Quicken Financial Life for Mac due this summer
Financial software maker Intuit disclosed this week plans to release a long anticipated update to its Quicken application for Mac users sometime during the summer of 2009.
The software, which was first previewed at last January's Macworld Expo, is being re-written from the ground up as a Universal application that better utilizes modern-day Mac OS X technologies like CoreData and Cover Flow.
It's also adopting a more streamlined interface akin to an early version of iTunes, with a sidebar positioned to the left and a workspace to the right that will display registers, statements, and other reports in Cover Flow mode.
As such, Intuit plans celebrate its rise from Apple's era of Carbon-based applications by completely rebranding Quicken for Mac as "Quicken Financial Life for Mac" when the software hits the market next summer.
Although the software was initially scheduled for release this past fall, the company revealed on Monday that it will miss that target by at least 9 months. Word of the new release date came as the software maker urged users to join an expanded Quicken Financial Life for Mac beta program.
"Due to overwhelming interest in the beta, at this time we cannot accommodate your request to participate," Intuit said in an email to one AppleInsider reader whose application was rejected from the beta program. "We expect to release Quicken Financial Life for Mac in summer 2009."Â*
Several other readers reported being accepted into the program, however, and were immediately provided a link to download a 123MB image file containing the second beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac. (Readers interested in joining the program can apply through this link. Edit: Intuit has asked that we remove the link.)
The distribution includes a read me file [PDF] highlighting some of the design changes from legacy versions of Quicken, namely a move towards organizing data through tags rather than categories and classes.
Intuit is expected to preview the latest beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac at its newly-expanded booth at next week's Macworld Expo. Meanwhile, readers interested in additional details can check out AppleInsider's report from last Macworld.
The software, which was first previewed at last January's Macworld Expo, is being re-written from the ground up as a Universal application that better utilizes modern-day Mac OS X technologies like CoreData and Cover Flow.
It's also adopting a more streamlined interface akin to an early version of iTunes, with a sidebar positioned to the left and a workspace to the right that will display registers, statements, and other reports in Cover Flow mode.
As such, Intuit plans celebrate its rise from Apple's era of Carbon-based applications by completely rebranding Quicken for Mac as "Quicken Financial Life for Mac" when the software hits the market next summer.
Although the software was initially scheduled for release this past fall, the company revealed on Monday that it will miss that target by at least 9 months. Word of the new release date came as the software maker urged users to join an expanded Quicken Financial Life for Mac beta program.
"Due to overwhelming interest in the beta, at this time we cannot accommodate your request to participate," Intuit said in an email to one AppleInsider reader whose application was rejected from the beta program. "We expect to release Quicken Financial Life for Mac in summer 2009."Â*
Several other readers reported being accepted into the program, however, and were immediately provided a link to download a 123MB image file containing the second beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac. (Readers interested in joining the program can apply through this link. Edit: Intuit has asked that we remove the link.)
The distribution includes a read me file [PDF] highlighting some of the design changes from legacy versions of Quicken, namely a move towards organizing data through tags rather than categories and classes.
Intuit is expected to preview the latest beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac at its newly-expanded booth at next week's Macworld Expo. Meanwhile, readers interested in additional details can check out AppleInsider's report from last Macworld.
Comments
I was really eager for QFL to come out, but mint.com does most of what I need, has an iphone app, and is free...
From your post I visited Mint's website. I was a little nervous to see everything is done over the internet. Although I'm sure the Quicken software will do the same things I'm a little nervous having everything in the clouds like that. How long have you been using Mint?
Having said that, Quicken for Mac has always been the red-headed stepchild of Intuit's product line. Opening it in Mac OS X is almost embarrassing. Each year, they would make only cursory changes and band-aid it just enough so that it "worked" in Mac OS X. It was embarrassing. It's still very much a System 7 app.
Quicken Financial Life for Mac? WTF. Why on earth would I need coverflow for my checkbook? Or tags or a tag cloud for my finances? Give me a break. If you are going to re-write a program from scratch, how about write a program that is functional. I'm all for using Mac technology, but how about using it appropriately. Give me a functional, modern Quicken for Mac minus the clouds.
