Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Numbers: disappointment of the year :(
- Thread starter valiar
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Actually, being a physicist...I'm a bit surprised that you even use Excel...it's horrible for scientific data analysis. It's cumbersome with large amounts of data, and fairly "analysis in a box"...and the box got dropped off the truck, run over by the three cars behind it, and knocked into the drainage ditch...
You should look into C++, and some of the great graphical analysis tools out there for linux and unix based systems.
Best,
Brian
You should look into C++, and some of the great graphical analysis tools out there for linux and unix based systems.
Best,
Brian
I'm going to have to disagree with you. Keynote is finally looking like something that can replace Powerpoint. Would the head of a major corporation use a program from a home/small business suite to give a major address to 10,000+ people? I don't think so.
Exactly.
However I see the other points of view where error bars is a pretty simple addition.
I think apple just wants to make a simple program for everyday use, not scientific analysis. Same with Excel.
The birth of the electronic spreadsheet came from an accountant after all.
well, if you say so, I exclude keynote/powerpoint from my conclusion.
presentation is the part of app that has fewest standard problem, I can say openoffice presentation can replace powerpoint too.
being a scientist i have to say i'm perplexed how bad spread sheet applications for data analysis and presentation are. they are all geared to make shiny business presentation charts from 8 data points. and better priograms like sigma plot or spotfire are cumbersome to use and the output doesn't look aestiehically good.
unfortunately apple went the same way. making a chart for the average marketing moron can be done much easier and more beatiful in keynote. give them a 3D bar chart from 8 data points without any error bars and they're happy. what i'm missing is an application that allows you to plot data in a simple and nice looking way with enough power to be useful for the average scientist.
i actually like excel. it's easy to use and has all the funtions i ever needed so far. just the graphs suck. i had hoped numbers does what excel does AND makes nice graphs useful for technical/moderate science tasks. but it looks like another marketing plotter.......
Excellent summary of what I think many in the scientific community are looking for. I understand that Excel is not suitable for heavy statistical analysis, which is best left to other more expensive, and cumbersome software. What is needed is a good looking, easy to use spreadsheet application that will suffice for simple number crunching and data visualization.
It's not aimed at replacing Office - and I don't know how much more obvious that could be. Your best comparison is MS Works, not MS Office.
It is really amazing that the same company that has managed to produce Keynote (a really marvellous piece of software) and iLife has now produced such an unadulterated piece of crud.It is simply amazing.
Here's my frustation with Numbers:
- Keynote is good enough to replace Powerpoint. It is amazing and helps my productivity. It is professional level software.
- Pages is good enough to replace Word. It has become the primary word processing application for my lab, and has helped our productivity. As soon as bibliographic software becomes available that can handle a native Pages format, it will really be complete. It is professional level software.
- Excel is not even close enough to replace Excel. It is missing too many features to have any real utility for our work. It is not professional level software.
There is thus a disparity in the three application in the iWork package.
well, you know the old saying about invention....
anyway, sounds like you have a business plan in the making
well, you know the old saying about invention....
anyway, sounds like you have a business plan in the making
Well, there is the necessity, now Mom needs to make the invention. Come on Mamma Apple!
If you compare the version numbers Pages is at version 3.0, Keynote is at version 4.0 and Numbers is at version 1.0, you can see that it is less developed, but for basic accounting, travel itineraries etc. etc. it is already better than Excel, give it some time
.
Except for #4, I never heard of any of these "essential" features.
Agreed.
There will always be features that one needs but are not available on a program. Give Apple a year or two to figure out what is needed by most of its customers before totally swearing off Numbers. How will it ever get better unless Apple is made aware of key features that are missing?
I was very excited this morning when I have read Numbers have been released. I have been searching for an Excel replacement for quite a while now, and thought my dreams have finally come true.
Excel is not Universal yet, and won't be Universal for almost half a year. And everyone knows Mac version of Excel is crippled (I remember running Windows version of Excel 2003 under Virtual PC because it was faster than native Excel 2004).
Alas... Numbers is not the replacement I was so hoping for.
It is absolutely useless - and I am not sure Apple will ever fix it by the looks of things.
1. There are no error bars in Numbers. Not in the bar chart, not in scatter plot. Numbers can calculate stdev - why not make inserting error bars easy? Even old versions of Excel could do that.
2. Scatter plot implementation is simply a joke - and a really, really, really bad one. Yes, it is THAT bad.
First of all, there is no easy way to plot several sets of "Y" data against a single set of "X" data on a single chart. Instructions in Help specify that two columns of data have to be used for each data series. No, duplicating my "Time" data for every one of my 12 experiment runs is NOT an acceptable option. I have tried to drag additional data columns to the chart, but I could never understand the results of this action.
Second, the data markers are not resizable - and their default size is nothing short of gargantuan.
Third, there is no way to make a spline line through all the data points.
Fourth, Numbers incorrectly names data series. When I select two columns, it is quite obvious that the first column is "X" data - and it is plotted accordingly. Unfortunately, Numbers labels the data series by the name of that first column. Who would ever want to do that?
My fifth and final complaint about scatter are the SLOPE and INTERCEPT functions. Knowing slope and intercept for a set of calibration data is really useful - as long as I also know the corresponding R2 value, and can visually assess the quality of the linear fit on the plot. In Excel it is a two-click operation. In Numbers it is impossible.
3. There is no real inspector for data series. No central place to rename them, change the scope, etc. Even very old verisons of Excel have that.
