
Grid (YC S12) Reinvents The Spreadsheet For The Tablet Age - irunbackwards
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/08/grid-launch/
======
atacrawl
_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?

~~~
pg
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 of the worst drags on innovation.

I think most people agree now that it's valid strategy, particularly in
software, to launch a simple version one of something and then iterate
rapidly. I'm constantly pushing founders to do that. And you know what's the
biggest thing holding them back? The fear that people will make fun of the
first thing they launch.

~~~
ObeyTheGrid
>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 basic features I
expect from a spreadsheet (I suppose that is indeed remarkable). Worse, it
leads to a situation where customers don't trust software developers to
provide the things they say they are providing.

What would you have us do? Not criticize massively hyped app releases that are
backed by millions of dollars of VC money because we might hurt somebodies
feelings? If you are going to make a big fanfare about your new 'spreadsheet'
app, then you have to be prepared for the (predictable) negative reaction when
it turns out it isn't actually a spreadsheet at all. Don't get pissed off when
it gets criticism after you flood all the tech news sites with press releases
and submit your site to all the aggregators and email dozens of bloggers.

The people doing this are savvy and know what they are doing, which is
basically conning users with false promises. They know it will earn them
criticism from people who are paying attention, they don't care, they are in
it for the money. Your portrayal of the innocent, uncertain, timid startup CEO
is pretty laughable. These are business graduates that decided to go into
software startups because they think there is more money in it than investment
banking at the moment, many have never written any software themselves.

You can whine all you want but customers are always going to complain when the
product does not meet the description. It's really quite simple to avoid this
though: stop lying in your marketing.

Edit: I didn't mean to make it sound like I think the Grid folks themselves
are actually upset about this criticism, I'm sure they are not. They must have
had many meetings trying to decide if they should call it a spreadsheet even
though it isn't, and they obviously decided to do it because they feel they
will get more attention as a 'mobile spreadsheet' rather than some vaguely
defined data organiser. It was a calculated move that seems to be paying off
at the initial launch at least, since the app is getting far more attention
than most.

~~~
gruseom
_a spreadsheet even though it isn't_

But it clearly is a spreadsheet. It's moving in a direction spreadsheets
haven't gone before, and in order to innovate that way they've made some
decisions about which classical features to defer. How could they have done
otherwise?

The research literature on spreadsheet users shows that about half of them
rely on computation with formulas and half don't. (That data is old and spotty
but it's the best we have. Joel Spolsky made a similar point a few months
ago.) So a sizeable chunk of spreadsheet users aren't going to mind, or even
notice, that computation wasn't prioritized here. Those users probably aren't
well represented on HN but they probably _are_ a good fit for a tablet
spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet space is remarkable for how little innovation it has seen
relative to how massive its user base is. Has there been a fundamental
innovation since pivot tables? That was 20 years ago, and even then something
of a hack, designed to answer Lotus Improv. I guess collaborative spreadsheets
count (Google Docs) but that feels more like adding in a generic modern
feature than rethinking spreadsheets per se. We need to see a lot more of the
latter. I suppose I should disclose that I'm working on it too, albeit at the
computational end.

~~~
jmduke
I'd argue that spreadsheets are applications that allow for organization and
analysis of tabular data (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet>).

This clearly has some limited organizational functionality, but no analysis
(that I can tell, at least.)

I think the argument about what is or is not a spreadsheet is pretty much
semantics and nothing else, but I think it might be a bad move for Grid to
call itself a spreadsheet app (note: I do not know if Grid calls itself a
spreadsheet app) since the vast majority of consumers are going to equate that
with Excel or Numbers.

------
rhplus
_"He was the designer of Microsoft’s upcoming Excel 2013, after all"_

The concepts look great, but the pitch that he was " _the_ designer of Excel
2013" rubbed me the wrong way. The Office UX design team is not a one man
show. I thought maybe the reporter was puffing things up a little, but even on
Josh's personal website[1] he's claiming he was _the_ designer.

 _"I worked as the Excel 2013 designer which I transitioned into from a
software engineering role"_

[1] <http://joshleong.com/>

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

~~~
webwright
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>

~~~
johnrob
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.

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

------
jmduke
I have two use cases for Excel:

1\. Number crunching with the goal of creating charts/tables to be placed in
either documents or presentations. 2\. Detailed analysis of a given data set.

