OK here's my feelings for what they are worth. I spent many years in the publishing world and was heavily into installations of DTP systems to many large print media organizations. This feels like deja vu.
The concept seems great but there is a huge flaw. It's like going back in time to early web sites looking at even the better-adapted Magazines and even those offer mediocre experiences. Most look and feel like PDFs output from Quark Xpress back in 1998.
These Magaize compared to a good Website are like comparing 2D to 3D for want of a better metaphor.
The idea of News+ is valid though, what's wrong is the 25-year-old feeling Magazines themselves. Somehow there needs to be all the richness and interactivity of a web site but not running in a web browser. Each magazine within News+ should be a rich and fully interactive experience. Which is exactly where I thought we were heading a few years ago with Apple's iBooks Author. IMHO the Magazine staff themselves are either not skilled enough with the likes of iBooks Author or too busy with print media output to have taken the time to create these offerings as they should be.
Perhaps Apple needs to provide the staff and training for the print world to create the material iBooks Author is capable of because for me this isn't worth the effort to scroll through these flat PDFs however nice the News+ delivery system may be. I'd rather stick with web sites for now.
Perhaps News+ could consider including genuine web sites that are ad-free within this ecosystem that are walled off from the greater internet problems (looking at you Google).
I have a few ad-free websites I use, but not without subscribing to them. Wired and Ars for example. None would accept anything so trivial as a few pennies as fair payment for those ad-free experiences. No different than "back in the day" when you expected fair compensation by the publishers you worked for. That's not going to happen with an all-you-can-eat $10 buffet served up by Apple.
You picked up on my 'afterthought' (ok and I admit bate set for you), not the main part of what I said. If these companies used iBooks Author to create compelling 21st products rather than repackaging 20th-century products, this could be cool.
OK here's my feelings for what they are worth. I spent many years in the publishing world and was heavily into installations of DTP systems to many large print media organizations. This feels like deja vu.
The concept seems great but there is a huge flaw. It's like going back in time to early web sites looking at even the better-adapted Magazines and even those offer mediocre experiences. Most look and feel like PDFs output from Quark Xpress back in 1998.
These Magaize compared to a good Website are like comparing 2D to 3D for want of a better metaphor.
The idea of News+ is valid though, what's wrong is the 25-year-old feeling Magazines themselves. Somehow there needs to be all the richness and interactivity of a web site but not running in a web browser. Each magazine within News+ should be a rich and fully interactive experience. Which is exactly where I thought we were heading a few years ago with Apple's iBooks Author. IMHO the Magazine staff themselves are either not skilled enough with the likes of iBooks Author or too busy with print media output to have taken the time to create these offerings as they should be.
Perhaps Apple needs to provide the staff and training for the print world to create the material iBooks Author is capable of because for me this isn't worth the effort to scroll through these flat PDFs however nice the News+ delivery system may be. I'd rather stick with web sites for now.
Perhaps News+ could consider including genuine web sites that are ad-free within this ecosystem that are walled off from the greater internet problems (looking at you Google).
I suspect that Apple is more ready and eager for that than the world of publishing is.
After digging much deeper into what I was losing by giving up my existing WSJ subscription, I realized Apple’s News+ contains a WSJ chameleon which might satisfy the needs of a casual financial reader but won’t satisfy the requirements of someone who makes significant money in the markets.
So I’ll be keeping my WSJ subscription and passing on News+ despite what I said yesterday.
I'm really irritated that Apple tried to pull this sleight of hand trickery, acting like the full subscription was available except the archives. Not true, a deep dive will show WSJ is withholding a lot of data and analysis.
Hi Felix - I did some exploring myself and I'm not sure if you are correct. That said, I can't figure it out!! Here's what I found: if you scroll down in the News+ tab and click on one of the featured WSJ articles, and THEN click on the "Wall Street Journal" banner on the top of that story, you are taken to (at least what appears to be) all of the WSJ content. You get tabs for "Top Stories," "U.S," "World," "Business & Finance," "Opinion," and "Life & Arts," exactly as you would in the WSJ app and/or through the prior News app provided you entered your subscription information. It appears to me that everything is there ... doesn't appear to be curated or limited in any way. As a fellow WSJ reader, I'm curious to hear your feedback after following this path. By the way, if THIS is the only path to take to the full WSJ content, my message to Apple would be ... COME ON, GUYS! Utterly silly and counter-intuitive.