4. Dragging and selection are seriously mis-designed - and need a fix NOW. Yes, it is THAT annoying.
When hovering over a table, the cursor changes from a "cross" selection cursor to an "arrow" move cursor if it is in the top 25-30% of the topmost table cell. This requires the user (me) to be extremely careful when making a selection. In half the cases I end up repositioning the entire table on the page, instead of selecting the top five rows. After a few times this behavior becomes really, really, really aggravating.
On the other hand, when I want to drag data, it takes some mouse hunting to find the position where the column is actually draggable.
At this point I have stopped my evaluation of Numbers.
I am not talking about fancy curve fitting and data processing a la Origin, Sigmaplot, or ProFit here. I am talking about essential features and usability.
It is really amazing that the same company that has managed to produce Keynote (a really marvellous piece of software) and iLife has now produced such an unadulterated piece of crud.
As much as it pains me, after this I am considering a move back to Windows after using OS X for 5 years. Windows can be annoying and prone to entropy, but at least there is a proper Excel version - and also Origin and Sigmaplot. I have yet to find ANY decent Excel alternative for OS X, and that piece of crud Numbers is might have finally broken the proverbial camel's back
All I can say is Excel v1.0 vs. Numbers v1.0
It is in its early stages and you cant throw every feature you want in version 1. It will have to evolve just like excel did. I thinks it better than throwing every feature in there on the first release than to have all of them and 80% doesn't even work right because they were too busy throwing features in there.
It's part of a 3 app suite for $80, you cannot expect it to have Excel's functionality and especially as a 1.0. It is meant for home users, students needing to make simple graphs, and some small businesses...it would be crazy to use for anything that really warrants Excel.
Would you use Pages to replace Pagemaker and Quark? No. You might use it to replace Word if you only needed a basic word processor, same thing with Numbers and Excel. It's a basic spreadsheet.
Would you use Pages to replace Pagemaker and Quark? No. You might use it to replace Word if you only needed a basic word processor, same thing with Numbers and Excel. It's a basic spreadsheet.
Did you even read any of my later posts?
I am not looking to do any real data analysis in Numbers (nor do I do it in Excel, because Excel cannot do the type of analysis I need done).
I need an application that would allow me to do pretty plots for presentations and papers with minimal amount of effort.
Numbers description on Apple's site seems to fit the bill.
That is, until you actually try it.
I understand why some people on this forum make posts like "I only do my budget in it - and what are those error bars anyway?"
But when Apple developers in charge of a major project behave in the same way - it means that those people are incompetent. It is their job to anticipate a very common use case, and they fail. I can even imagine a meeting they probably had. "OK, let's see... What do people use spreadsheets for? Budgets! And sales reports! And middle school science projects - that is where the big market is!".
What is really amazing is that Keynote IS a Powerpoint killer - and it has been in many aspects a Powerpoint killer even in version 1.0. It has always been an excellent program. Numbers, on the other hand, should not even be billed as a general spreadhsheet. Call it "budgeting application", call it "Spreadsheet for People who Only Have Three Numbers". It is so useless.
Since I don't need to use Excel for fancy things, Numbers will most likely be fine for me. I'll be picking it up this weekend and we'll find out. When Pages first came out I didn't really use it for a year because its layout was so different than Word. But once I gave it some time and actually forced myself to use it, I realized how much nicer it was. I'm excited to no longer have to use ANY MS products! woot!
For $80 it better have the damn error bars. And resizable data markers.
How hard can THAT be?
$80 is a LOT of money for any software. $81 buys me M$ Office in my university. Yes, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage. Now that Apple have literally killed the academic discount on iWork, it is only $10 cheaper at $71.
And as far as comparisons go...
Keynote is a Powerpoint killer. It is BETTER than Powerpoint. Keynote 1.0 was in many respects better than Powerpoint X.
Pages is not a Word or Quark killer. Yet it can produce nice-looking documents, and generally has most features any user would want from a word processing or layout application. It is usable. It was usable in version 1.0.
Numbers, with its lack of error bars, hardcoded chart markers, and completely mis-designed scatter plots, is completely, utterly, totally useless to any scientist, science student - and even some high school kids doing their science projects (see the post above).
If you don't know what error bars are for - it's fine. However, it's not fine when Apple's developers don't know that, or don't think about that. It is their job, and they have just released a very poor piece of software.
I will probably end up buying iWork - for Keynote. At $71 it will be one overpriced presentation program.
funny, but this seems to be true
it's only $79 for 3 pieces of software. compared to the $$$ that you would spend getting word/excel/ppt software from microsoft. hey, you got what you paid for! maybe a little bit more
Have to agree with this!
At my University iWork is $39, however MS Office is *free* (well not really as obviously my employers pay for a site license, but it is as far as I'm concerned). No way iWork is going to replace Excel, but I'm going to get it for Keynote because I'm finally done with PowerPoint.
Seconded. I love Keynote, and Pages is quite useful. But Numbers just doesn't do it for me. The more I think about it though, this might have more to do with the quality of Microsoft's products. I tolerate Powerpoint, I tolerate Word, I love Excel. Maybe my expectations were just too high for Numbers.
funny, but this seems to be true
it's only $79 for 3 pieces of software. compared to the $$$ that you would spend getting word/excel/ppt software from microsoft. hey, you got what you paid for! maybe a little bit more
For 75$ my University can get whole MS Office.....I WANT/NEED error bars!!!! And more control over the plots