The NUMBERS game, iPadonly23
Spreadsheets on an iPad
When I first got an iPad it was for making & giving presentations. I didn’t know at that time & you probably don’t know now that you can do anything on an iPad. I would say you can do it better too. That why I’ve switched to iPad only. Not just for fun, because it’s genuinely better. For your spreadsheets the iPad has Numbers.
Better than excel
Smaller
The simply named Numbers is better than excel is 3 ways. The first is it’s much smaller. I don’t mean just that it is of course smaller on a mobile device like an iPhone or iPad. If you open the app, the spreadsheets are literally smaller. Excel is a bottomless pit of cells. A Numbers sheet is just 6 columns, 21 rows.
Simpler
The smaller size makes it so much simpler. You probably end up filling your excel spreadsheet just because it is bigger & that makes it more complex. Numbers leads you to keep your data simpler. You will, like me, realize you don’t need as much as you thought & the benefit is you’ll be able to better explain your data to others.
Sophisticated
Don’t worry you won’t lose any sophistication by having simpler spreadsheets. My spreadsheets have become very focused & you can have as many as you like. Rather than one large one, you can have lots of smaller ones. It’s much easier to see things more clearly. Numbers is sophisticated enough to do anything.
Things I do
Sharpfokus
Here’s a few ways I do & you too can use Numbers for everyday work. I write a daily & weekly blog on financial markets called Sharpfokus. I use public. economic or financial market data. Often I download the financial data from Yahoo finance & open it in Numbers, make a quick chart & then screenshot & post it on Instagram.
Data files
I keep company financial & operations data in Numbers. Every set of data has its own page. The file can be converted into excel & uploaded onto our website (all on the iPhone & iPad). Then it’s available for the public to download. When Numbers sheets are converted to excel they have a beautiful index page of all the data inside.
Model
You can even make a working financial model in a Numbers sheet. It took a while to work out how to do this, but it’s now simple & will be the subject of a longer article later... Having made complex financial models in excel, my iPhone one is amazingly simple & so useful for showing to people in meetings.
3 tips
Draw
Another great feature of Numbers is Apple keeps updating it with new features all the time. Here’s 1 relatively recent addition & 2 brand new ones. First, you can now draw in sheets. This means addicting drawings to charts, or you could present the spreadsheet & as you do you can add annotation by drawing live.
Shares
One recent one is adding share prices. If you have your own investment portfolio with shares, this is useful. For example you could monitor you portfolio performance in a spreadsheet live. The data is from Yahoo finance & if you type the stock code into a column or row & chose the share option, Numbers recognizes it.
Color
Another new feature is the ability to add color to a cell or the text in a cell using a formula. So for example if your share portfolio is above or below the original investment amount, you could make the cell or the number color change. Red for loss & green for gain for example. You just format the cell accordingly.
You can too
Having made the switch to iPad & iPhone only has not been a challenge for me. It has made my work so much easier & increasingly productive. The devices keep getting better & faster. The apps keep getting better too. The creativity this experience has unleashed for me is amazing. I hope you can joi me & be iPad & IPhone only too,
Sebastian
When I first got an iPad it was for making & giving presentations. I didn’t know at that time & you probably don’t know now that you can do anything on an iPad. I would say you can do it better too. That why I’ve switched to iPad only. Not just for fun, because it’s genuinely better. For your spreadsheets the iPad has Numbers.
Better than excel
Smaller
The simply named Numbers is better than excel is 3 ways. The first is it’s much smaller. I don’t mean just that it is of course smaller on a mobile device like an iPhone or iPad. If you open the app, the spreadsheets are literally smaller. Excel is a bottomless pit of cells. A Numbers sheet is just 6 columns, 21 rows.
Simpler
The smaller size makes it so much simpler. You probably end up filling your excel spreadsheet just because it is bigger & that makes it more complex. Numbers leads you to keep your data simpler. You will, like me, realize you don’t need as much as you thought & the benefit is you’ll be able to better explain your data to others.
Sophisticated
Don’t worry you won’t lose any sophistication by having simpler spreadsheets. My spreadsheets have become very focused & you can have as many as you like. Rather than one large one, you can have lots of smaller ones. It’s much easier to see things more clearly. Numbers is sophisticated enough to do anything.
Things I do
Sharpfokus
Here’s a few ways I do & you too can use Numbers for everyday work. I write a daily & weekly blog on financial markets called Sharpfokus. I use public. economic or financial market data. Often I download the financial data from Yahoo finance & open it in Numbers, make a quick chart & then screenshot & post it on Instagram.
Data files
I keep company financial & operations data in Numbers. Every set of data has its own page. The file can be converted into excel & uploaded onto our website (all on the iPhone & iPad). Then it’s available for the public to download. When Numbers sheets are converted to excel they have a beautiful index page of all the data inside.
Model
You can even make a working financial model in a Numbers sheet. It took a while to work out how to do this, but it’s now simple & will be the subject of a longer article later... Having made complex financial models in excel, my iPhone one is amazingly simple & so useful for showing to people in meetings.
3 tips
Draw
Another great feature of Numbers is Apple keeps updating it with new features all the time. Here’s 1 relatively recent addition & 2 brand new ones. First, you can now draw in sheets. This means addicting drawings to charts, or you could present the spreadsheet & as you do you can add annotation by drawing live.
Shares
One recent one is adding share prices. If you have your own investment portfolio with shares, this is useful. For example you could monitor you portfolio performance in a spreadsheet live. The data is from Yahoo finance & if you type the stock code into a column or row & chose the share option, Numbers recognizes it.
Color
Another new feature is the ability to add color to a cell or the text in a cell using a formula. So for example if your share portfolio is above or below the original investment amount, you could make the cell or the number color change. Red for loss & green for gain for example. You just format the cell accordingly.
You can too
Having made the switch to iPad & iPhone only has not been a challenge for me. It has made my work so much easier & increasingly productive. The devices keep getting better & faster. The apps keep getting better too. The creativity this experience has unleashed for me is amazing. I hope you can joi me & be iPad & IPhone only too,
Sebastian