But, the regular WSJ site has 12 tabs, not just these 6. And each of those 12 has subsections. For instance, the business tab on the regular website has 32 subsections.
But, the regular WSJ site has 12 tabs, not just these 6. And each of those 12 has subsections. For instance, the business tab on the regular website has 32 subsections.
That's a good point. Let me clarify: when you follow the path I suggested on News+, you get the same set of tabs and access to the same articles as you do if you were to log in to your WSJ subscription on the (pre-News+) Apple News. I think the website (and the WSJ app for iOS) has more tabs, but I'm not sure there are more articles.
I have subscription fatigue. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, newspapers.... plus backup service, Adobe, VPN, cloud storage, Quicken. Subscriptions can be great value, the problem is in aggregate, they have become a financial burden forcing me to reevaluate all subscriptions and where I want to focus monthly spending.
Ok, I'll help. You can cancel Amazon (just buy $25 worth of stuff at a time) and Quicken (perfectly good free alternatives). You're welcome. What's a good VPN to use?
I have subscription fatigue. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, newspapers.... plus backup service, Adobe, VPN, cloud storage, Quicken. Subscriptions can be great value, the problem is in aggregate, they have become a financial burden forcing me to reevaluate all subscriptions and where I want to focus monthly spending.
Ok, I'll help. You can cancel Amazon (just buy $25 worth of stuff at a time) and Quicken (perfectly good free alternatives). You're welcome. What's a good VPN to use?
Personally, I like it. I was able to get my guitar playing brother go in with me as they have Rolling Stone, Guitar World, Billboard, etc. I like the science magazines. It's a winner and worth it. I used to be a regular consumer of Google News, but not since the Apple News app came out and with +, I'm good.
I also like the fact that you don't have to buy an entire magazine for one or two articles that you may be interested in. I just don't have the time to peruse a whole magazine and now that they're online, I can read at my convenience without having to carry them around.
One criticism I have with the app so far is its lack of intuitive integration with Apple News. It feels like News+ is just kinda jammed in as an extra tab. It doesn't really have any interactivity with the regular News app ... meaning the curated content in News isn't populated with articles from any of the 300 magazines I now have access to. And maybe that will change over time as I use it. I'll tell you, though, it doesn't really feel like that will be the case. News+ just kind of exists adjacent to News, which is disappointing because Apple News is otherwise fairly dynamic.
One criticism I have with the app so far is its lack of intuitive integration with Apple News. It feels like News+ is just kinda jammed in as an extra tab. It doesn't really have any interactivity with the regular News app ... meaning the curated content in News isn't populated with articles from any of the 300 magazines I now have access to. And maybe that will change over time as I use it. I'll tell you, though, it doesn't really feel like that will be the case. News+ just kind of exists adjacent to News, which is disappointed because Apple News is otherwise fairly dynamic.
"Apple News+ will present a curated slate of stories that are tailored to you as well as a general audience." No thank you, algorithms are dumb "editors" I'l do that myself.
"is a resounding yes. Apple News+ contains more than 300 magazines" Of which you may find 2-3 of real interest. How is this different from cable TV's 300 channels of screaming housewives, endless sports, re-hashed sit-coms?
I was ridiculed by some here for warning of on giant corporation dominating, "curating" and pretty ending free speech for small publications, I think it has begun.
If you can only find 2-3 publications of interest, then you have very narrow interests and probably aren't the target market for an all-you-can-eat magazine aggregation product. Fortunately for Apple, most people have much more varied interests than that.
You sound like the people who subscribe to Apple Music and then complain about all the pop music available on there.
If you think News+ is somehow curtailing free speech, then add me to the list of those ridiculing you.
Someone over at MacStories compiled a full list of the magazines (real magazines, excluding newspapers and digital-only for this purpose), and I went through the list and noted at least a dozen magazines that I would read deeply or at least dip into for given articles at least once a month. This, for me, works out to what ... 80 cents per actually-read magazine per month? Plus I can experiment with any new publications or venture into stuff I don't often read but might try now and again, all for that flat fee?
Oh, and I can turn off the subscriptions at any time, and turn them back on again at any time? Now this, to my mind, is subscriptions done right.
I wish the price didn't jump up to $13 in Canada. $9.99 seems ok but the extra $3 sounds pricey. Maybe I'm being cheap.
