few years, predicting the CPUs that Apple would put inside its Macs has been relatively easy. Ever since Apple made the move to Intel’s x86 processors, the Mac road map mirrored Intel’s road map: Intel would release a new CPU, and a few months later Apple would release a new Mac. It was like clockwork, and it removed some of the surprise from Apple’s otherwise difficult-to-predict product-release cadence.
But over the past year, Apple effectively smashed that clock. It all started with the MacBook Pros released in April 2010.
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In that round of updates, only two members of the MacBook Pro family—the 15-inch () and 17-inch () models—got Intel’s then-new Arrandale microprocessors (more popularly known as the Core i5 and Core i7 chips). Those CPUs took advantage of some of Intel’s most up-to-date technologies—including a 32-nanometer manufacturing process, Hyper-Threading, and Turbo Boost. The 13-inch MacBook Pro (), however, stuck with the older Core 2 Duo CPU.
The simple decision to stick with the Core 2 Duo indicated two things: first, that the Apple-Intel relationship might not be as cozy as it once was; and, second, that Apple really likes graphics processing units (GPUs). Those two points will drive much of Apple’s hardware decision-making over the next two years.
Intel inside?
Apple is the best kind of manufacturer a CPU vendor could partner with: Its products virtually market themselves. And being associated with the Apple brand is still a very good thing. The company is known as an early adopter of new technologies (at least those it believes in). The retail prices for its products are high enough to allow the company to use the best available hardware. Apple owns the hardware and software stack, so it can implement new features on a whim without waiting for slow software partners to catch up to market trends.
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Though working with Apple can certainly be a pain, those benefits are apparently lucrative enough that Intel relaxed almost all of its usual marketing standards. Apple chooses where to put Intel’s logos on its products. You won’t always see a mention of specific Intel brands in Apple marketing. (Apple does include Intel model numbers in its tech specs.) For example, Nvidia gets a mention on the box the Mac mini ships in, but Intel doesn’t.
As far as I can tell, Apple’s customers didn’t mind when it used the Core 2 Duo in the 13-inch MacBook Pro (and, more recently, in the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Airs). If those products sell just fine, Apple will probably no longer see the need to use Intel’s latest and greatest products.
At the same time, Apple has seen the need to use powerful GPUs in its computers. You can’t buy a Mac today that doesn’t have a robust GPU of some sort. Even the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros pair their integrated graphics with an Nvidia GPU, just in case you need it. Thanks to the OpenCL spec, such GPUs can be used for more than just real-time graphics rendering, taking on general computing tasks as well.
So you have a company that seems no longer to care as much as it once did about Intel’s CPUs, but that increasingly cares a lot about GPUs. While I can’t imagine Apple dropping Intel altogether, these two factors make me wonder whether Apple will at least consider using CPUs from AMD in the next two years.
The AMD option
AMD’s CPU-GPU strategy is a little different from Intel’s. AMD has started introducing its first Fusion class of processors, which it calls APUs (Accelerated Processing Units). These APUs combine an AMD x86 CPU with an AMD GPU on a single die. The GPUs that AMD is implementing are not only very powerful compared with Intel’s GPUs, but they are capable of running general-purpose apps via OpenCL should a developer choose to write to them.
The first AMD processor that should be of interest to Apple-watchers is known as the E-350. Its CPU falls between that of an Intel Atom and a Core 2 Duo, but offers much better graphics performance. (For the microprocessor architects among you, it’s effectively an out-of-order Atom paired with an 80 SP GPU.) I don’t really see a spot for the E-350 in Apple’s current lineup, unless Apple wants to push out a MacBook Air that’s even smaller (or less expensive) than the 11-inch model.
Next up is the Llano. This APU will pair a CPU that’s faster than the E-350’s with a GPU that’s much faster. Llano could be an interesting option for Apple’s smaller notebooks, but I don’t see Apple giving up CPU performance in the larger MacBook Pros for one of these integrated AMD solutions.
Sometime in 2012, however, AMD will likely release a new, more powerful CPU core and pair that with one of its GPUs. If Apple is going to consider moving any of its products to AMD, that would be the time. Apple and AMD have been discussing Fusion over the past couple of years. Whether or not it’s simply to keep Apple’s options open is up for debate at this point. I guess we’ll find out in 2012.
Building a Sandy Bridge
Intel won’t be standing still all of that time. The second-generation of its Core i-series CPUs (code-named Sandy Bridge) will come out in January 2011. Apple would get much better overall performance and hardware-accelerated video transcoding from these chips; their adoption in Macs is pretty much guaranteed.
Sandy Bridge will have on-die graphics, but that hardware won’t support OpenCL. While I believe Sandy Bridge’s graphics will be fast enough for the majority of OS X users, I don’t think Apple will want to stop shipping OpenCL-capable GPUs in its systems. For that reason, we may continue to see discrete GPUs shipped with most Macs sold even in 2011.
I’d expect to see Sandy Bridge chips appear in MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and iMacs sometime in the first or second quarter of 2011; I’d expect the Mac Pro to get Sandy Bridge sometime in 2011’s third or fourth quarter. Given the recent release of the new models, I wouldn’t expect to see the MacBook Air get a serious update until late 2011 at the earliest.
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In late 2011 or early 2012, Intel is expected to release Sandy Bridge’s successor: Ivy Bridge. That should provide a more capable GPU core than Sandy Bridge; whether or not it will meet Apple’s requirements for a compute-ready GPU is still unknown.
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[Anand Lal Shimpi writes for AnandTech. Illustration by Tavis Coburn.]