Why do I hate Excel? Maybe it's because I learned to use it back in the gray-on-black-on-gray days of '98 when the interface was gross looking and the things I actually had to insert into the spreadsheets were pretty gross too. Like, numbers. With decimals. That needed formulas. Ick.
So while I'm not Apple's target audience with "Charts" I do think it might cure me of my spreadsheet trepidation. ThinkSecret is reporting that Apple will release in January an addition to iWork (at this point the only unibin office suite - another plus) called Charts that is to Excel what Keynote is to Powerpoint.
"Long rumored—or at least, assumed—to be in development, sources say Apple is not planning on positioning Charts as a competitor to Microsoft's Excel, but rather as a more consumer-friendly spreadsheet application that can handle the needs of home users and small businesses but not pretend to execute any of the more advanced functions of Excel. Nonetheless, Charts will support importing and exporting Excel formatted documents, as well as legacy AppleWorks spreadsheets, and Apple is hoping the performance of Charts will at least rival that of Excel, sources report.
Future users can also expect Charts to sport the same integration with Apple's other applications as current versions of iWork and iLife do. Rumored to be at the top on the list is a built-in media browser, drag-and-drop support of spreadsheet and chart data in new Mail messages, and some level of Address Book interoperability."
That's fine by me. Anything to 1) put less money in the hands of Microsoft and 2) put less time into making spreadsheets sounds great to me. And you?
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