Spotfire for macOS
Blog: The Tibco Blog
People have sometimes asked me when Spotfire will be available for Mac. I always used to answer: It is already available, just use the Spotfire Business Author (the Spotfire web authoring client). Many people were OK with that, but some commented that there is more value in having an installed application. With Spotfire X, we wanted to make progress in this area.
Spotfire analytics for Apple macOS
We just made free Spotfire for macOS App generally available. This is a Spotfire App for Mac that helps manage your server credentials, manage Spotfire as an application rather than as a tab in the browser, and adds a macOS UI layer like the Mac menu system.
How does it work? The Mac App is technically similar to the Spotfire Apps for iOS and Android. It provides a native layer that manages interactions within the operating system and adds a native touch to the user interface, like using the Mac menu bar in the Mac app, or the ability to swipe between pages in the Android and iOS apps. This native layer wraps the Spotfire web authoring UI that is used for the visualizations, enabling an easy-to-use interface. However, the Mac app requires the user to be online and connected to a Spotfire Server (or TIBCO Cloud Spotfire).
From the users’ perspective, the Mac app is different from the iOS and Android apps; it is built for authoring analyses while the mobile apps are for consumption. Thus, the Mac app has the authoring capabilities of the Spotfire Business Author such as adding new visualizations, Search, Recommendations, and using the Data Canvas for viewing, editing, and authoring the data flow of the application.
Recommendations in the macOS app
Add visualization from the visualizations flyout
Search to create visualizations or find values in your data
Apart from the analytics and visualization capabilities, there are data-related capabilities such as replacing data tables, unpivoting, reloading etc. in the Data Canvas and the Data Flyout.
Replacing a data table with a local file from the macOS file system
The Data Canvas lets the user manage the data pipeline
While the app itself is free, creating and modifying analyses requires a TIBCO Spotfire Business Author license. Viewing existing analyses requires a Spotfire Consumer license.
So, how do you get it? You can download the app from TIBCO eDelivery. It is available on the TIBCO Spotfire Server by clicking on “Individual file download”. We also plan to make it available on Apple’s Mac App Store.
Now, we are really interested to hear back from our users. If there is something more you would like to see in the Mac app, don’t hesitate to submit an idea through the TIBCO Ideas portal. Select TIBCO Spotfire as the product when submitting the idea and identify that it refers to the Mac app in the description or title.
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