Apple Developing Numbers?

[Cooknn]

Try running a SQL query (let alone transaction) on a spreadsheet...

In Access instead of importing the spreadsheet you link to it. I do it all the time when I want to update one spreadsheet from another. Once in your Query you could choose SQL instead of Design View 😛

 

[dejo]

In Access instead of importing the spreadsheet you link to it. I do it all the time when I want to update one spreadsheet from another. Once in your Query you could choose SQL instead of Design View 😛

But now you're using Access for the database, not Excel...

 

[Cooknn]

But now you're using Access for the database, not Excel...

Hehe. Just messing with ya. You did say run an SQL query on a spreadsheet - you didn't say from what program 😉

 

[BWhaler]

It strikes me that the majority of people complaining about Pages are really those who are already comfortably using Word and are simply looking for a product that isn't made by Microsoft.

[Edited for grammar]

Sorry, but you really have no idea what you are talking about.

The fact that Apple had to release a .1 because there was no functionality to delete pages, and a .2 release to move pages--two pieces of functionality that are as common as typing--shows how rough Pages was and not ready for the market.

And this is not even considering the number of massive bugs.

Yes, Pages wasn't even beta quality. I don't know what Apple was thinking. But I assure you it has nothing to do with being comfortable with MSWord. Word sucks, and I, like other power users, wanted to switch to Pages the day it was released. But, Pages simply is not ready yet.

Here's hoping Apple gets their act together for v2.

 

[dejo]

Hehe. Just messing with ya.

You sure were. And I took the bait. Crap. 😀

 

[BarryBrown]

A spreadsheet is a reporting tool. That's all it is, that's all it should be. That's why you export from a database to a spreadsheet - it's good at reporting data. It's not good at organizing it.

A database is for organizing, accessing, and storing data. A spreadsheet will never be good at doing that because there is no logic in the organization, data can refer to anything and a simple error can throw off everything and not even be noticed. There's no real security model nor a good paradigm for creating a security model. It bugs me to no end when stupid corporate managers try to use Excel as a database.

Everyone here is right. Spreadsheets and databases, as they are currently implemented, are not the same thing. Both products lack some of the necessary core features of the other. But what Hattig and others are saying is with a bit of programming, there's no reason why a spreadsheet can't be more like a database.

When I stare at an Excel document, I see a database in the making. Databases, for example, arrange data in tables. Well, a spreadsheet looks a lot like a table. It's got rows and columns. I can put headings at the top of the columns to give them names. I can insert into the tables by typing data. I can alter the data. I can delete the data.

What about multiple tables? Database have those. Excel does, too, in the form of multiple sheets. I can give each sheet a name in Excel and it's almost like giving each table a name in a database.

What Excel lacks is a way to relate the sheets to one another, the way a database can. Nor can Excel easily create new sheets as "views" of my data. But that's just programming. How hard would it be, really, to add a simple, SQL-like language to a spreadsheet to give it database-like capabilities? Heck, it doesn't have to be SQL -- it just has to be easy to use for ordinary people. Here's a simple relational query using Excel-ish terminology. Let's not even assume I've named the columns and sheets and instead use the Excel naming defaults.

create sheet "Sheet5" as
select Sheet1!A:A, Sheet1!B:B, Sheet2!A:A, Sheet2!C:C
from Sheet1, Sheet2
where Sheet1!B:B = Sheet2!D:D

As you can clearly see 🙂 this query creates a new sheet called Sheet5 and pulls data from Sheet1 and Sheet2 by relating them using column B of Sheet1 and column D of Sheet2.

So it's true: Excel as it is now cannot be a very good database (although it tries). But imagine Excel with these two features:

1. The ability to create and manage lots of sheets. While you can create multiple sheets in Excel, it's unwieldy when you have more than a small handful.
2. A relational query language.

You'd then have a spreadsheet that acts like a database. Of course, you could still use it like the flat, 2D speadsheet that you know and love as Excel. Or you could use the relational capabilities and treat it as a database. The use its reporting and charting capabilities to create graphical views of your data (try that in MySQL!).

The fact that we have to resort to exporting data from a database and import it into a spreadsheet just to produce nice graphs from what are, essentially, two very similar data-driven applications means the time is ripe to combine the two into one versatile tool.

Sorry for the long post, but it bugs me that Excel can't do more than it could be capable of. Improv was a spreadsheet that acted like a database. Or was it a database that looked like a spreadsheet? Who knows, because they're the same thing.

