{"id":47332,"date":"2025-04-07T15:51:44","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T19:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=47332"},"modified":"2025-04-09T15:31:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T19:31:06","slug":"numbers-14-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/07\/numbers-14-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Numbers 14.4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Rossignol<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Apple today updated its iWork apps Keynote<\/a>, Numbers<\/a>, and Pages<\/a> with new features that require iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, or macOS 15.4.<\/p>

For example, in the latest version of each app, you can now make text edits using Writing Tools directly in a presentation, spreadsheet, or document.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Each app also received a few other enhancements that are not tied to the latest software updates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Reddit<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Perform complex calculations with over 30 new functions. For example, you can use a LAMBDA function to create and name custom functions, the SORT function to organize the contents of a range or array, or the LET function to perform calculations using defined variables. See the Formula and Functions user guide<\/a>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s a whole family of higher order functions: LAMBDA<\/a>, LAMBDA.APPLY<\/a>, BYCOL<\/a>, BYROW<\/a>, MAP<\/a>, REDUCE<\/a>, and SCAN<\/a> (via Hacker News<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

This is cool, but I’ve never really gotten into using Numbers, despite repeatedly trying. There are definitely some things that it does better than Excel, but others, like tables not expanding to fill the window, still feel weird to me after all these years. Anything with interactive collaboration I do with Google Sheets. Anything with manual collaboration I do with Excel. Any time I need to keep important records for a long time, I feel more comfortable with the Excel file format. Same with large data sets<\/a>. That doesn’t leave much for Numbers, and I haven’t found anything that hooked me.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n