Where does Intuit get their product direction from? Who do they listen to? Did some focus group tell them to write this program that looks good but isn't very functional. Intuit has NEVER listened to it's customers. I guess they figured, why start now?
Repeat after me: "Every Mac program does NOT have to look like iTunes". Say this 5 times until it sinks in.
From your post I visited Mint's website. I was a little nervous to see everything is done over the internet. Although I'm sure the Quicken software will do the same things I'm a little nervous having everything in the clouds like that. How long have you been using Mint?
Not too long (two weeks?). I read an article about it in the NYT and then saw they had an iphone app. I tried the Quicken online subscription before, but it was less functional (IMO) than Mint is. It's true, it's a bit freaky to have all of your accounts accessed in one place, and I think that if you want serious reports and stats, Quicken is probably better, but for just monitoring your money, and seeing if you're exceeding budgets, mint is great. It also sends you reminders (if you want) about credit card bills coming due, compares your return on investments vs S&P or Nasdaq, etc...
It just occurred to me when I saw the article about QFL and I was momentarily excited and then thought - wait, what else do I really need? Certainly worth checking out.
From your post I visited Mint's website. I was a little nervous to see everything is done over the internet. Although I'm sure the Quicken software will do the same things I'm a little nervous having everything in the clouds like that. How long have you been using Mint?
I personally used Mint for six or so months and decided its simply not up to the task. I want very simple features: Bill Pay, Download of data, reports, and reports. Mint was always many days late in its data acquisition and with my account things are very fluid. I also felt it was simply too difficult to do much beyond reports.
I've personally cancelled my account since.
First off, let me say that I have been a Quicken for Mac user since 1995. My life is in Quicken.
Having said that, Quicken for Mac has always been the red-headed stepchild of Intuit's product line. Opening it in Mac OS X is almost embarrassing. Each year, they would make only cursory changes and band-aid it just enough so that it "worked" in Mac OS X. It was embarrassing. It's still very much a System 7 app.
Quicken Financial Life for Mac? WTF. Why on earth would I need coverflow for my checkbook? Or tags or a tag cloud for my finances? Give me a break. If you are going to re-write a program from scratch, how about write a program that is functional. I'm all for using Mac technology, but how about using it appropriately. Give me a functional, modern Quicken for Mac minus the clouds.
I disagree. I've been using Quicken since before 1995, first on the PC, then on the Mac. I switched to Quicken back when I was running System 7 and at the time, I actually preferred the mac version to the PC version. Let me say that it doesn't look like a system 7 app. To me, Quicken has actually been ahead of it's time! There really hasn't been that much you can do to it to improve it other than making sure it remains compatible with system releases. I must say that I have always despised downloading transactions from ANY financial institutions. If you download transactions, you may as well just get your statement, and forget balancing your check book.. just take the banks word for All your transactions. The entire point of Quicken or any checkbook register is the reverse.. Keep the bank accountable for what they say is in your account. This works because there are times I've questioned the bank and then received a credit based on their mistake. These are things that I feel Quicken does extremely well.
Therefore, Downloading transactions is of no use for me. Now.. about cover flow, whose to say that this will be useless. iBank already uses this so maybe there really is a good reason to develop this.
I am excited to try it out and see how well it works.
From your post I visited Mint's website. I was a little nervous to see everything is done over the internet. Although I'm sure the Quicken software will do the same things I'm a little nervous having everything in the clouds like that. How long have you been using Mint?
I've used mint.com for 7 months and I think its great! It's pretty simple and straight forward allowing you to track balances, categorize your transactions, set up budgets and trend your spending habits. It very recently added an iPhone/iTouch application which is great. It doesn't have the ability to submit payments to your accounts, but that is not a feature I used in Quicken either.
I would rate it 4.5 out 5.
It ain't beautiful, but it works, the manual is good, I got help (in fluent English) when I needed it, I mastered it in a few weeks and my accountant told me I gave him better books than businesses he's been doing for 15 years.