when will quicken for mac reach parity with windows

When Will Quicken Reach Parity With Windows Full Financial Features

But that hes also realistic about Intuits capability to do so, which after talking to him Id say is not that good.

If you have a grown-up financial life, with money in investment vehicles, Intuit has an up-to-date version of Quicken to help you keep track of it all--on Windows.

If youre on a Mac, though, you might think Intuit has abandoned you.

Theres Quicken 2007 for the Mac, but nothing serious after that.

And if you upgraded to OS X Lion, Quicken 2007 will no longer work on your Mac.

Its the most infamous of the applications that have been left behind by the latest version of the Mac operating system, which no longer runs apps written for the PowerPC architecture, as Quicken 2007 was.

Whats worse, if you upgrade to Lion, you wont be able to extricate your data from Quicken at all, as no other app can read its proprietary format.

How did Intuit end up screwing over loyal Mac Quicken users so thoroughly We can take swipes at Apple for prematurely ceasing support of the Rosetta technology that supported PowerPC apps, but Intuit, along with every other Mac developer, saw the end looming for old PPC apps.

It appears that Intuit simply chose to neglect a portion of its customer base.

Its not quite that simple, of course, and there is finally new leadership at the company that is at least acknowledging the situation.

Whether or not Intuit will ever do right by Mac users, though, is still an open question.

And there were issues in the creaky old Mac Quicken code base anyway.

So Intuit wrote a new version of Quicken, using the modern Apple frameworks, Objective-C and Cocoa.

Intuits new (six weeks on the job) general manager of personal finance, Aaron Forth, told me last week that the app was supposed to ship with Quicken 2007 feature parity and then replace the older product, but Intuit couldnt get it all done in time for release.

Instead, the re-write of Quicken became a separate product line, unambitiously named Quicken Essentials, which lacked support for investments and for online bill payment.

Intuit saw this coming, Forth said of Apples withdrawal of PowerPC support, and thats why we started to build Quicken Essentials.

For reasons Im not clear about--I came to Intuit recently, with the Mint acquisition--it didnt reach feature parity.

Mints original CEO, Aaron Patzer, took over the personal finance division at Inuit after the acquisition, but hes now VP of product innovation.).

For Mac users who need Quicken 2007-level features, Forth says, Ill be the first to tell you the options are not great.

He enumerates three main options: 1) Dont upgrade your Mac to Lion, 2) Upgrade to Quicken Essentials, and 3) Try Mint.com.

Neither Quicken Essentials nor Mint.com offer bill-pay options or robust investment tracking.

Forth adds, The legacy of Quicken on the Mac isnt particularly proud.

Even with Quicken Essentials, which was supposed to take up the Mac torch for Intuit, he says, the commitment has gone slower that it should have.

When Will Quicken Reach Parity With Windows Full Financial Features

So will Intuit breathe new life into Quicken Essentials, and bring full financial features back to Mac users Were looking really hard at it, Forth says, not committing to a future and then taking another swipe at his predecessors.

I get the impression that Forth fully understands the importance for users, and potential profitability for Intuit, to bringing out a grown-up financial app on OS X.

When Will Quicken For Mac Reach Parity With Windows