 

[Doctor Q]

There is an advantage to having Apple provide a spreadsheet program even if other freeware, shareware, cheapware, and buyware exists for the same purpose. If Apple's suite includes a good-enough spreadsheet, we have an implicit guarantee that it will integrate well with other iLife/iWork/iWhatever apps and work well with Mac OS X and its facilities, like Spotlight. Even if the price/feature ratio is higher than other apps, that edge is significant.

 

[heisetax]

THat would make it Apple Works II

I always thought the problem was that people thought Pages was targetted at Word... and then were a little dissapointed. It's really great when used for it's intended purpose, but a Word killer, it is not (and is not intended to be).

It would be nice to see an alternative to Excel, but I have my doubts to how well it can be... hate Microsoft all you want, but Excel is pretty good at what it does...

<edit>

what would be nice, now that I think about it, is if apple did to Numbers what they did with pages - not targetting excel, but rather targetting the home user, and setting up an easy to use system, with templates that do what the average home user might want from a spreadsheet. I'm comfy using spreadsheets all day long, but if you sit my wife in front of one, she's dumbfounded as to what to do... but if Apple did it up right... it could be a very usefull tool, even for peeps like my wife...

If Apple adds a simple spreadsheet, all that they have accomplished is making an updated Apple Works. If they try to go the other route of competing with Excel, they'd probably fail like all of the others that have tried. I've used Excel since it first came out 20 years ago. A couple of times some thoght they had some competition for Excel. They have all failed. I've tried the spreadsheet in Open Office, but it never came close to meeting my requirements of writing my income tax prep program. I never tried any of the accounting items, so I can't say which ones would work & which ones won't. So either way they'll have a tough sell with most.

I have a copy of iWork that was used only a few times. Much of the time I need to open my text documents on a Windows machine. Most have MS Office on them. For that reason it is just easier to use Word as my Word Processor.

I know that Excel has been at the top of the heap so long that no one has real tried to compete.

A lot of early copies of iWork either went to those that had hope or purchase every Apple program.

Bill the TaxMan
🙂

 

[MongoTheGeek]

Most times I walk past desks at the office, people have Excel open to make calendars, phone lists, and lots of other things that could be done in Word if they set up columns. I think that is what people think Excel is for.

Most people don't use Excel for what it was designed for. Hence the database/spreadsheet question. Spreadsheets are designed for storing and performing simple operations on a variable set of numbers. They are designed to prototype and test a variety of parameters. Databases are to store and relate data and compare how data are related.

Excel is often used as a page layout program and often as a simple database. Filemaker on the other hand I've seen used as a spread sheet. Both can do the function of the other but not well.

I was expecting to hear about a a spreadsheet app but no luck. Apple needs it if they expect iWork to compete. I haven't used pages so I can't comment on its quality.

 

[iMeowbot]

If Apple adds a simple spreadsheet, all that they have accomplished is making an updated Apple Works.

Has anyone confessed to writing Pages? A few of the Gobe (ex-Clarisworks) people ended up back at Apple a few years ago.

 

[Lead Belly]

Is there evidence that Numbers is actually a spreadsheet program? There have been rumors of Apple developing a spreadsheet app and rumors of them developing a financial app. iWork was initially rumored to be an invoicing application.

Numbers could be a home and small business budgeting/finances/billing application. The name Numbers has more of an association with money and budgeting than a spreadsheet, which can be extremely versatile.

This would have a far wider appeal to most of Apple's market (home users, small businesses, freelancers, design studios, etc.) than a spreadsheet program, even though a spreadsheet program can be set up to do all of those things.

There was a market for an artfully done, focused presentation program that Apple has filled.

I feel there is a market for an artfully done, focused document building program that Apple may be able to fill.

Is there a market for an artfully done, focused spreadsheet program? Who truly needs that? People that need a spreadsheet app need the power and flexibility that Excel offers. Most don't need power in a word processing or a presentation application.

Meanwhile, look at iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, etc. It looks kind of like Apple has been incorporating specific-use, speadsheet-like environments into many of the apps we already use. I realize these are not spreadsheets, but to 80% of people looking at them, that's what they would use to a spreadsheet application for. Is it possible Apple is already showing us the extent of their speadsheet intentions by applying spreadsheet-like middleman to purposeful applications?

 

[m4r71n1]

wah?

Good... a spreadsheet app would do iWork good.

Throw in a database, too, and we have ourselves an Office killer... 😉

A sudden flash hit me... In SJ's last keynote, wasnt that microsoft lady up there too for a bit. Hmm.. yea i guess it is possible for a numbers BUT why pick such a crappy name.

Cheers,
ini

 

[macridah]

Bo-ya ...Much needed application. Then buying the iWorks would make sense.

 

[Lead Belly]

The programs are not interchangeable.

