Glad to see they finally did something with Numbers, since they've been sitting on the trademark for that for some time. Also nice to see that we are one step closer to not have to rely on Microsoft for an office productivity suite. Wonder if this will bring more into the iWork fold since Office 2008 is now actually coming out in 2008.

John I'm glad they did a updaTE! I was wondering when they would and if it would be before the holiday. I have to say it was good to see Apple taking care of apple stuff.. .mac, ilife, iwork, mac mini's and imacs all a welcome addition. Funny thing is I don't understand why they announced all this kewl stuff and the stock drops...

Actually I am not surprised by the drop in the stock price. Overall I like what they introduced today....but nothing mind blowing. I think the market expected something mind blowing.

The addition of a spreadsheet, assuming that it matches Pages in usefulness and ease of use, will bring me closer to abandoning AppleWorks, especially if it can be integrated with Pages and Keynote (e.g., make a graph in Numbers and export it to Pages or Keynote, without having to copy the raw data). I recently bought Tables, which is quite nice and more "Mac-like" than most other spreadsheets, though a bit expensive ($59, roughly). I'll probably end up using Numbers, but I did want to support Daniel Schwill, who has done a better job than some "large" firms.

The only thing missing, IMNSHO, is a simple relational database application, something like "FileMaker Lite." FileMaker Pro is godawful expensive ($299; $179 upgrade) and has a significant learning curve. (A major advantage is that FMP databases are cross-platform, for the most part.) If Pages had the ability to do merges from "FileMaker Lite," that could close the coffin lid on AppleWorks. I've tried iList Data ($70), but it doesn't integrate with Pages.

Its good to see that they have done the update. Price isn't too bad really considering it now comes with the third program.

Regards, Jason.
http://www.citylinkpcs.com.au

iWork looks tempting as a replacement for Office, not just as a cool companion.

So when are they going to fix the built in apps to work as one application (like Microsoft Entourage) rather than 3 separate things? I know they're tied and connected, so just make them one app? Or at least have the ability to make them one app?

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John F. Braun wrote:
Glad to see they finally did something with Numbers, since they've been sitting on the trademark for that for some time. Also nice to see that we are one step closer to not have to rely on Microsoft for an office productivity suite. Wonder if this will bring more into the iWork fold since Office 2008 is now actually coming out in 2008.

...but yet again, they pick a name for a product which makes it virtually impossible to search for help with it on the web! Googling for "problems with numbers" is more likely to find me an adult numeracy class!

Is this another vendor file format lock-in, or will be be able to use standard file formats like ODF?

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Anonymous wrote:


...but yet again, they pick a name for a product which makes it virtually impossible to search for help with it on the web! Googling for "problems with numbers" is more likely to find me an adult numeracy class!

Oh, you mean like "Word"?

If you want online help with Numbers, Pages, Keynote, AppleWorks, iLife, etc., you can try the Apple user forums.

i just can't find enough time to wait for pages to open etc and cherish appleworks via classic - only problem is that it no longer saves as i go along via apple/S, i can only save via file - i keep on forgetting that and losing stuff; very sad - why doesn't it work?

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Anonymous wrote:
i just can't find enough time to wait for pages to open etc and cherish appleworks via classic - only problem is that it no longer saves as i go along via apple/S, i can only save via file - i keep on forgetting that and losing stuff; very sad - why doesn't it work?

Pages opens for me in about 1/4 the time it would take to launch Classic, then open AppleWorks.

Edit: FWIW, I timed Pages: it took about 8 seconds to launch to the template chooser on my iMac G4 in OS 10.3.9, versus 4 seconds for AppleWorks X--only 4 seconds difference. You don't have 4 seconds? Then, I might ask, why are you using Classic? You surely lose more than 4 seconds launching Classic.

eXtenions has a good review of Numbers. One point that summarizes a lot:

"Templates are where Numbers show how flexible the application is and how different it is from Excel."

Check the screenshots for examples. It's obvious that Numbers is not aimed at the power user, major business users, etc.

Does anyone know how to freeze panes in Numbers? I have a very wide spreadsheet but always want to be able to see columns A & B.

Nope sorry, there's no freeze panes. And although I think it would be handy, the paradigm of Numbers requires you to think in a different way. I find that I am creating many smaller tables on a single sheet, and then across multiple sheets, and (seamlessly) linking them together.

For example, I have my work hours all on one sheet, which feeds into five weekly timesheets ready for signing, which in turn populate my monthly invoice. If I were to be doing that in Excel (and it wouldn't look anywhere near as good), I'm sure I would go about it in a different way altogether - and probably using frozen panes.

If it is still an issue, select Numbers * Feedback and tell Apple about it. You won't be the first by a long chalk, and it may feel there's enough of a response to force its hand into introducing it.