Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age • Hacker News Board

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#11

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 5:38 PM UTC

Basically, they're trying to get more people to use spreadsheets in a non-business way. People already do, but the natural way to grab more users right now, is to put it on a multitouch tablet.

I think stats and a lot of other serious number-crunching/business oriented software is ready for multitouch disruption. I've been toying with the idea of taking an all-in-one HP multitouch pc and turning it into a "workstation surface" mounted horizontally and implementing serious business apps on it.

I'm in part motivated by my girlfriend's RSI. (Non-carpal tunnel!) Touch interfaces and styluses seem to bother her much less. No stats programs let you use it end-to-end that way.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#12

Post by milesskorpen » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 5:52 PM UTC

cpr wrote: post #3

Looks great. Would be nice to see a demo of its number-crunching capabilities, to judge whether it's innovative in that area as well.

According to the article, they don't have that yet. Which seems ... surprising.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#13

Post by danso » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

Business spreadsheets most definitely need help, though perhaps mobile Google Drive, which is currently atrocious, is too intimidating to take on.

However, I have to applaud anything that moves our information-consumption into a more delimited, structured form. I love narrative and paragraphs, but Tufte's small multiples is something that would greatly help day-to-day communication

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_multiple

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#14

Post by webwright » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

johnrob wrote: post #7

It seems like the focus is on casual usage (photos, videos, etc). Why not focus more on the business side (i.e. numbers)?

I'd go the same route. The features a consumer needs are much lighter. I imagine the hope is that someday people will realize, "Hey wait a minute! This thing kicks Excel's ass!".

Quote from PG:

"Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest."

http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#15

Post by runemadsen » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

I really like the general idea of this app. The killer feature would be an easy way to contribute new features for the tiles, which would basically make Grid into an easy-to-use Microsoft Metro UI.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#16

Post by robomartin » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #13

Business spreadsheets most definitely need help, though perhaps mobile Google Drive, which is currently atrocious, is too intimidating to take on. However, I have to applaud anything that moves our information-consumption into a more delimited, structured form. I love narrative and paragraphs, but Tufte's small multiples is something that would greatly help day-to-day communication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_…

  > Business spreadsheets most definitely need help

In what way? Are you talking about design (look and feel) or capabilities. I can't think of too many things that could be lacking from Excel in terms of capabilities for business and engineering applications.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#17

Post by danso » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #16

danso wrote: post #13

Business spreadsheets most definitely need help, though perhaps mobile Google Drive, which is currently atrocious, is too intimidating to take on. However, I have to applaud anything that moves our information-consumption into a more delimited, structured form. I love narrative and paragraphs, but Tufte's small multiples is something that would greatly help day-to-day communication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_…

> Business spreadsheets most definitely need help In what way? Are you talking about design (look and feel) or capabilities. I can't think of too many things that could be lacking from Excel in terms of capabilities for business and engineering applications.

Sorry, I meant in the context of the headline "...for the tablet age"...My experience so far has been with Google Spreadsheets through the iPad browser and it is barely functional. Microsoft's offering may be better, but still short of what traditional Excel users are used to.

In any case, Excel/Google Docs have such a strong, relied-upon foundation that even if someone built a great spreadsheet from scratch that was unparalleled for the tablet audience, the risk of being dominated by a sudden entrance of either Microsoft/Google is probably too much to commit the funding that's needed to build the infrastructure to support such a platform.

I think Grid is doing the right thing, but staying away from the business-type spreadsheet...as there are plenty of ways that spreadsheets are useful, even without numbers. I use spreadsheets all the time to plan out projects and take notes, as I know I want to end up adding categories/subcategories/deadline columns that I want to aggregate/sort upon.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#18

Post by johnrob » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

webwright wrote: post #14

johnrob wrote: post #7

It seems like the focus is on casual usage (photos, videos, etc). Why not focus more on the business side (i.e. numbers)?

I'd go the same route. The features a consumer needs are much lighter. I imagine the hope is that someday people will realize, "Hey wait a minute! This thing kicks Excel's ass!". Quote from PG: "Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismis…

They might be better served to drop the 'Spreadsheet' moniker. It leads people to incorrect assumptions about the product and likely filters out potential users. 'Whiteboard', 'Slideshow', and 'Scrapbooking' are all terms that seem to better represent the (current) intended use case.

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#19

Post by atacrawl » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

One feature that’s still missing, though, is actually running spreadsheet-style calculations on your numbers in Grid.

Doesn't this preclude Grid from being a spreadsheet app?

Re: Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age

#20

Post by pg » Wed, Aug 08, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

johnrob wrote: post #18

webwright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go the same route. The features a consumer needs are much lighter. I imagine the hope is that someday people will realize, "Hey wait a minute! This thing kicks Excel's ass!". Quote from PG: "Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismis…

They might be better served to drop the 'Spreadsheet' moniker. It leads people to incorrect assumptions about the product and likely filters out potential users. 'Whiteboard', 'Slideshow', and 'Scrapbooking' are all terms that seem to better represent the (current) intended use case.

This is just a version one. They're going to do all the numeric stuff too.