Amazon can not use a spreadsheet program to track its inventory, nor will they use a database program to make a financial model of their business.

There's probably a better example. Inventory tracking kind of goes hand in hand with keeping the books and invoicing. This is exactly what a spreadsheet is designed to do. Prior to computers entering the workforce in the 60's, what did all those big companies use for tracking inventory? 🙂

Spreadsheets are still used today by small businesses for inventory tracking in instances where a database would be overkill.

Now tying that tracked inventory databased info into user-centric databased info and applying it to other purposes - up-selling and cross-selling, personalization, demographic targeting - that kind of thing is what a database is really good for.

Everyone here is right. Spreadsheets and databases, as they are currently implemented, are not the same thing. Both products lack some of the necessary core features of the other. But what Hattig and others are saying is with a bit of programming, there's no reason why a spreadsheet can't be more like a database.

When I stare at an Excel document, I see a database in the making. Databases, for example, arrange data in tables. Well, a spreadsheet looks a lot like a table. It's got rows and columns. I can put headings at the top of the columns to give them names. I can insert into the tables by typing data. I can alter the data. I can delete the data.

What about multiple tables? Database have those. Excel does, too, in the form of multiple sheets. I can give each sheet a name in Excel and it's almost like giving each table a name in a database.

What Excel lacks is a way to relate the sheets to one another, the way a database can. Nor can Excel easily create new sheets as "views" of my data. But that's just programming. How hard would it be, really, to add a simple, SQL-like language to a spreadsheet to give it database-like capabilities? Heck, it doesn't have to be SQL -- it just has to be easy to use for ordinary people. Here's a simple relational query using Excel-ish terminology. Let's not even assume I've named the columns and sheets and instead use the Excel naming defaults.

create sheet "Sheet5" as
select Sheet1!A:A, Sheet1!B:B, Sheet2!A:A, Sheet2!C:C
from Sheet1, Sheet2
where Sheet1!B:B = Sheet2!D:D

As you can clearly see 🙂 this query creates a new sheet called Sheet5 and pulls data from Sheet1 and Sheet2 by relating them using column B of Sheet1 and column D of Sheet2.

So it's true: Excel as it is now cannot be a very good database (although it tries). But imagine Excel with these two features:

1. The ability to create and manage lots of sheets. While you can create multiple sheets in Excel, it's unwieldy when you have more than a small handful.
2. A relational query language.

You'd then have a spreadsheet that acts like a database. Of course, you could still use it like the flat, 2D speadsheet that you know and love as Excel. Or you could use the relational capabilities and treat it as a database. The use its reporting and charting capabilities to create graphical views of your data (try that in MySQL!).

The fact that we have to resort to exporting data from a database and import it into a spreadsheet just to produce nice graphs from what are, essentially, two very similar data-driven applications means the time is ripe to combine the two into one versatile tool.

Sorry for the long post, but it bugs me that Excel can't do more than it could be capable of. Improv was a spreadsheet that acted like a database. Or was it a database that looked like a spreadsheet? Who knows, because they're the same thing.

Great post. Necessity is the Mother of Invention and there's been a developing need for speadsheets (or databases) to make this shift you refer to. The movement toward greater and greater integration within and between companies has led to more people needing to access and manipulate database information.

The export/import/export/import delimited dance many have to do with Excel and the company database is clumsy. The $50,000+ content management/marketing/inventory database front-end "solutions" are silly and slow. There's a market for some software developer to think different - I just don't think it will be Apple in this case. 🙂

 

[space1nvaders]

I like iWork and use it very often. For a first time package like this the software isn't bad. Pages is nice and Keynote is awesome. It definitely needs some refinement though, since some elements don't seem to be efficient to use. A spreadsheet application would be a welcome along with .Mac integration.

.Mac needs serious work in my opinion. As of right now it seems totally useless, and I kind of regret purchasing it back when it was on sale for the day after Thanksgiving. One major problem is the online disk space, 256mb of online storage is a joke when Google is offering 2GB and greater for free. And the application Backup has never worked properly for me. And when Tiger was released Apple promised exclusive Widgets for .Mac subscribers, it looks like they have finally had to take down the "Coming Soon" banner from the .Mac homepage. Apple needs to do some serious work on and refinement of .Mac if they expect people to continue signing up for it.

If you check the storage settings for .Mac you can go up to 1GB but it will cost more.

A sudden flash hit me... In SJ's last keynote, wasnt that microsoft lady up there too for a bit. Hmm.. yea i guess it is possible for a numbers BUT why pick such a crappy name.

