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C’mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!

By | January 6, 2012, 12:01am PST

Summary: iWork ‘09 was released three years ago today (on January 6, 2009) and it hasn’t received a major update since.

C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers! Jason O'Grady

Back in November 2011 I wrote a post titled Where the heck is iWork ‘12? In it I complained how the last major release of Apple’s productivity software suite – iWork ‘09 — has sat idle. Coincidentally iWork ‘09 was released three years ago today (on January 6, 2009) and it hasn’t received a major update since.

I know some iWork customers that are starting to regret their purchase of iWork over, say Office for Mac 2011.

A comment in the Talkback by NoAxToGrind summed things up particularly well:

Apple isn’t all that interested in personal computers anymore, they have phones to sell.

Well said.

Today I want to vent about a one particular component of iWork in particular, Numbers. When is Apple going to finally release a upgrade (not an update) to this dinosaur?

Numbers couldn’t handle importing a 6MB CSV file.

Numbers can’t import an Excel file with more that 64,000 rows.

Numbers needs function parity with Excel.

Speaking of Excel parity, how about a Format Painter feature for Numbers? This can’t be difficult to add.

And one cannot talk about Excel parity without mentioning pivot tables.

Lastly, Numbers performance is anything but speedy. In fact, it’s abysmal. I have a relatively tame no-formula five column table with 6000 rows and changing a value in a single cell requires 20 minutes to update the graph. That’s 20 minutes – not 20 seconds. With all the processing horsepower of a MBP, that’s absurd.

Come on Apple. Upgrade Numbers!

In the meantime you can give Apple your thoughts on Numbers and iWork ‘09 here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/

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Topics

Apple Inc., Parity, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Jason D. O'Grady

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve

    • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

Talkback Most Recent of 29 Talkback(s)

  • Junk software
    iWork is really, really bad software, and Apple must surely know this. It's so bad, it's not even worth writing about.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Tim Acheson
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @Tim Acheson I find iWork to be a very accomplished, polished piece of software that handles my workflow just fine. For you to comment 'is really, really bad software' and give no justification for this, frankly is childish. 'Apple must surely know this' - C'mon Tim, that just reads as a totally naive comment. In future try to form a basis for your opinion otherwise it just comes across a troll-like comment.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Stuart Denton
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @Tim Acheson
    I'll bet pounds to peanuts you've never even used it! You are just another anti-Apple ranter.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Habiloso
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @Tim Acheson Numbers is admittedly sub-par, but I find Keynote vastly more powerful and capable of producing professional striking presentations than PowerPoint. You can achieve similar results in PowerPoint but with a hell of a lot more effort. Pages is actually really good for producing worksheets (I'm a teacher) and the ability to save to a PDF natively (as you can in all OS X apps) makes it very easy to create a non-editable electronic copy I can fling up on to our Virtual Learning Environment for students who missed the class/lost the sheet/have a hungry dog that ate the homework happy

    Numbers isn't very good for most spreadsheet stuff, but it is good for producing tracking lists (got married last year and we used Numbers for the guest list and working out the seating plans etc. but we used Excel for the financial side of it all as it is far better at actual numbers ironically!).
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Ben_E
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @Tim Acheson

    Tim, in every forum, you are simply a Microsoft cheerleader. As others have mentioned, it's pretty clear that you've never even used the software and you certainly haven't provided any reasons which justify your position. Numbers does suck compared to Excel at most things, though it actually has some better graphing capabilities. Numbers is also the newest and least mature product in the suite. Keynote is better than Powerpoint though. Layout is easier, templates are better, simple things like centering objects are much easier, etc. Pages is comparable to Word. They each have advantages and disadvantages. For example, simple page layout like doing a brochure or newsletter is much nicer in Pages. But hey, don't let the details get in the way of your pre-disposition for anything that comes from Apple.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    techconc
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    Why don't you just buy Microsoft Office 2010 and save yourself all this trouble.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DreyerSmit
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @DreyerSmit
    You mean Office 2011 - and it has its problems, too.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Habiloso
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @DreyerSmit I did and Office 2011 is plain awful. Many commands and actions are moved around with no reason to do so other than for "change". PowerPoint is so appalling that if I have to make a PowerPoint deck, I do it in Keynote and export to PPT. Apple should release an updated suite without a doubt, but even iWork 2009 is more advanced than Office 2011.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Jwmf
    6th Jan
  • Though I was the only one having Office 2011 problems
    @Jwmf I find Office on the Mac to be a pain to use .... because they could not keep the commands consistent. Also, not all features are supported on the Mac version.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    wackoae
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @DreyerSmit - because some of us don't give Microsoft a dime or support any of their warez.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    The Danger is Microsoft
    6th Jan
  • at least i get support from Apple Store
    to use Apple iWorks, none for Windows products (note $99/year fee)

    during fall, there was a free workshop at the SF Apple Store Main, where an experienced Apple dude from NYC were teaching us to improve our Keynote skills.

    Unfortunately, something happened in October and the privilege and honor wasn't reinstated. But it was a great experience!!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    samliu0207@...
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    Just buy Office.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    ccrockett@...
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @ccrockett@... - never!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    The Danger is Microsoft
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    Yes Apple have phones to sell. But as Nokia and soon also RIM will realize that business can soon turn sour. Nokia will soon be back to making toilet paper, RIM to cleaning toilets and Apple would be able to fall back on their loyal Mac customers, unless of course the the new rakes at Apple have been forgotten about their past without Jobs.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    rhon@...
    6th Jan
  • RE: C'mon Apple, upgrade Numbers!
    @rhon@... Sorry, what's this got to do with this iWork and Microsoft Office discussion? Shouldn't you be trolling some other thread where you think people actually know what you are talking about?
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Stuart Denton
    6th Jan
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