If you think about the basic concept of a spreadsheet and a database, you will realise that they have more in common than they don't. Both apps can have columns and cells, both can catagorize relationships between points of data, etc. Actually, over the years, either has been used for simpler purposes. It's only when more complex database types were developed (relationial, object oriented, etc.) that they diverged to what we see today.
Transforming one into the other is easier than you think.
The core difference between a database and a spreadsheet is that one (a database) is much more structured than the other (a spreadsheet).
It's like the difference between Illustrator and Photoshop. Sure, there's a lot that's similar, but the data formats are completely different. You can't paint pixels in Illustrator (data is stored essentially as text instructions; in Photoshop it's mostly binary) and you can't make random linkages in a database (data is stored as structured tables with predefined rules, rather than free-form linkages between cells as in a spreadsheet).
So there may be many similar things in the UI (palettes and whatnot), but the data structures are completely different.
I beg to differ. If all you're doing is using a spreadsheet to store lists and simple calculations then yes, the difference is small. However, spreadsheet programs have much richer mathematical modelling functions than SQL has and databases have much richer relationship functions than you can do in a spreadsheet.
You're confusing the front end with the engine underneath.
Yep, exactly. (I was composing my previous message as you posted this.)
I know when it came out, I bought it them. As I say, it was around long enough.
Apple has had Filemaker for how long now? They could have come out with a spreadsheet for iWork 05 if they wanted to. The fact that they haven't, could simply mean that they haven't wanted to, not that they couldn't.
Do you think Apple wants to compete with ms on an office alternative? Their behaviour seems to say no. It must have been talked about between Apple and ms, and what Apple has done, so far at least, is not to come out with the Numbers.
Again, we're assuming that Numbers was supposed to be in iWork 06, a supposition for which there is as of yet no evidence.
It has been leaked that iWeb was supposed to be part of iWork 06, but was moved to iLife.
It took two years for Pages to appear, and the first rumors of Pages came 18 months before the product actually showed up. We just heard about Numbers this past September/October.
Pages got a major upgrade in this release, filling a lot of the holes in its feature set.
Between these three points, it seems reasonable to me that Numbers will arrive in iWork 07, as between iWeb and Pages 2 it was not the priority in this release. I certainly hope it does, and I'm taking an optimistic point of view, to be sure.
Again, we're assuming that Numbers was supposed to be in iWork 06, a supposition for which there is as of yet no evidence.
It has been leaked that iWeb was supposed to be part of iWork 06, but was moved to iLife. It took two years for Pages to appear, and the first rumors of Pages came 18 months before the product actually showed up. We just heard about Numbers this past September/October. Pages got a major upgrade in this release, filling a lot of the holes in its feature set.
Between these three points, it seems reasonable to me that Numbers will arrive in iWork 07, as between iWeb and Pages 2 it was not the priority in this release. I certainly hope it does, and I'm taking an optimistic point of view, to be sure.
May you be found to be correct. That would be a happy thing. One still must wonder about Apple. The home seems to be more the target.
I wish there were more of a business/office presence in the Mac world.
Do you think Apple wants to compete with ms on an office alternative? Their behaviour seems to say no. It must have been talked about between Apple and ms, and what Apple has done, so far at least, is not to come out with the Numbers.
That's why I said that they could have had a spreadsheet if they wanted one.
Hell, they could have lifted the one from Appleworks!
That's why I said that they could have had a spreadsheet if they wanted one.
Hell, they could have lifted the one from Appleworks!
All that one hears/reads is various reports and rumours, but you may very well be correct.
On the other hand, I suppose one can argue that what seems like a detente with microsoft, allowing an agreement between them, gives microsoft the additional Mac office customers, and also gives Apple the time to further develop their own goods, for the day when they really come out at the office/business market. "Plotting and dreaming", as Richard Rosenblatt said. Actually, Apple seems more content to aim at the home and living room, the studio, the designer, and the gym.
All that one hears/reads is various reports and rumours, but you may very well be correct.
On the other hand, I suppose one can argue that what seems like a detente with microsoft, allowing an agreement between them, gives microsoft the additional Mac office customers, and also gives Apple the time to further develop their own goods, for the day when they really come out at the office/business market. "Plotting and dreaming", as Richard Rosenblatt said. Actually, Apple seems more content to aim at the home and living room, the studio, the designer, and the gym.
Sure. Besides, we don't know what Apple is really doing. We don't even know if there really is something called Nunbers at all!
These games we play with the rumors reminds me of the books the psyhics write.
They make 100 predictions for the year. Three or four actually happen. Another five or six sort of kinda happen. Another ten can use a LOT of stretching to come anywhere near the prediction. And the rest are not even on the same planet.