Does anyone think they'll start bundling the various services? ie. i'm already paying $15/month for family access to Apple Music. If I also get News+, AppleTV+, and Arcade, will there be a price break?
Doesn't seem like that's on the table at this point, but who can say for the future?
Bear in mind that Apple doesn't expect most people of average means to sign up for every service they offer. It's a balancing act of the value you get versus the money you spend, and subscriptions need periodic review to ensure you're still getting what you feel is good value from them.
Apple Music for $15/month for your entire family is a CRAZY good deal, since each family member has a true individual account. Apple mentioned in their presentation that these other services could employ Family Sharing, so I think that makes most of them (I'm taking a "wait and see" attitude to AppleTV+) a pretty good deal as well (for families, anyway). But heavy readers tend not to be heavy TV watchers, and vice versa, so largely I think the crowd flocking to New+ is not the one flocking to TV+, and likewise the likely Arcade buyers are their own group as well.
Re: price in Canada -- the exchange rate requires that price to be at least $12.50 at the moment, so no it's not pricey -- it's close to a straight exchange, actually.
Anyone find a place to see the full list of magazines and news papers offered?
MacStories.net put together a list. Bear in mind they excluded newspapers and digital-only mags for the purposes of their article, and also bear in mind these are VERY early days -- a year from now it will be at least double this -- but here you go:
Until it was pointed out on another Apple fan blog I was totally unaware of the similarities of the 2019 Apple New+ presentation to the 2011 Newsstand stage reveal.
I have subscription fatigue. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, newspapers.... plus backup service, Adobe, VPN, cloud storage, Quicken. Subscriptions can be great value, the problem is in aggregate, they have become a financial burden forcing me to reevaluate all subscriptions and where I want to focus monthly spending.
Ok, I'll help. You can cancel Amazon (just buy $25 worth of stuff at a time) and Quicken (perfectly good free alternatives). You're welcome. What's a good VPN to use?
There are free alternatives out there --- but none with the scope and power of Quicken or as well connected to financial institutions. But more importantly: the free alternatives (or the ones I have seen) all store your private financial data on their servers. You can do that with Quicken but you don't have to . You can keep it local on your own harddrive -- which is the ONLY place I want my personal financial data.
In that regard, Quicken has a bit of a monopoly going on.
Totally agree with you on financial data; it belongs in your control, period. Each financial institution you work with should only have access to your account with them, not others.
On that topic, even if you are 100% sure that your financial data is only stored on your own local device, are you sure other information isn't being sent back to the home office about how you're using their tools? Or which parts of their tools you're using, etc.? Unless you have packet-sniffing tools, or something like Little Snitch, it's really hard to know. If they encrypt the data they send back, then you really have no idea what they're sending back, and if they don't encrypt it, that's obviously even worse.
I realize that Quicken was purchased, but it does bring up a related issue. Everyone should consider switching from TurboTax to H&R Block for tax preparation software. No, I have no affiliation with H&R Block, but TurboTax made a change a few years ago that's unconscionable.
Let's say you prefer to print your tax returns and send them in the traditional way, by postal mail. If for nothing else, because you don't want 3rd parties to have your entire tax data, investment profiles and personal data. You can no longer do this with TurboTax! (unless it changed back this year?).
They literally disable the print functionality unless you first send your tax data back to the home office! I call BULLSHIT! THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON TO DO THIS! They do not (or at least did not, as of a couple years ago) have this same restriction on the Windows version of TurboTax! Again, complete bullshit!
If you have TurboTax for Mac, try this experiment. Turn off your wifi. Plug your computer directly to your printer via USB. Yeah, old-school, right? Try to print your tax return, or even the first page of it. Not possible. You can't even use print-to-PDF locally to save to a file. And yes, I did confirm with TurboTax tech support (this was about 3 years ago when it first changed) that this is indeed the case, and that they only have this restriction on Mac, not Windows.
If it has changed, I'd love to know for sure. If not, please consider changing to another tax-prep software. I changed immediately to H&R Block because it seems like the only other viable option, it imports your old TurboTax data, and so far I've been quite happy with it.
I have subscription fatigue. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, newspapers.... plus backup service, Adobe, VPN, cloud storage, Quicken. Subscriptions can be great value, the problem is in aggregate, they have become a financial burden forcing me to reevaluate all subscriptions and where I want to focus monthly spending.
Ok, I'll help. You can cancel Amazon (just buy $25 worth of stuff at a time) and Quicken (perfectly good free alternatives). You're welcome. What's a good VPN to use?