Cheers,
ini

There have been many cool names in the past for Office applications:

Lotus 123
SuperCalc
Framework
Quatro Pro
Symphony
DisplayWrite
WordStar
Multiplan

Brings back memories...

Now its just Office, Pages, Numbers, iWork

The iLife theme is cool. I see a lot of companies copying it lately. Using Life in their product names.

People work in their homes more today than ever so "Office" is losing meaning to those people. Maybe just iWork is better but it is too close to iWorks and all the "Works" products are always less.

iWork '05 seems a bit better.

But, I don't even use a Word Processor anymore. Sometimes I use Spreadsheets but mostly I prefer a good database. FileMaker is owned by Apple so why not extend that:

FileMaker Pro Suite
- Database Files
- Word Processor Files
- Speadsheet Files
- Keynote Files

All integrated!!

 

[speleoterra]

not intuitive?

Pages doesn't fit into what a nicely made Cocoa app from Apple should look like to me. It is not intuitive at all, taking a while for me to do anything with it. Apple needs to clean Pages up before i start to use it.

Sorry buddy,.. from a design and pre-press background.
Pages is what it is,...and it's way more intuative than Word.
Besides InDesign&Quark for pro stuff,...i have not used word since Pages came out. Even my die hard MS Office corporate wife converted.
It's got room to grow though.

 

[Zion Grail]

I would also like Cells, iDraw, and iPaint to be included.

Great idea.

iDraw? pfffft, pathetic. What we really need is MacPaint 3.0 Vector and pixel drawing (maybe a template popup akin to Keynote and Pages). MacPaint could also be where Clipart is stored. So people could have a "palette" of clipart that one could double click and edit - or not edit at all and copy into Pages or Keynote. That way Apple could encourage people to make their own clipart instead of being in a world where everything uses MS Clipart.

Even better idea!

Someone else asked for better integration between iCal, Mail, and Address Book. Fantastic! Entourage competitor.

1. Put in a serious spreadsheet.

2. Pages is a disgrace. Make it a combination of an "express" version of indesign with the best of MSWord, and you've got a killer word processor.

3. Keynote. Get the bugs out. Put in the missing serious presenter tools, and this app is perfect.

4. Office compatibility. It simply doesn't work in this version. Get it done for v2.

Do that too!

I hope Apple reads these boards. Lots of great ideas here.

I do, however, like Pages. At least as a layout program. I do most of my word processing in either Nisus Writer Express or Word, and then use Pages to make it stylish. Very effective. (Before Pages is an awesome word processor, they need to GREATLY increase the speed, take from Nisus and Word a bit in the features, get a better font selector, and add a grammar check.)

 

[tmornini]

What Excel lacks is a way to relate the sheets to one another, the way a database can.

In Excel, see Insert->Function...->Lookup and Reference.

I use HLOOKUP & VLOOKUP all the time, and people are regularly shocked.

Why the lookup table needs to sorted in ascending order I'll never know. :-(

In any case, I'm not really disagreeing with you. It would be wonderful
to have SQLish queries implemented as formatable sheets.

Who needs Crystal Reports? 🙂

 

[Platform]

This had to come too 😛

Well what to say..........iWork 06 or maby as early as Paris Expo...nah....MWSF 06 😉

 

[mozmac]

To be honest, the only part of the Office suite that I really like is Excel. It is a solid program that does a great job. However, I would love to have an Apple counterpart. It would give me an opportunity to spend even less money on Microsoft.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

In Excel, see Insert->Function...->Lookup and Reference.

I use HLOOKUP & VLOOKUP all the time, and people are regularly shocked.

Why the lookup table needs to sorted in ascending order I'll never know. :-(

In any case, I'm not really disagreeing with you. It would be wonderful
to have SQLish queries implemented as formatable sheets.

Who needs Crystal Reports? 🙂

I really never got H nor VLOOKUP to work. I the help doesn't really help me.

I think that iWork should be bundled with each new Mac. That would be great.

 

[cloud 9]

i like iWork.

I like keynote 2.0 and pages 1.0.
I've bought it because it was way cheaper then M$.
i've made all my papers with it, yes, it's a little bit different then working with Word, but i like working with it. I like it because it's simple. I work even faster with it then with Word.

Are you all such advanced users of Word, or just not motivated to see Pages as a different program?
And Word is annoying, it does stuff i've not told it to do, Pages not.

And you can add shadow with it, that's not something you can do with word ^_^ (that i know of)

Everytime a program comes out i always read the same answers..
'It's not a killer app' or 'it's not that good as blahblah' or 'Apple is Dooomed, doomed i telll you' 🙄

Oh and Word has got this annoying little creature bumping up...telling me what to do...i kno i can put it off, but why does it appear in the first place?

you're all complaining about pages is not good, word is better, well me thinks some of you aren't using word for a looong time... 😀

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Has anyone confessed to writing Pages? A few of the Gobe (ex-Clarisworks) people ended up back at Apple a few years ago.

