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

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

#61

Post by hiddenstage »

Judging the UI and video, it appears they are catering their market towards consumers when I think they should be catering towards businesses. The only time I've used a spreadsheet for personal use was calculating a budget; but there are better apps than Grid for that (Mint).

If I wanted to go camping with friends, I'd call/text/email them and use a text editor to keep track of names and items that we need.

Now if they can get businesses to be productive on their tablets and phones on the other hand....

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

#62

Post by brudgers »

pg wrote: post #24
atacrawl wrote: post #19

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?

No more than any version one of something is precluded from becoming complete. Maybe you think you're making some sort of important point here. Or maybe you realize your comment is inane and you think it's witty. But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. The people who ridicule new things when they first appear in incomplete form are one…

I took the comment as questioning the terminology not poking fun or being particularly snarky. I see the comment along the lines of "aren't numerical manipulations an essential property of spreadsheets?"

These days, a spreadsheet that doesn't calculate is an edge case given thirty years of mainstream usage of the term. Though having had the pleasure of revising letters my boss drafted in Lotus 123, I can accept the proposition that calculations are an accidental property.

Disrupting the spreadsheet requires convincing people that "spreadsheet" is not synonymous with "Excel." A task which is probably harder than it should be given that Excel is a reasonably practical tool for preparing Gantt charts or a data table for a mail merge [tasks for which I have used Excel on more than one occasion].

Richard Diehl's Tabulus is another interesting approach in the opposite direction.

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

#63

Post by bootload »

pg wrote: post #24
atacrawl wrote: post #19

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?

No more than any version one of something is precluded from becoming complete. Maybe you think you're making some sort of important point here. Or maybe you realize your comment is inane and you think it's witty. But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. The people who ridicule new things when they first appear in incomplete form are one…

"... But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. ..."

I feel a disturbance in the force.

"... Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names ..." ~ http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#64

Post by ereckers »

Looks slick. I've got a use case for this. I help run an online accessories boutique with my partner. She works with editorial teams from numerous magazines in which they trade images, description, pricing, and other misc information for product features for upcoming issues. You know what they use? Spreadsheets. They look atrocious too.

I could definitely see where something like this could be used to replace their current workflow. The fact that this can work on a tablet is even better. You know why? She prefers doing this type of work in the evenings, on an iPad, as we're relaxing away from our desks.

It looks good. Seems easy to use, and looks fashionably well done; complete (really, you should see these spreadsheets they share back and forth).

The only thing I've ever wondered about these types of tools -- with so many good new options coming out seemingly daily, is how you would get people on-board? I can see it working once everyone can agree to start using it, but getting people to completely change there toolset and workflow (especially if other partners are not, can not, or will not adopt it) can be a tough nut to crack.

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

#65

Post by pyoung »

ObeyTheGrid wrote: post #36
pg wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No more than any version one of something is precluded from becoming complete. Maybe you think you're making some sort of important point here. Or maybe you realize your comment is inane and you think it's witty. But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. The people who ridicule new things when they first appear in incomplete form are one…

>And you know what's the biggest thing holding them back? The fear that people will make fun of the first thing they launch. Good. The software world is absolutely flooded with half baked crap backed by expensive marketing. As a software user it's a waste of my time when somebody releases "A Simply Remarkable Spreadsheet" that allows you to "organize and work with them in a whole new intuitive way" and it lacks the b…

Another problem is that the HN crowd has been getting inundated with a ton of 'Show HN: AppName v0.001' posts for a while now. There are some obvious benefits to doing this, like getting early feedback from tech-oriented people before chasing the general public's attention, but I wouldn't be surprised if the HN crowd is getting a little weary of wading through the onslaught of such posts.

Note: I actually think Grid's v1 was pretty well put together (based on the demo video). I am mostly referring to the half-backed Bootstrap sites with nothing more than a sign up form.

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

#66

Post by ereckers »

Gring wrote: post #6

They have a demo video, here: http://grid.binarythumb.com/ Unfortunately, the sound mix is atrocious. Music is way too loud, one can barely hear the narration. It was so bad that I stopped viewing the video.

I first listened to this from the TechCrunch article on an iPad through the speakers and it didn't seem all that bad. I got to my desktop and was going to give you a hard time, but listened to it again with my headphones on. Yeah, the sound could definitely benefit from being turned down a few notches toward the middle of the video. Surprisingly it seems to calm down towards the end.

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

#68

Post by politician »

In my opinion, this app is a reinvention of that idea of the touch-enabled photo tabletop -- the one where you can slide around photos and sort of pile them into collections. We've seen that demo on TED and I'm pretty sure on Microsoft's old Surface tabletop.

They've taken that basic idea, and made a really cool semi-structured visualization, and added interesting widgets like the map.

If you look at it from that angle, you've got something that really sounds pretty interesting and something that, hey, if I have a few bucks sure I'll play with it.

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

#69

Post by MrMan »

pg wrote: post #24
atacrawl wrote: post #19

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?

No more than any version one of something is precluded from becoming complete. Maybe you think you're making some sort of important point here. Or maybe you realize your comment is inane and you think it's witty. But (perhaps without realizing it) you and the people upvoting you represent one of the worst forces at work in the world. The people who ridicule new things when they first appear in incomplete form are one…

I think that the fear of ridicule is very healthy. It is one force that acts to discourage us from being inundated with solutions that are incomplete or half-baked, and which might not even be solving the right problem.

I like the data entry technique for the tablet which is at the heart of this demo. But there is no reason to throw around the word "innovation," even when warding off the worst forces at work in the world.

On the desktop, that dead platform, UI designers have been inventing new user controls for many years, and packaging them as products. But no one important comes to their frantic defense when one of these bundles of features is under-appreciated by its intended audience. Perhaps that says something about the current environment? Maybe we should just let these new-ish hardware and software platforms mature without getting breathless or aggressive when contemplating them.

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

#70

Post by politician »

ereckers wrote: post #64

Looks slick. I've got a use case for this. I help run an online accessories boutique with my partner. She works with editorial teams from numerous magazines in which they trade images, description, pricing, and other misc information for product features for upcoming issues. You know what they use? Spreadsheets. They look atrocious too. I could definitely see where something like this could be used to replace their c…

I think that's where the interop story becomes a critical feature to drive adoption.
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