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Numbers - first thoughts
- Thread starter dr_lha
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Excel is also not really a scientific application - yet it works with any dataset I can throw at it. I never work with full genome data, but I do want to produce pretty plots from my calorimeter from time to time - and clean up the data a bit too. That is about 20000 rows per channel/10 channels. Excel 2004 can do it - slowly. And it is not even Universal.
Numbers is supposed to be a new, native, Cocoa app written by the same company that makes the OS it is running on. Numbers chokes on my data.
In addition, Numbers lacks a lot of essential things:
*error bars (d'oh! and d'oh again!)
*proper scatter plots
*you cannot easily plot several sets of "Y" data against a single set of "X" data
*linear or polynomial fitting (no, the SLOPE and INTERCEPT functions in Numbers don't count)
*data series inspector
*customizable data markers
On the other hand, I can make 3D faux wood sales charts in Numbers. Sign me on! No, wait...
I guess it is 6 more months of non-Universal Excel for me.
Apple, why do you hate us scientists so much? We consitute a good share of your loyal clients. There probably are more scientist Mac users than marketing droid Mac users. Why is Numbers a marketing droid-tailored program?
Is it Apple's fault Microsoft haven't pulled their fingers out and got a Universal version sorted?
It most certainly is Apple's fault that Numbers is such a piece of crap.
Just like Aperture 1.0, this is a piece of software that should not have been released in its current shape at all.
And, yes, a viable Excel alternative is sorely needed.
Mac Excel was crippled even on good old PPC machines - I remember running Excel 2003 in Virtual PC because it was actually faster than native Excel 2004.
Wow, are they teaching error bars in High School nowadays? I was in honors science (normally you'd choose physics, chemistry, or biology, but honors split the year between all three for each of your last three years,) and we didn't cover it. I didn't learn about them until college.
Password protect numbers files?
I'm a fairly basic Excel user at home - some personal finance spreadsheets, etc so I'm sure Numbers will do everything I need from a functional perspective. Can anyone tell me if I can password protect a spreadsheet within numbers?
I'm a fairly basic Excel user at home - some personal finance spreadsheets, etc so I'm sure Numbers will do everything I need from a functional perspective. Can anyone tell me if I can password protect a spreadsheet within numbers?
I don't see a password protect feature. Although honestly, Excel's password protect feature has been hacked, so it isn't that safe.
The trouble with Numbers is that it just seems to be an inferior copy of Excel, the only thing Apple have really innovated with is the layout abilities. It doesn't seem that much easier to use than any other spreadsheet app and everything else in it is an extremely bog standard Spreadsheet. I was really hoping that they would really innovate in the spreadsheet area to make it work very differently. By making an App that closely resembles a standard spreadsheet app they're just inviting comparisons with the market leader.
This is however a 1.0 app, and I think its very nice for that. I'm sure that the glaring omissions (like error bars) will be fixed in the future. My biggest issue however is the sluggishness of the program compared Excel and Openoffice. Hopefully that will improve too.
BTW - I'm in agreement about lab use of Excel. For most of my work I use either dedicated software, or combinations of my own python tools and a MySQL database to handle large datasets. However for some things I do Excel is simply convenient as a quick and dirty tool. I'm certainly not one of those people who thinks Excel is a database program!
I played with Numbers a bit last night, and for small data sets (couple hundred rows, 50 columns) it works fine. It has all the basic features that I use in my every-day work, but when I dug deeper, looking for some of the features of Excel, they weren't there. It looks like it is targeted somewhere around the "uses a computer to organize recipes" computer user. This is just their first cut, so maybe it will grow features as they see what users want most.
What I'd really like to see from Apple is a set of "Pro" business applications to complement the "Home" applications of iWork. Just as they have Pro-level audio and video applications that are much more feature-rich than the iLife apps (which are excellent for the price), I'd like to see the same for the business side.
With all the attention Apple is getting from iPods, iPhone, and iTV, it gives Apple a great opportunity to draw many business professionals into their computer products. It might be worth the cost for them to spend time creating professional business application.
What I'd really like to see from Apple is a set of "Pro" business applications to complement the "Home" applications of iWork. Just as they have Pro-level audio and video applications that are much more feature-rich than the iLife apps (which are excellent for the price), I'd like to see the same for the business side.
With all the attention Apple is getting from iPods, iPhone, and iTV, it gives Apple a great opportunity to draw many business professionals into their computer products. It might be worth the cost for them to spend time creating professional business application.
I took Grade 11 U Level Chemistry and Physics and will be taking Grade 12 U Level Physics in the upcoming year... I've never heard of an error bar. So they're not teaching it in Ontario at the High School level.
There's a difference: Word is just dying for someone to come along and do word processing right. Excel is pretty much the pinnacle of spreadsheeting. Well, on Windows anyway. (It's okay to say this because Microsoft didn't develop Excel--they acquired it from another company
) I bought iWork 'cause I hoped to get away from Excel in Parallels and I hate Excel for Mac. So far I've thrown two pretty basic projects at Numbers and been denied both times. The first because the conditional formatting sucks (you can only format the cell that the condition is based on) and the 2nd because autofilter is non-existent.It is missing a number of key features such as error bars (yes I use those a lot), best fit regressions (everybody uses those) and I wish there was some more flexibility on formating the graphs.