My understanding is that Pages is actually an application that premiered in the NeXT days, was allowed to languish for a while, then resurrected. Relative to the old Pages, the new Pages (even with the rest of iWork) retails for 5-10% of the price. Yes, that's right - the old Pages application retailed for something like US$5,000.

 

[thoroughbred]

Cells

Sorry I haven't read any replies, I haven't got time right now, hence this could be repeating what someone already mentioned. But I remeber that the orignal iWork was supposed to havre a spreadsheet program called "Cells", who remebers that. Also it matches "Pages". For both of them its the medium in which you would input into. It also sounds a lot cooler.

 

[aegisdesign]

Is there evidence that Numbers is actually a spreadsheet program? There have been rumors of Apple developing a spreadsheet app and rumors of them developing a financial app. iWork was initially rumored to be an invoicing application.

No, that was a mistake. iWork was originally the name for iBiz - http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibiz/index.html

Numbers could be a home and small business budgeting/finances/billing application. The name Numbers has more of an association with money and budgeting than a spreadsheet, which can be extremely versatile.

As long as they don't use iBank. ;-)

http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/index.php

Personally, I think Numbers is a good name for a spreadsheet program.

This would have a far wider appeal to most of Apple's market (home users, small businesses, freelancers, design studios, etc.) than a spreadsheet program, even though a spreadsheet program can be set up to do all of those things.

That need is already filled IMHO by both the aforementioned packages, by MacBusiness, by MYOB BusinessBasics/Accounts/AccountsPlus, by Cognito's MoneyWorks - http://www.cognito.co.nz/ and any number of others - just look on versiontracker

I've used spreadsheets in the past for doing similar tasks but it's a lot of work to set them up - why bother - get a proper accounts package.

I feel there is a market for an artfully done, focused document building program that Apple may be able to fill.

That's Pages. It's here now. It's not intuitive if you've years of Word experience and it certainly has it's rough edges but you can tell they've really thought how a document layout and word processor SHOULD work without mimicking the past. If it's done by the Gobe team then it shows as it melds together functions from a layout program like InDesign and a word processor. Gobe Productive was also a bit of an oddball suite to work with but once you stopped thinking the way Microsoft have you conditioned into using applications, it really worked.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that Pages wasn't a good example of a Cocoa application. I disagree entirely. You can tell from the toolbar to the TextView, from multiple inspectors to the drawer that it's through and through a Cocoa application using all of the NeXTisms. Same with Keynote. Same with Mail until it got butchered in Tiger.

That's why I think some people just don't 'get' Pages (and also Keynote and Mail). Years and years of Microsoft Office indoctrination.

That's not to say it's the one true way though. The whole way Pages handles adding and deleting 'pages' is just bizarre and they should call them 'sections' and add a 'delete page' that actually does delete a single page instead of the section. It also needs to be much, much faster as once a design gets more complex I find I can actually type quicker than it can lay the page out. And that's on a G5 iMac.

Is there a market for an artfully done, focused spreadsheet program? Who truly needs that? People that need a spreadsheet app need the power and flexibility that Excel offers. Most don't need power in a word processing or a presentation application.

I need it. I don't need a full on spreadsheet program like Excel. If the Appleworks spreadsheet allowed for multiple worksheets and more rows/columns than it does and a better Excel import, I'd be more than happy with that. I tend to use about a dozen functions at best. Excel is overkill.

Meanwhile, look at iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, etc. It looks kind of like Apple has been incorporating specific-use, speadsheet-like environments into many of the apps we already use. I realize these are not spreadsheets, but to 80% of people looking at them, that's what they would use to a spreadsheet application for. Is it possible Apple is already showing us the extent of their speadsheet intentions by applying spreadsheet-like middleman to purposeful applications?

Huh? I think you're confusing a spreadsheet with a database. Spreadsheets are like fancy calculators for doing analysis on a set of 'Numbers' and perhaps producing reports at the end of it. Just because you've got rows and columns of info, that doesn't make it a 'spreadsheet'.

Databases are for storing information and finding it fast or presenting it in a meaningful way. iPhoto and iTunes use a database to store data about the files in their libraries. Custom 'database' applications like iTunes and things like Delicious Library are fine, but people still have other uses for databases. It'd be nice to see Apple put a good GUI front end on to MySQL but I suspect they won't as they've got Filemaker already.