Rob Pickering wrote a very detailed and thoughtful account of his roller coaster of a wait for a new Quicken for Mac over the last 3 years, which included the on again/off again promise of the much-hyped Quicken Financial Life for Mac. After taking a look at what the soon-to-be-released Quicken Essentials for Mac features, Pickering is disappointed and frustrated that Quicken Essentials for Mac does less than its predecessor, Quicken Mac 2007.
For a Mac user to track investments, export Quicken data to TurboTax or pay bills from within Quicken, they will have to keep using Quicken 2007. The new Quicken Essentials for Mac won't do any of this
Based on the Quicken discontinuation policy last updated 12/24/2009, Intuit doesn't plan to sunset Quicken Mac 2007 (or 2005 or 2006, for that matter) for the remainder of this year. Quicken for Mac customers will need to decide if they can live with fewer features in Quicken Essentials for Mac, or they will have to consider some other options for Mac personal finance software before 2011. Or, Quicken's Mac software will need to offer a more complete set of features by the end of the year.
Shelley, thank you so much for the write up. Just hope people “vote with their wallets”.
-Rob
Hi,
Essentials IS Financial Life. The developer cycle has been a disaster so ‘Essentials’ means that Intuit couldn’t put a quality product together in time so they are just launching the crap they schlocked together on the Mac community and having the nerve to charge $59.99 for it!
Use iBank or Moneydance. Intuit is dead as far as I am concerned.
I’m disappointed, I’ve been using Quicken on PCs almost since it started. Scott ?, founder of Quicken, never has been very supportive of Macintosh. I have no use for a dumbed down version.
I’ll just keep using Quicken for Windows, a fine program, with Fusion which is only a minor inconvenience.
Whit
I have used PC versions of Quicken with no complaints. I assumed the new Essentials for MAC would have furnished all existing past features plus more. Very disappointing to buy 2010 without the ability to attach receipts.
I wish I had read your article before I downloaded the peace of junk. I have sent in a request for refund by e-mail, they want to charge 25 US Dollars for a call back between 5-5. I could not believe a checkbook register without a column for the check number. I can do better with Numbers from iWork.
I can’t agree more. I took a chance, against my better judgement, and tried QEM. Mistake. I could never really get past the conversion of my files from 2007. When I try to connect to my bank all the program does is crashes. I am SO disappointed in Intuit. I use Quickbooks for my business accounting software and have used Quicken for a long time. I don’t know why they are not supporting the Mac users. It’s a shame.
Switched from Quicken on Windows to Moneydance on the Mac about seven months ago. Totally satisfied; haven’t looked back.
Quicken Essentials for Mac is WITH0UT A DOUBT THE WORST soft wear program I have ever used and I’ve used a lot. An accounting program one cannot trust!!!