Apple 'Charts' Spreadsheet Application?

[safXmal]

Maybe I'm alone in this sentiment, but I don't think Apple needs a spreadsheet app in the iWork suite. Apple could derive much more functionality by including a database app. Think of it as a kind of FileMaker Lite. I think a good name would be "Data."

Comments, anyone?

Why not make some kind of a mix between a database and excel. As you know a lot of people - me included - use excel as a kind of database.

I often use it at work to analyze logistics data. Which means plenty of columns with descriptive data about an item and then a few with some calculated numbers. I could use Acces but that is way to cumbersome for the simple data I have to analyze. Besides Acces is not easy to use when you want to make something quick and dirty.

Regularely I use the pivot tables in excel but those are way to limited. I can only have a few columns with descriptive data.

 

[Snowy_River]

I will certainly buy iWorks if they include charts. I only use spreadsheets to make my invoices, and calculate the family income and expenses. Office is too expensive for just that

Have you considered using Pages for your invoices? I'm surprised that Pages 2 didn't come with Invoice templates. The new calculating charts feature makes it quite possible.

Food for thought...

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

Have you considered using Pages for your invoices? I'm surprised that Pages 2 didn't come with Invoice templates. The new calculating charts feature makes it quite possible.

Food for thought...

It comes with one invoice template that uses a "numbers" table for simple line item extension, tax, and totals.

 

[Snowy_River]

It comes with one invoice template that uses a "numbers" table for simple line item extension, tax, and totals.

Why so it does! I missed it because it was with the "Stationary" templates, not the "Business" templates. Needs a bit of reorganization, if you ask me...

[Edit]
Done, now Invoice appears in Business. And I also got rid of the other language localization files, as I have no use for them and I can always get them back using the install disk, thereby reducing Pages' disk footprint by about 500MB
[/Edit]

 

[JFreak]

Why not make some kind of a mix between a database and excel. As you know a lot of people - me included - use excel as a kind of database.

Excel _IS_ a database. It's only rather limited and has simple front-end to it. But you're onto something here, and Apple is probably doing something like that. Why release Excel-copy and Accel-copy when you can mix them and create something new? I'm waiting, and if they nail it, I'm buying.

 

[Snowy_River]

Excel _IS_ a database. It's only rather limited and has simple front-end to it. But you're onto something here, and Apple is probably doing something like that. Why release Excel-copy and Accel-copy when you can mix them and create something new? I'm waiting, and if they nail it, I'm buying.

I'd say that's a little bit of an over simplification. Excel may be a database, but its front-end is specifically designed to be used in the way that a spreadsheet is used. Now, perhaps in the same vein as Pages having a "Layout" starting point and a "word processing" starting point, Charts could have a "spreadsheet" starting point and a "database" starting point. In both cases, the same underpinning would provide the muscle to the different interfaces, and the interfaces would be exchangeable.

I'm just thinking that, while Filemaker Pro may be able to do more than Excel, Excel's dedicated spreadsheet interface simplifies being able to use it for those purposes. Perhaps Filemaker Pro could be a contender with Excel if it offered a real spreadsheet interface as an option. (If Filemaker Pro has improved their Table view so it works better as a spreadsheet and I'm speaking through my hat, please forgive me, as I'm still working with the first version of FMP that went OS X native.)

So, again, I guess I'm reiterating what some others have said that perhaps a "Filemaker Lite" would be a good thing to have, but put a really good spreadsheet front-end on it, and you'd have a winner.