{"id":524945,"date":"2010-04-12T16:00:48","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theappleblog.com\/?p=43948"},"modified":"2010-04-12T16:00:48","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T20:00:48","slug":"numbers-on-the-ipad-doesn%e2%80%99t-add-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/524945","title":{"rendered":"Numbers on the iPad: Doesn\u2019t Add Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Numbers for the iPad is an outstanding standalone application. The creation of basic spreadsheets is uniquely optimized for the iPad layout. However, Numbers does not share well with others, and if you use Excel at all, you should probably just move along to another app. Numbers is “fun” but not terribly functional.<\/p>\n

When first opening the Numbers app, a “welcome” spreadsheet walks you through the very basics. A spreadsheet on making spreadsheets! Once you do the walkthrough you can either create a new blank spreadsheet or use one of the 15 provided templates including a Mortgage Calculator, Auto Log, Travel planner and more.<\/p>\n

Usage<\/h2>\n

Navigation within the spreadsheets is very similar to the desktop version of Numbers. Tap on a cell to change the contents and a specialized calculator shows up at the bottom of your screen. From there you can tap out your info or use the side pad to switch to functions (250 are included), standard input keyboard, date\/time functions and logic. One difference between desktop and iPad versions is the use of tabs. The iPad version has stylish tabs at the top to move between sheets, while the desktop version puts sheet navigation on the side.<\/p>\n

Similar to desktop Numbers, the Inspector includes the ability to insert Photos, Tables, Charts, and Shapes. Items naturally flow around existing data and editing a chart is simply a tap and drag. Instead of being a palette, the inspector is a drop menu in the upper right hand corner of the iPad. As with other applications, undo can be accessed from a button or by simply shaking the iPad. Even if you aren’t familiar with Numbers (Excel fan here!), it was extremely easy and intuitive to understand.<\/p>\n

Getting help on the iPad version of the iWork suite requires a connection to the internet. When you choose Help from the Tools menu, Safari opens to a custom Apple webpage. This significantly limits Help’s usefulness, especially in situations such as an airplane when internet access is unavailable or cost prohibitive.<\/p>\n

Importing Limits<\/h2>\n

If you want your spreadsheets to live their lives from creation to deletion inside the iPad ecosystem, this review would be over. Awesome product well worth the $9.99. However, the process of importing and exporting documents complicates things significantly. Mark Crump’s<\/a> and Chris Ryan’s<\/a> observations of the obfuscation are similar to mine.<\/p>\n

To get spreadsheet information into the iPad, you have a three basic choices. The most obvious one, using your iDisk, is not supported! That’s a game-ending flaw in my opinion. Before using Numbers, I used Quickoffice to edit files on my iDisk. Unfortunately, as of this writing Quickoffice has not been recompiled for the iPad and looks ugly. Whichever method you choose, it’s important to note the changes are not synced directly. The iPad makes a copy and changes you make are saved to internally to the iPad.<\/p>\n

So how do you get an existing spreadsheet into Numbers on the iPad? First, you can access it via an email attachment either through the iPad Mail app, or via Gmail’s web interface. Safari was smart enough to allow me to open an Excel attachment from Gmail into Numbers. That was a welcome surprise.<\/p>\n