Mac Numbers now supports LAMBDA functions and MAP

[robin_reala]

I genuinely enjoy using Numbers in a way that I just don’t with Excel. Probably more indicative of the level I’m using it at, but for me it fills the gap where I just want to do some quick manipulations of CSV data but not enough that it’s worth writing a script.

[diegof79]

I like the feature allowing multiple tables to be in the same spreadsheet. It’s a convenient and obvious solution that, for some reason, Excel or Google Sheets don’t have. Does anybody know the history behind it? Is there any kind of patent around that UI feature that only Numbers (AFAIK) has?

[alabastervlog]

Pretty much the entire suite of 1st party Apple programs are my favorite in their categories, across platforms.

Their "office" apps remind me of the lightweight non-LibreOffice options on Linux, like Gnumeric and Abiword, but better integrated, less janky, and I've never once seen any of them crash. I like that I can forget I even have them open in the background, they're so light. Which should be the case for practically everything given how powerful modern computers are, but, unfortunately, Electron exists.

[isomorph]

I'm also a Numbers fan. I actually like using Pages too. When I use Microsoft Office, I remember its power but I also find it relatively difficult to use.

[c0nsumer]

Same here. For just knocking up models of stuff I find it both nicer than Excel (and included with the OS) and works... better... for me than Google Sheets.

It's just convenient and works.

[qsort]

I use macOS and the rest of the pseudo-office suite. It's okay. But Numbers is just bad. It takes forever to open files and perform even trivial operations. I do a lot of data engineering and people's "creative" usage of Excel is the bane of my existence, but there's a reason why it's used everywhere: it's that good. None of the clones even hold a candle to the real thing.

[fkyoureadthedoc]

My main use of Numbers is when I open a CSV file and it's messed up in Excel, I then open it in Numbers and export an Excel which fixes the issues.

[WillAdams]

It is _so_ close to being a replacement for Lotus Improv/Quantrix Financial Modeler/Flexisheet.

Just held back by the need to import/export Excel files.

[sgt]

Excel is horrible. Functionality is great (it's packed with features), but it's just so clunky and slow. So I have to agree, Numbers feels like a light weight Excel that meets my demands as well.

[friendzis]

If I follow the link I am brought to extremely generic Apple support page with exactly zero indication that we are talking about the Numbers app.

How do you determine, from this support article, the scope where it applies?

[reader9274]

It's about formulas. Click on Table of Contents --> Welcome, and you'll see "Use formulas and functions in tables in the iWork apps—Numbers, Keynote, and Pages"

[mritchie712]

I've used Numbers as my todo list for about a decade now. I've tried other things, but I've always come back to it. I have a table with:

* name

* priority

* DUE

* status

* notes

And a formula that sorts based on due / priority. Typing "done" in status removes it with a filter.

[daft_pink]

I really wish Numbers was fully Excel compatible and I could get rid of this Microsoft spyware nonsense. I even bought WP Office, but even that tries to force you into their cloud drive.

I really wish there was a fully compatible Microsoft Office that I could use across my Apple devices that doesn’t shove some random cloud solution and end up with my files spread all over the place. I would pay more to have a OneDrive less office.

[cadamsdotcom]

It won’t be 100% compatible for everyone, but LibreOffice - with OneDrive connected via an app that exposes your shares’ contents as files - might work.

Worth a try at least.

[MobileVet]

Numbers looks wonderful, but for deep business needs it has a LONG way to go before it is at all comparable. It is great they are adding functionality, but I am curious what market segment they think they are meeting?

We just broke down and bought a Windows based machine because MS Excel is so limited on a Mac that it was forcing our accountant into time wasting inefficiencies and general hair pulling.

[dijit]

I know that you must have assessed LibreOffice Calc at some point.

What were the sticking points that made it unviable?

I have had people in my org who are terrified of running Calc over Excel due to compatibility with other organisations- but I wasn’t aware that it was functionally incomplete as a competitor.

[praestigiare]

I mostly don't use Numbers for very much because it's not easy to share and collaborate. Everyone has Excel. Everyone has Sheets. That said, I routinely use it as a first step in converting CSV and other text based delimited data. Open or paste into Numbers and it almost always does a perfect job of determining columns when Sheets and Excel choke.

[username135]

Not caffeinated enough. I thought the title was referring to mac addresses and I was really wondering how that would work.

[soegaard]

Danes: Feel free to give this bug report an upvote.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256032425

[asplake]

Do they have SPLIT and JOIN also? I have long wished for those in Excel

[nhinck2]

Text join and split are now in excel

[ZeroCool2u]

Just occurred to me that I've no idea what Numbers even looks like, because it's always been hard blocked on my corporate MacBook.

[spiffyk]

I just learned of Numbers' existence, as I haven't seriously used a MacBook ever, but I'm curious, why would they block it?

[MartinMond]

All it's missing is a constraint solver

[jwhiles]

I was briefly terrified this was Lambda in the AWS sense

[badlibrarian]

That's sort of how Python works in Excel. You can insert Python code into a cell, but it runs in the cloud. No option (yet) to keep it local. They're nuts.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/introduction-to-p...

[lazystar]

whys that?

[northisup]

"Mac Numbers"