Is Numbers Right For You?
September 23rd, 2007 | by Michael |Note: I originally posted this on the forums under the title:
Who is Numbers for?.
Introduction:
Numbers is a spreadsheet program released by Apple Inc, in August 2007, as part of the iWork suite of productivity applications. While the iWork suite is marketed toward business users, power users of more mature productivity suites, such as Microsoft Office, may find the iWork tools, especially Numbers lacking.
What’s different about Numbers?
The fundamental difference in Numbers versus traditional spreadsheet applications is the ability to control page layout via what Apple terms the “canvas”. The canvas allows the user to layout multiple tables, images, text elements and charts on a sheet with a great deal of control. Page elements can even be overlapped to produce a layered effect.
Features:
In addition to the layout capabilities, Numbers has the following features:
- Import/Export to Excel (personally, I have had mixed results with this).
- Checkbox, sliders, and dropdown lists can be added to tables.
- Ability to drag and drop some functions from the sidebar.
- Full editing capabilities while in print preview mode.
- An XML native file format, using document bundles to contain media and associated files.
- Tables can be resized to only include what the user needs.
- Import CSV files by dragging and dropping.
What’s missing?
Users, or potential users, should keep in mind that Numbers is a “1.0” application. It is an unreasonable expectation to assume that Numbers would be as feature rich as Excel, considering that Excel has been under development for over 20 years. Numbers capabilities will grow over time, but in Numbers ’08, some features that you may be used to in other applications are missing. These include:
Missing Common Features:
- No support for Array Formulas.
- Numbers slows down with very large tables, or formula intensive sheets in comparison to Excel.
- Inability to select cells while building formulas by moving the arrow keys.
- Primitive views of formula dependencies, and zero help with formula errors.
- Inability to lock cells.
- Inability to freeze cells for scrolling.
- Cannot password protect files.
- Handles time differently than Excel. This requires more-complicated formulas to create things like time sheets that are simple and straight forward in Excel.
Missing Power User Features:
- No Pivot Tables.
- No Scripting / Macros.
- Problems with advanced charting (specifically scientific and statistical applications).
- Lacks Analysis Toolpak functions found in Excel.
- No ability to link to external data (i.e. databases & web queries).
Resources:
- NumbersTemplates.com & NumbersTemplates.com Forums
- Apple Discussions Forums
- Numbers tutorial videos on apple.com
4 Responses to “Is Numbers Right For You?”
By Sue Ashby on Sep 23, 2007 | Reply
I’m not so sure that iWork was targeted at business users who, as we all know, are hogtied to MS Office.
Pages and Keynote in particular are great for many business users but Numbers requires an even more flexible approach to get the best out of it.
Business users seem to expect Excel Plus not beaut version 1 software that is made for lateral thinkers. No doubt the memory requirements will be fixed with the other bugs but it will never be Excel plus. It’s spreadsheet software for the rest of us.
Just my 2 cents worth
Ashka.
By Michael on Sep 24, 2007 | Reply
Sue,
Thanks for the comment.
Here’s my thinking:
* I suspect that Numbers will catch up to Excel in functionality at some point in the future (this could take 5 or more years). My reasoning is that Numbers currently meets the needs of 70 - 80% of all Mac spreadsheet users. This means that only 20 - 30% of users will be potential buyers of the next version of Office. I think that means the next version of Office for the Mac, could be the last version of Office for the Mac. If so, Apple will have to improve Numbers, or risk losing power users to other platforms.
* From my reading on other boards, I get a real feeling that a lot of users are desperate to get anything made by Microsoft off their systems (too much bad blood over the years).
* Lastly, Numbers would have to add features to entice users to upgrade. Pivot tables may be hard to implement, but surely locking and freezing cells would be fairly trivial to add.
Just my two cents, it could go either way. Thanks again for participating.
- Michael
By Al on Sep 26, 2007 | Reply
A fair chunk of the improvements wouldn’t even need to be done by Apple internally. Focus on these:
-Plugins.
-Scripting.
-External Data.
Once you have a way to add a new, arbitrary function or chart type, then any little niche that has a crazy chart type, or a function that is unwieldy when expressed in the more common functions, can go off on their own.
Both Scripting and External Data are focused on getting it done. Stripping the raw data off a company RSS feed, or a company webpage, or whatever. and exporting (via script) a particular chart. Or publishing it to the web. Whatever.
By Gus on Oct 17, 2007 | Reply
I’m a power user of Excel and the lack of basic functions really sucks (pivot table and external data ARE basic functions nowadays, I wouldn’t say that they are power user features and the freeware Open Office has both!).
I do would say that today Numbers is a very good companion tool for Keynote or if you are only interested in professional looking charts or table layouts as we can see in magazines and books.
I’m a enthusiastic for Apple products and software but I think that Apple has missed some important basic steps when it has developed Numbers: market research!