I think the former is ripe for application in the tablet space; most of my
presentations, at the very least, tend to be 'here, let me talk and rely on
visualization for the things that aren't easily conveyed with speech' --
honestly, an app where I can create multiple charts and broadcast them will be
great.

Grid seems to be eschewing this use case in favor of having spreadsheets as
tabularly organized content. While I don't have any specific issue with this,
I don't see what problem or opportunity it addresses beyond "hey, nobody's
done this!"

I can see it having merit with the few times I'll use a GDoc spreadsheet for
organizing, say, who brings what to a party (and I do suppose that GDocs is a
fairer comparison to Grid than Excel, at this stage), but being tablet-only
hamstrings that effort.

I guess, overall, my question is: "What can I do with Grid that I can't do
with anything else?"

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Gring
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.

~~~
ereckers
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.

------
mikepmalai
Maestro looks really interesting.

As an excel power user and fan of spreadsheet innovation in general, I always
felt that an excel disruptor would probably look and feel more like a robust
post-it note than a spreadsheet.

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danso
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>

~~~
robomartin

      > 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.

~~~
danso
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.

------
kposehn
Their greatest strength - social collaboration - is also a potential weakness.

While I like the idea and the mechanic, the initial emphasis on social
integration of a spreadsheet makes the assumption that others will be able to
A: willing to download the app when invited & B: be able to use it with
minimal instruction in a collaborative fashion.

This may be something that many more tech-savvy users will embrace, but
despite the simplicity of the UX it does require a mental hurdle to cross in
order to utilize it fully. I think many people will certainly overcome that,
but the question is how many. Is the market of users large enough for this use
case? Of course, I may also be simply reading too much into the video - there
will be plenty of other uses for this sort of app.

I think this will become less and less of a problem as the next generation of
tech users come of age and embrace technology like this. They're growing up
with this sort of functionality and will use it in ways we can't yet
anticipate. What Grid certainly has going for it is one of the most solid
guesses at that sort of interaction I've seen so far.

Despite my initial misgivings, I definitely want to give it a try.

------
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.

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

------
vegashacker
Seeing those big squares was startling (in a good way). It was like, of
course! Why have tiny little horizontal cells on a _tablet_ spreadsheet? And
with calendar widget datatypes, images, iPhone data entry... Lots of clever
happening here.

I didn't see any formulas though. Not even a sum. I wonder how that's going to
be in Grid.

------
newman314
When I first heard about this, I was excited. But upon looking at the video,
it's not what I thought it would be.

I'm still looking for an app that uses a spreadsheet-like UI in order to be
able to ask whatif and model data pulled from backend datasources.

This would be infinitely more useful (for my use cases).

------
stcredzero
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.

------
jpxxx
I am in love with what I'm being shown. Super-rich compound multi-user
documents. It could be fantastic wallboard software. Or you could just call it
a wedding planner and it would be a minor sensation.

------
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.

------
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....

------
floggit
UI reminds me of MS Maestro. Any idea how much of it is patented by MS ?
Either way they would be a great acqui-hire target for MS

------
roycyang
Great job guys. I've tried in vain to use google docs on my iPad when I was
doing wedding planning. This is a killer app.

------
cpr
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.

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

------
kennystone
Beautiful UI and a great opportunity. The iPad demands to be taken everywhere,
and Apple has proven with iWork - Keynote especially - that office apps can be
awesome on a tablet. Google's Spreadsheet webapp, on the other hand, is
completely unusable on touch devices.

------
caublestone
Really impressive demonstration of re-thinking an unsexy technology that is so
important to so many. A great example on how start ups can disrupt a giant
like Microsoft by being bold and not giving a shit. Good luck Grid!

------
zbruhnke
Kudos to Josh and the rest of the team.

This is something that can change the market in a positive way and hopefully
help take iPads from being almost solely a device for consumption to a device
used to spur creation and innovation as well

------
runemadsen
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.

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tapertaper
Excel power user here. Any plans for inter-compatibility?

If Grid can simply _view_ other spreadsheet formats (even stripped of formulas
and formatting), you'll get a lot of looks from the business world.

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johnrob
I didn't see any mention of how you share with people - do they have to have
the app as well? Can you just send them a link and let them view in a browser?

------
yabbadabbadoo
I shrugged this off at first, but that video blew my mind.

Awesome work guys. Definitely using this for an upcoming roadtrip. And more :)

------
revorad
This looks fantastic. The lack of computation is a surprising but very novel
take on the idea.

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davisml
So it's graph paper that you can talk to?