But people rejoice over the "lucky" three or four, make excuses as to why the next five or six weren't that close, and mumble something about how the other ten almost seemed to have something to do with what was said.
The other eighty or so are just completely forgotten.
So, we can hear rumors about this, and Apple might not care anything about it at all.
Maybe in another year or two they will change their minds.
I do think they need a replacement for Appleworks. The lack of it will cause a headache for the K-12 schools.
Sure. Besides, we don't know what Apple is really doing. We don't even know if there really is something called Nunbers at all!
These games we play with the rumors reminds me of the books the psychics write.
They make 100 predictions for the year. Three or four actually happen. Another five or six sort of kinda happen. Another ten can use a LOT of stretching to come anywhere near the prediction. And the rest are not even on the same planet.
But people rejoice over the "lucky" three or four, make excuses as to why the next five or six weren't that close, and mumble something about how the other ten almost seemed to have something to do with what was said.
The other eighty or so are just completely forgotten.
So, we can hear rumors about this, and Apple might not care anything about it at all.
Maybe in another year or two they will change their minds.
I do think they need a replacement for Appleworks. The lack of it will cause a headache for the K-12 schools.
Having known a woman who was a fortuneteller, who made a deal out of things, that is a good observation. The psychics are such crocks. But, some of them desire to make people feel better, not just make money. I cannot stand listening to the crockery. But the woman I knew was pleasant.
Mumble mumble. Mumbling is useful.
Yes, it would be a good thing for a new AppleWorks to appear. The Kid Pix Deluxe, or whatever it is called now, is fine for those younger ones. That must soon be making a transfer to the Mac intel platform, I know two of their apps have. Apple must have some thing planned for that, unless they have lost their minds about the education market, which I do not believe they have.
[BI do think they need a replacement for Appleworks. The lack of it will cause a headache for the K-12 schools. [/B]
I don't know about the USA but in the UK, 8 year olds get taught how to use PowerPoint and Excel. It's depressing that they get indoctrinated with bad software at an early age.
The one good thing though is I had an 8 year old show me how PowerPoint worked. I've never used it before. Not had call to in 20+ years of business. ;-)
I don't know about the USA but in the UK, 8 year olds get taught how to use PowerPoint and Excel. It's depressing that they get indoctrinated with bad software at an early age.
The one good thing though is I had an 8 year old show me how PowerPoint worked. I've never used it before. Not had call to in 20+ years of business. ;-)
Eight year olds using Excel, real useful.
In sixth grade, my daughter had a "careers" class! Another real useful bit.
On top of that.. I forgot to mention that I live in Vancouver, BC, Canada. This is where more business people (that I know of within graphic, sound, video, fashion or even medical) are starting up with Macs, and we'll be getting a new Apple store on Robson within the next 3 months!
Cheers.. and here's to a virus free computer experience....
All that one hears/reads is various reports and rumours, but you may very well be correct.
On the other hand, I suppose one can argue that what seems like a detente with microsoft, allowing an agreement between them, gives microsoft the additional Mac office customers, and also gives Apple the time to further develop their own goods, for the day when they really come out at the office/business market. "Plotting and dreaming", as Richard Rosenblatt said. Actually, Apple seems more content to aim at the home and living room, the studio, the designer, and the gym.
The more I think about it, I think I see where iWork is coming from.
Keynote was built because Jobs wanted best-in-class presentation software for Apple presentations.
What if Pages was built for similar, Apple-related purposes?
There is a program that Apple employees need and have been requesting for years.
Framemaker.
Apple needs an app with long document features to produce all those manuals that come with all those cool Apple gadgets.
And Adobe hasn't updated Framemaker for OS X.
I have zero experience with long document software, but Pages is more of a page layout app that word-processor, so it could be given long document features and used for Apple manuals.
And all the while Jobs uses the fear of an "Apple Office" suite to encourage Microsoft to sign multi year deals.
I hope so too. Filemaker wouldn't be a good place to start from for either a spreadsheet or a database program today. It's one crufty piece of software. Crufty in concept, crufty in implementation. I'd rather use Access than have to use Filemaker.
The more I think about it, I think I see where iWork is coming from.
Keynote was built because Jobs wanted best-in-class presentation software for Apple presentations.
What if Pages was built for similar, Apple-related purposes?
There is a program that Apple employees need and have been requesting for years.
Framemaker.
Apple needs an app with long document features to produce all those manuals that come with all those cool Apple gadgets.
And Adobe hasn't updated Framemaker for OS X.
