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Comment by joshmlewis | Hacker News Reader

It's fascinating they used Excel in the product photos instead of Numbers. I wonder who actually uses Numbers these days? Or any of the Apple "productivity" apps for that matter.

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They are much better integrated with the system, their UI is great and they are plain and simple. It's not just Keynote that is good. I used Pages for a lot of private stuff like letters, and Numbers suffices for a lot of simple tables too.

I avoid the MS Office suite wherever I can. Recently went through some lengths to deactive Microsofts intrusive updating background service (nearly as bad in slowing down my system as Adobes).

Also free vs paid.

I would be interested to find out how many individuals and families pay for Microsoft’s software, when apple and google provide free alternatives. (Maybe constrained to families that use mac / iphone, Microsoft might be more popular for Windows families?)

ie: For most people, if you’re not getting free access through work or school, is it actually worth paying for?

I recommend installing office through the App Store to avoid that background service.

My glorious employer doesn’t pay for the Office suite, so I occasionally use Numbers for some very lightweight spreadsheet work on the work laptop.

They work fine for basic tasks. The other day I wanted to make a basic spreadsheet. I said why not and picked Numbers. Works fine for what I needed.

I do. They are there and work just fine for my regular bleb use cases. I also edit Word files in Pages and export to Word just fine. Same with Numbers.

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