Numbers (iWorks)

[mr.bee]

I'm trying to use Numbers to maybe replace some of my Excel tasks. But wow, what kind of an embarrassment is Numbers? I have a rmbp 11,2 and my work with Excel goes moderately fast. Excel for mac 2016 is still 32bit which is slowing it down, but still manageable.

I just imported 31000 lines in numbers, nothing special, just numbers and some text, nothing behind it.

* It took some minutes before it was imported, every action is very slow, even scrolling makes my fans blow up.
* When I scroll the table disappears and Numbers need to rebuild it every time I stop scrolling.
* After I preformed a basic vlookup with another tab, it remains calculating...
* I preform a basic filter, but it doesn't seem to filter properly?

man, what a disappointment.

Now if you're a freelance and send 100 invoices per year, this program might work, but for everything else, don't touch it with a stick...professional...my ....

 

[chscag]

Apple has "dumbed down" the original iWork apps. As you found out, Numbers is really not a good replacement for Excel. It works OK on small sheets but for anything more complex, Excel should be used. Also, as far as I know, the Office 2016 apps require Yosemite to run and Yosemite is fully 64 bit. I don't understand why MS would code their apps 32 bit?

 

[hughm123]

Re: "I don't understand why MS would code their apps 32 bit?"

Yosemite may run the Kernel in 64 bit mode, but it can still run both 32-bit and 64-bit apps (needed to prevent breaking existing 32-bit programs).

Converting Excel from 32-bit to 64-bit is a lot of work for Microsoft, so it's not surprising they have not done so yet. Also, any add-ins in the form of compiled libraries would no longer work. So presumably they may convert to 64-bit later, but not yet.

 

[mr.bee]

Yeah, it's really sad they stopped taking iWork seriously. I would have loved a native number crunching spreadsheet program.

Ms is apparently working on making it 64 bit and adding the power features. They probably release it as a newer version as to get more office subscribers and not one time purchasers.

You know there's a flood of photo editing apps that rival Adobe, but spreadsheets, there's still only one, Excel. And that market is at least as big, if not even bigger.

 

[maflynn]

Yeah, it's really sad they stopped taking iWork seriously.

I would say they never took it serious. iWork was rolled out years ago, and then it was never really updated. Its not like apple is doing anything different and to that point, I've long given up on using the apps.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

You might also try a couple of other apps:
- LibreOffice
- Tables

The latter is a standalone, somewhat-compact spreadsheet app. Although I'm not sure if it's "robust enough" to handle the loads you wish to throw at it.
Still, might be worth a try...

 

[mr.bee]

I would say they never took it serious. iWork was rolled out years ago, and then it was never really updated. Its not like apple is doing anything different and to that point, I've long given up on using the apps.

I suspect they have some secret deal with MS. Since MS brought out Office for Mac by the end of the 90's, Apple kinda moved away to make any sort of professional office app.

 

[maflynn]

I suspect they have some secret deal with MS. Since MS brought out Office for Mac by the end of the 90's, Apple kinda moved away to make any sort of professional office app.

That's ancient history, I don't think there's any backroom deal to inhibit Apple's own software. That just doesn't make sense.