I have zero experience with long document software, but Pages is more of a page layout app that word-processor, so it could be given long document features and used for Apple manuals.
And all the while Jobs uses the fear of an "Apple Office" suite to encourage Microsoft to sign multi year deals.
Pages has a loooong way to go before it can be used for that.
Doing document preparation is a very heavy duty task. Footnotes, endnotes, chapter heading, subheadings, table of contents generation, index generation. Tabling, etc.
It's not a skip and a jump from Pages to Framemaker.
It's still pretty much the card index system it was back in the 90s, is a bad carbon app that doesn't tie in with OS services very well and only recently had SQL bolted on, badly.
I'd rather use Access and even Apple would rather use 4D internally.
Pages has a loooong way to go before it can be used for that.
Doing document preparation is a very heavy duty task. Footnotes, endnotes, chapter heading, subheadings, table of contents generation, index generation. Tabling, etc.
It's not a skip and a jump from Pages to Framemaker.
Although Pages 2 does actually do all of those now.
It is however missing an outliner and group collaboration/versioning which from my old tech document authoring days would be a major hindrance. It's got comments now which is halfway there.
I really don't like the descriptions of it being more a layout program than a word processor though. It's a perfectly adequate word processor for most tasks. The fact the layout tools are exemplary doesn't detract from it's word processing calibre.
It's not a layout program. Ie. it's not InDesign or Quark. Both of which are great layout/DTP programs but absolutely terrible word processors. I personally think MS Word is both an average word processor AND terrible at layout. It scores on the group collaboration front. Pages 2 is better than Word at pretty much everything except where a feature is missing. What it has, it does well. What it doesn't have, it doesn't have yet.
If you're after writing a novel or long journalistic piece, then IME you can't beat a good text editor. Word processors aren't what you need. There's too much extra stuff that stops the creative flow.
Comments
Originally posted by melgross
If you think about the basic concept of a spreadsheet and a database, you will realise that they have more in common than they don't. Both apps can have columns and cells, both can catagorize relationships between points of data, etc. Actually, over the years, either has been used for simpler purposes. It's only when more complex database types were developed (relationial, object oriented, etc.) that they diverged to what we see today.
Transforming one into the other is easier than you think.
The core difference between a database and a spreadsheet is that one (a database) is much more structured than the other (a spreadsheet).
It's like the difference between Illustrator and Photoshop. Sure, there's a lot that's similar, but the data formats are completely different. You can't paint pixels in Illustrator (data is stored essentially as text instructions; in Photoshop it's mostly binary) and you can't make random linkages in a database (data is stored as structured tables with predefined rules, rather than free-form linkages between cells as in a spreadsheet).
So there may be many similar things in the UI (palettes and whatnot), but the data structures are completely different.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
I beg to differ. If all you're doing is using a spreadsheet to store lists and simple calculations then yes, the difference is small. However, spreadsheet programs have much richer mathematical modelling functions than SQL has and databases have much richer relationship functions than you can do in a spreadsheet.
You're confusing the front end with the engine underneath.
Yep, exactly. (I was composing my previous message as you posted this.)
Originally posted by melgross
I know when it came out, I bought it them. As I say, it was around long enough.
Apple has had Filemaker for how long now? They could have come out with a spreadsheet for iWork 05 if they wanted to. The fact that they haven't, could simply mean that they haven't wanted to, not that they couldn't.
Do you think Apple wants to compete with ms on an office alternative? Their behaviour seems to say no. It must have been talked about between Apple and ms, and what Apple has done, so far at least, is not to come out with the Numbers.
- It has been leaked that iWeb was supposed to be part of iWork 06, but was moved to iLife.
- It took two years for Pages to appear, and the first rumors of Pages came 18 months before the product actually showed up. We just heard about Numbers this past September/October.
- Pages got a major upgrade in this release, filling a lot of the holes in its feature set.
Between these three points, it seems reasonable to me that Numbers will arrive in iWork 07, as between iWeb and Pages 2 it was not the priority in this release. I certainly hope it does, and I'm taking an optimistic point of view, to be sure.Originally posted by Fireball1244
Again, we're assuming that Numbers was supposed to be in iWork 06, a supposition for which there is as of yet no evidence.
It has been leaked that iWeb was supposed to be part of iWork 06, but was moved to iLife.
It took two years for Pages to appear, and the first rumors of Pages came 18 months before the product actually showed up. We just heard about Numbers this past September/October.
Pages got a major upgrade in this release, filling a lot of the holes in its feature set.
Between these three points, it seems reasonable to me that Numbers will arrive in iWork 07, as between iWeb and Pages 2 it was not the priority in this release. I certainly hope it does, and I'm taking an optimistic point of view, to be sure.