There are free alternatives out there --- but none with the scope and power of Quicken or as well connected to financial institutions. But more importantly: the free alternatives (or the ones I have seen) all store your private financial data on their servers. You can do that with Quicken but you don't have to . You can keep it local on your own harddrive -- which is the ONLY place I want my personal financial data.
In that regard, Quicken has a bit of a monopoly going on.
Totally agree with you on financial data; it belongs in your control, period. Each financial institution you work with should only have access to your account with them, not others.
On that topic, even if you are 100% sure that your financial data is only stored on your own local device, are you sure other information isn't being sent back to the home office about how you're using their tools? Or which parts of their tools you're using, etc.? Unless you have packet-sniffing tools, or something like Little Snitch, it's really hard to know. If they encrypt the data they send back, then you really have no idea what they're sending back, and if they don't encrypt it, that's obviously even worse.
I realize that Quicken was purchased, but it does bring up a related issue. Everyone should consider switching from TurboTax to H&R Block for tax preparation software. No, I have no affiliation with H&R Block, but TurboTax made a change a few years ago that's unconscionable.
Let's say you prefer to print your tax returns and send them in the traditional way, by postal mail. If for nothing else, because you don't want 3rd parties to have your entire tax data, investment profiles and personal data. You can no longer do this with TurboTax! (unless it changed back this year?).
They literally disable the print functionality unless you first send your tax data back to the home office! I call BULLSHIT! THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON TO DO THIS! They do not (or at least did not, as of a couple years ago) have this same restriction on the Windows version of TurboTax! Again, complete bullshit!
If you have TurboTax for Mac, try this experiment. Turn off your wifi. Plug your computer directly to your printer via USB. Yeah, old-school, right? Try to print your tax return, or even the first page of it. Not possible. You can't even use print-to-PDF locally to save to a file. And yes, I did confirm with TurboTax tech support (this was about 3 years ago when it first changed) that this is indeed the case, and that they only have this restriction on Mac, not Windows.
If it has changed, I'd love to know for sure. If not, please consider changing to another tax-prep software. I changed immediately to H&R Block because it seems like the only other viable option, it imports your old TurboTax data, and so far I've been quite happy with it.
Yes, I do worry about that with Quicken - mostly, just how much they know about me. For instance, to download transactions, you have to give them the name of the bank and other details. But, at least, I retain control of the password.
Yes, they were sold. But it is my understanding (misunderstanding?) that eventually, Quicken itself ended back under the control of one of its original owners. But QUicken Loans, Intuit and TurboTax is completely separate now. And, no, I do not trust any of them. I switched from TurboTax to TaxCut when it became clear TurboTax had lost their integrity. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith in TaxCut either -- but neither have I seen anything to raise my suspicians about them.
I have subscription fatigue. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, newspapers.... plus backup service, Adobe, VPN, cloud storage, Quicken. Subscriptions can be great value, the problem is in aggregate, they have become a financial burden forcing me to reevaluate all subscriptions and where I want to focus monthly spending.
Ok, I'll help. You can cancel Amazon (just buy $25 worth of stuff at a time) and Quicken (perfectly good free alternatives). You're welcome. What's a good VPN to use?
There are free alternatives out there --- but none with the scope and power of Quicken or as well connected to financial institutions. But more importantly: the free alternatives (or the ones I have seen) all store your private financial data on their servers. You can do that with Quicken but you don't have to . You can keep it local on your own harddrive -- which is the ONLY place I want my personal financial data.
In that regard, Quicken has a bit of a monopoly going on.
Totally agree with you on financial data; it belongs in your control, period. Each financial institution you work with should only have access to your account with them, not others.
On that topic, even if you are 100% sure that your financial data is only stored on your own local device, are you sure other information isn't being sent back to the home office about how you're using their tools? Or which parts of their tools you're using, etc.? Unless you have packet-sniffing tools, or something like Little Snitch, it's really hard to know. If they encrypt the data they send back, then you really have no idea what they're sending back, and if they don't encrypt it, that's obviously even worse.
I realize that Quicken was purchased, but it does bring up a related issue. Everyone should consider switching from TurboTax to H&R Block for tax preparation software. No, I have no affiliation with H&R Block, but TurboTax made a change a few years ago that's unconscionable.
