Keynote, Apple and XML
The more I work with the Keynote file format, the more clear it becomes that whoever designed it did not really think much about people like me:
<div paragraph-spacing="2.32"><![CDATA[Here's one paragraph stuck in CDATA.
Here's another; separated by a newline.]]></div>
Sigh … this is just bad design, and it pisses me off when I see this (and a whole slew of other decisions that make it difficult to work with the data) in the file format. If this is the standard to which Apple developers are expected to rise, I guess it’s not surprising that most of the Mac applications that work with XML show similarly poor design choices. In comparison, Microsoft’s schemas are significantly better.
Moreover, I dislike that Apple still seems plagued by the not-invented-here syndrome. They have yet, for example, to join the OASIS OpenDocument effort.
Sorry Apple, but you’re systematically driving me away from OS X applications. Keynote is the latest example; a sluggish, feature-poor application that has not seen a significant update in almost two years. Where’s the cutting edge web integration? Where’s SVG?
If you don’t get serious about XML (in other words, XML done right) and about standards, at some point you may drive me away from the platform altogether.