May you be found to be correct. That would be a happy thing. One still must wonder about Apple. The home seems to be more the target.
I wish there were more of a business/office presence in the Mac world.
Originally posted by NordicMan
Do you think Apple wants to compete with ms on an office alternative? Their behaviour seems to say no. It must have been talked about between Apple and ms, and what Apple has done, so far at least, is not to come out with the Numbers.
That's why I said that they could have had a spreadsheet if they wanted one.
Hell, they could have lifted the one from Appleworks!
Originally posted by melgross
That's why I said that they could have had a spreadsheet if they wanted one.
Hell, they could have lifted the one from Appleworks!
All that one hears/reads is various reports and rumours, but you may very well be correct.
On the other hand, I suppose one can argue that what seems like a detente with microsoft, allowing an agreement between them, gives microsoft the additional Mac office customers, and also gives Apple the time to further develop their own goods, for the day when they really come out at the office/business market. "Plotting and dreaming", as Richard Rosenblatt said. Actually, Apple seems more content to aim at the home and living room, the studio, the designer, and the gym.
Originally posted by NordicMan
All that one hears/reads is various reports and rumours, but you may very well be correct.
On the other hand, I suppose one can argue that what seems like a detente with microsoft, allowing an agreement between them, gives microsoft the additional Mac office customers, and also gives Apple the time to further develop their own goods, for the day when they really come out at the office/business market. "Plotting and dreaming", as Richard Rosenblatt said. Actually, Apple seems more content to aim at the home and living room, the studio, the designer, and the gym.
Sure. Besides, we don't know what Apple is really doing. We don't even know if there really is something called Nunbers at all!
These games we play with the rumors reminds me of the books the psyhics write.
They make 100 predictions for the year. Three or four actually happen. Another five or six sort of kinda happen. Another ten can use a LOT of stretching to come anywhere near the prediction. And the rest are not even on the same planet.
But people rejoice over the "lucky" three or four, make excuses as to why the next five or six weren't that close, and mumble something about how the other ten almost seemed to have something to do with what was said.
The other eighty or so are just completely forgotten.
So, we can hear rumors about this, and Apple might not care anything about it at all.
Maybe in another year or two they will change their minds.
I do think they need a replacement for Appleworks. The lack of it will cause a headache for the K-12 schools.
Originally posted by melgross
Sure. Besides, we don't know what Apple is really doing. We don't even know if there really is something called Nunbers at all!
These games we play with the rumors reminds me of the books the psychics write.
They make 100 predictions for the year. Three or four actually happen. Another five or six sort of kinda happen. Another ten can use a LOT of stretching to come anywhere near the prediction. And the rest are not even on the same planet.
But people rejoice over the "lucky" three or four, make excuses as to why the next five or six weren't that close, and mumble something about how the other ten almost seemed to have something to do with what was said.
The other eighty or so are just completely forgotten.
So, we can hear rumors about this, and Apple might not care anything about it at all.
Maybe in another year or two they will change their minds.
I do think they need a replacement for Appleworks. The lack of it will cause a headache for the K-12 schools.
Having known a woman who was a fortuneteller, who made a deal out of things, that is a good observation. The psychics are such crocks. But, some of them desire to make people feel better, not just make money. I cannot stand listening to the crockery. But the woman I knew was pleasant.
Mumble mumble. Mumbling is useful.
Yes, it would be a good thing for a new AppleWorks to appear. The Kid Pix Deluxe, or whatever it is called now, is fine for those younger ones. That must soon be making a transfer to the Mac intel platform, I know two of their apps have. Apple must have some thing planned for that, unless they have lost their minds about the education market, which I do not believe they have.
Originally posted by melgross
[BI do think they need a replacement for Appleworks. The lack of it will cause a headache for the K-12 schools. [/B]
I don't know about the USA but in the UK, 8 year olds get taught how to use PowerPoint and Excel. It's depressing that they get indoctrinated with bad software at an early age.
The one good thing though is I had an 8 year old show me how PowerPoint worked. I've never used it before. Not had call to in 20+ years of business. ;-)
Originally posted by aegisdesign
I don't know about the USA but in the UK, 8 year olds get taught how to use PowerPoint and Excel. It's depressing that they get indoctrinated with bad software at an early age.
The one good thing though is I had an 8 year old show me how PowerPoint worked. I've never used it before. Not had call to in 20+ years of business. ;-)
Eight year olds using Excel, real useful.
In sixth grade, my daughter had a "careers" class! Another real useful bit.
