This is the iPhone of spreadsheets. Lots of wow. Cool. Kickass.

But no developer API. Yet.

No collaboration. Yet.

Hey, this does sound like the iPhone. 🙂

But when you sit down to use Numbers as I did today after the press conference you see a few things.

1) You can have multiple spreadsheets on a canvas and you can resize and drag them around.
2) It feels very comfortable if you’re an Excel user.
3) Writing formulas rocks. Yeah, you can write syntax like “=sum(D2:F22)” but Apple goes one further. Uses the names of rows and columns you come up with. And has a nice little auto sum feature. Underneath it writes “=sum(monthlyreport:employee)” instead of the more obtuse (D2:F22).
4) Lots of templates aimed at regular people and what they tend to use spreadsheets for. Budgeting, lists of things, etc.
5) The UI feels much nicer than Microsoft’s stuff does. Much more interactive and easy to use.

But it is a 1.0 product. No macros. No pivot tables. Microsoft’s profits are safe for now.

This does provide a sizeable poke in Microsoft’s ribs, though, and reminds us all that even a spreadsheet can be made a lot better if you take a new look at it. Apple has sent us all a gesture that they are working on their own office suite. It’s one that everyone should take a look at.