For a 1.0 product I am very impressed. It makes really nice looking spread sheets; which is something the industry is missing. I really like the templates that came with Numbers and I can see how, for the average home user, Numbers would be a perfect program for them. Just like iPhoto. I hate iPhoto because it can't do what I want it to do; my mom however, loves iPhoto because it simplifies the process and gives her just a few options that she can understand. I think that Numbers is perfect for its current, target market.
I'm used to using this graphing program made by goldensoftware for data analysis. It has a lot of very powerful graphing functions and is good enough for a lot of analysis, but the graphs look so unappealing. I can't picture Apple ever making a graphing program as powerful as this one, but if anyone knows of someone who makes one for either OSX or Linux, please let me know.
For a 1.0 product I am very impressed. It makes really nice looking spread sheets; which is something the industry is missing. I really like the templates that came with Numbers and I can see how, for the average home user, Numbers would be a perfect program for them. Just like iPhoto. I hate iPhoto because it can't do what I want it to do; my mom however, loves iPhoto because it simplifies the process and gives her just a few options that she can understand. I think that Numbers is perfect for its current, target market.
I'm used to using this graphing program made by goldensoftware for data analysis. It has a lot of very powerful graphing functions and is good enough for a lot of analysis, but the graphs look so unappealing. I can't picture Apple ever making a graphing program as powerful as this one, but if anyone knows of someone who makes one for either OSX or Linux, please let me know.
I noticed that as well. Threw in an Excel spreadsheet that I created a few years ago. Contained data for my aquarium with a chart. Upon opening it I noticed the chart wasn't looking just right, so I deleted it and recreated with the Numbers chart tool. It felt like there was a memory leak or something. Terribly slow. And the chart was still very wrong. I was bummed. Hoped to replace Excel. Not just yet on my Power Mac.
Below is what it looked like in Excel. I've also attached the spreadsheet. Maybe it's a PPC thing...
Attachments
Numbers
Numbers has exceeded my expectations.
I am actually going to.... buy iWork. I know it is missing some features, but it also has several features that are missing in Excel. Very intuitive interface. Pages and Keynote upgrades are pretty substantial too. Beats the hell out of the 149$ office for mac suite imo.
Numbers has exceeded my expectations.
I am actually going to.... buy iWork. I know it is missing some features, but it also has several features that are missing in Excel. Very intuitive interface. Pages and Keynote upgrades are pretty substantial too. Beats the hell out of the 149$ office for mac suite imo.
The only thing that I seem to not find is how to get calculations from another numbers document. Like how in excel you can get calculations from another xls document. has anyone noticed or figured out how to do this?
Kudos to Apple
So Kudos to Apple for FINALLY releasing a spreadsheet program.
Another Kudo for realising that people want Pages to also be a word processor.
I think its great that Apple has released Nubers.
Finally, someone has made it easy to make spreadsheets pretty , while remaining useful. Anyone who has attempted to make a pretty presentation in Excel knows this frustration.
I would like to see Apple release the next version of Numbers SOON.
This time with the understanding that there are people out there that want a spreadsheet program TO BE A SPREADSHEET PROGRAM
Spreadsheet users (myself included) need hardcore spreadsheet functionality, so we can drill down into information.
I was hoping that Apple would release a true spreadsheet program that could take on Excel. I dont know what kind of agreements that Apple has with Microsoft.... BUT COME ON! Functionality over aesthetics, especially with the first release of a spreadhsheet program.
Who here thinks Apple needs to have two software divisions, when it comes to iWork? Pro vs. 'Sumer.
WE all know Apple can do it.... and weve all been waiting for it.....
So when is Apple gonna really step up and compete, especially in the real business world? They stepped up with FinalCut Studio...So why not REAL business app suite?!
Good first release though!
Sigh...as I hang my head and shuffle back to Excel...
So Kudos to Apple for FINALLY releasing a spreadsheet program.
Another Kudo for realising that people want Pages to also be a word processor.
I think its great that Apple has released Nubers.
Finally, someone has made it easy to make spreadsheets pretty , while remaining useful. Anyone who has attempted to make a pretty presentation in Excel knows this frustration.
I would like to see Apple release the next version of Numbers SOON.
This time with the understanding that there are people out there that want a spreadsheet program TO BE A SPREADSHEET PROGRAM
Spreadsheet users (myself included) need hardcore spreadsheet functionality, so we can drill down into information.
I was hoping that Apple would release a true spreadsheet program that could take on Excel. I dont know what kind of agreements that Apple has with Microsoft.... BUT COME ON! Functionality over aesthetics, especially with the first release of a spreadhsheet program.
Who here thinks Apple needs to have two software divisions, when it comes to iWork? Pro vs. 'Sumer.
WE all know Apple can do it.... and weve all been waiting for it.....
So when is Apple gonna really step up and compete, especially in the real business world? They stepped up with FinalCut Studio...So why not REAL business app suite?!
Good first release though!
Sigh...as I hang my head and shuffle back to Excel...