Originally posted by NeutrixX
On top of that.. I forgot to mention that I live in Vancouver, BC, Canada. This is where more business people (that I know of within graphic, sound, video, fashion or even medical) are starting up with Macs, and we'll be getting a new Apple store on Robson within the next 3 months!
Cheers.. and here's to a virus free computer experience....
The New Mac Wave sweeps in from Canada? If only!
Originally posted by melgross
Eight year olds using Excel, real useful.
In sixth grade, my daughter had a "careers" class! Another real useful bit.
But one must remember that the UK came up with TeleTubbies as an answer to the "indoctrination" of Sesame Street!
Originally posted by Cubit
But one must remember that the UK came up with TeleTubbies as an answer to the "indoctrination" of Sesame Street!
Yeah, another brilliant idea!
Originally posted by Cubit
But one must remember that the UK came up with TeleTubbies as an answer to the "indoctrination" of Sesame Street!
TeleTubbies is for 0-3 year olds (and university students).
Originally posted by NordicMan
All that one hears/reads is various reports and rumours, but you may very well be correct.
On the other hand, I suppose one can argue that what seems like a detente with microsoft, allowing an agreement between them, gives microsoft the additional Mac office customers, and also gives Apple the time to further develop their own goods, for the day when they really come out at the office/business market. "Plotting and dreaming", as Richard Rosenblatt said. Actually, Apple seems more content to aim at the home and living room, the studio, the designer, and the gym.
The more I think about it, I think I see where iWork is coming from.
Keynote was built because Jobs wanted best-in-class presentation software for Apple presentations.
What if Pages was built for similar, Apple-related purposes?
There is a program that Apple employees need and have been requesting for years.
Framemaker.
Apple needs an app with long document features to produce all those manuals that come with all those cool Apple gadgets.
And Adobe hasn't updated Framemaker for OS X.
I have zero experience with long document software, but Pages is more of a page layout app that word-processor, so it could be given long document features and used for Apple manuals.
And all the while Jobs uses the fear of an "Apple Office" suite to encourage Microsoft to sign multi year deals.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
I hope so too. Filemaker wouldn't be a good place to start from for either a spreadsheet or a database program today. It's one crufty piece of software. Crufty in concept, crufty in implementation. I'd rather use Access than have to use Filemaker.
How is Filemaker "crufty"?
Originally posted by Frank777
The more I think about it, I think I see where iWork is coming from.
Keynote was built because Jobs wanted best-in-class presentation software for Apple presentations.
What if Pages was built for similar, Apple-related purposes?
There is a program that Apple employees need and have been requesting for years.
Framemaker.
Apple needs an app with long document features to produce all those manuals that come with all those cool Apple gadgets.
And Adobe hasn't updated Framemaker for OS X.
I have zero experience with long document software, but Pages is more of a page layout app that word-processor, so it could be given long document features and used for Apple manuals.
And all the while Jobs uses the fear of an "Apple Office" suite to encourage Microsoft to sign multi year deals.
Pages has a loooong way to go before it can be used for that.
Doing document preparation is a very heavy duty task. Footnotes, endnotes, chapter heading, subheadings, table of contents generation, index generation. Tabling, etc.
It's not a skip and a jump from Pages to Framemaker.
Originally posted by the cool gut
How is Filemaker "crufty"?
It's still pretty much the card index system it was back in the 90s, is a bad carbon app that doesn't tie in with OS services very well and only recently had SQL bolted on, badly.
I'd rather use Access and even Apple would rather use 4D internally.
Originally posted by melgross
Pages has a loooong way to go before it can be used for that.
Doing document preparation is a very heavy duty task. Footnotes, endnotes, chapter heading, subheadings, table of contents generation, index generation. Tabling, etc.
It's not a skip and a jump from Pages to Framemaker.
Although Pages 2 does actually do all of those now.
It is however missing an outliner and group collaboration/versioning which from my old tech document authoring days would be a major hindrance. It's got comments now which is halfway there.
I really don't like the descriptions of it being more a layout program than a word processor though. It's a perfectly adequate word processor for most tasks. The fact the layout tools are exemplary doesn't detract from it's word processing calibre.
It's not a layout program. Ie. it's not InDesign or Quark. Both of which are great layout/DTP programs but absolutely terrible word processors. I personally think MS Word is both an average word processor AND terrible at layout. It scores on the group collaboration front. Pages 2 is better than Word at pretty much everything except where a feature is missing. What it has, it does well. What it doesn't have, it doesn't have yet.
If you're after writing a novel or long journalistic piece, then IME you can't beat a good text editor. Word processors aren't what you need. There's too much extra stuff that stops the creative flow.