Hands On with iWork09: An New Direction for Apple - Forward Thinking by Michael J. Miller

The Numbers spreadsheet is the most innovative part of iWork, as it offers a different way of working from Excel or most other spreadsheets. You can place multiple tables and charts on a single sheet or "canvas" and build formulas mostly using names instead of row and cell letters and numbers (Revenues:Eastern Region instead of C14). That makes for a very different experience than building the same spreadsheet in Excel. It takes a little getting used to for experienced spreadsheet users, but it may be more intuitive for some users. I like the concept a lot.

Numbers 09 adds a lot more functions--the list now includes more than 250 of these, and it offers a nice way of entering the functions with a list of variables you need to fill in. The new version adds a number of new chart types, including trend lines and "mixed charts."

I'm also impressed by the easy way it works as a simple database: one nice new feature lets you take a column in a table and "categorize" it--in other words collect all the things that belong together; and then easily show things like subtotals within that category. This is a very nice way of handling a simple database.

Hands On with iWork09: An New Direction for Apple - Forward Thinking by Michael J. Miller