Let's say you prefer to print your tax returns and send them in the traditional way, by postal mail. If for nothing else, because you don't want 3rd parties to have your entire tax data, investment profiles and personal data. You can no longer do this with TurboTax! (unless it changed back this year?).
They literally disable the print functionality unless you first send your tax data back to the home office! I call BULLSHIT! THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON TO DO THIS! They do not (or at least did not, as of a couple years ago) have this same restriction on the Windows version of TurboTax! Again, complete bullshit!
If you have TurboTax for Mac, try this experiment. Turn off your wifi. Plug your computer directly to your printer via USB. Yeah, old-school, right? Try to print your tax return, or even the first page of it. Not possible. You can't even use print-to-PDF locally to save to a file. And yes, I did confirm with TurboTax tech support (this was about 3 years ago when it first changed) that this is indeed the case, and that they only have this restriction on Mac, not Windows.
If it has changed, I'd love to know for sure. If not, please consider changing to another tax-prep software. I changed immediately to H&R Block because it seems like the only other viable option, it imports your old TurboTax data, and so far I've been quite happy with it.
Yes, I do worry about that with Quicken - mostly, just how much they know about me. For instance, to download transactions, you have to give them the name of the bank and other details. But, at least, I retain control of the password.
Yes, they were sold. But it is my understanding (misunderstanding?) that eventually, Quicken itself ended back under the control of one of its original owners. But QUicken Loans, Intuit and TurboTax is completely separate now. And, no, I do not trust any of them. I switched from TurboTax to TaxCut when it became clear TurboTax had lost their integrity. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith in TaxCut either -- but neither have I seen anything to raise my suspicians about them.
Read these and your suspicions will be indeed be raised:
It's not just the "free" versions that sell your data. It looks like TurboTax may actually have better policies than H&R, but there's no way I'm going to do ever do e-file when to do so means sending all your financial info to a 3rd party. TurboTax does not let you print your tax forms to your own printer without going online. Unacceptable.
I don't have to trust H&R policies because the computer I prepare my taxes on never touches the internet when that software is running, and I print the forms directly to my printer over a simple USB cable.
I have subscription fatigue. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, newspapers.... plus backup service, Adobe, VPN, cloud storage, Quicken. Subscriptions can be great value, the problem is in aggregate, they have become a financial burden forcing me to reevaluate all subscriptions and where I want to focus monthly spending.
Ok, I'll help. You can cancel Amazon (just buy $25 worth of stuff at a time) and Quicken (perfectly good free alternatives). You're welcome. What's a good VPN to use?
There are free alternatives out there --- but none with the scope and power of Quicken or as well connected to financial institutions. But more importantly: the free alternatives (or the ones I have seen) all store your private financial data on their servers. You can do that with Quicken but you don't have to . You can keep it local on your own harddrive -- which is the ONLY place I want my personal financial data.
In that regard, Quicken has a bit of a monopoly going on.
Totally agree with you on financial data; it belongs in your control, period. Each financial institution you work with should only have access to your account with them, not others.
On that topic, even if you are 100% sure that your financial data is only stored on your own local device, are you sure other information isn't being sent back to the home office about how you're using their tools? Or which parts of their tools you're using, etc.? Unless you have packet-sniffing tools, or something like Little Snitch, it's really hard to know. If they encrypt the data they send back, then you really have no idea what they're sending back, and if they don't encrypt it, that's obviously even worse.
I realize that Quicken was purchased, but it does bring up a related issue. Everyone should consider switching from TurboTax to H&R Block for tax preparation software. No, I have no affiliation with H&R Block, but TurboTax made a change a few years ago that's unconscionable.
Let's say you prefer to print your tax returns and send them in the traditional way, by postal mail. If for nothing else, because you don't want 3rd parties to have your entire tax data, investment profiles and personal data. You can no longer do this with TurboTax! (unless it changed back this year?).
They literally disable the print functionality unless you first send your tax data back to the home office! I call BULLSHIT! THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON TO DO THIS! They do not (or at least did not, as of a couple years ago) have this same restriction on the Windows version of TurboTax! Again, complete bullshit!
If you have TurboTax for Mac, try this experiment. Turn off your wifi. Plug your computer directly to your printer via USB. Yeah, old-school, right? Try to print your tax return, or even the first page of it. Not possible. You can't even use print-to-PDF locally to save to a file. And yes, I did confirm with TurboTax tech support (this was about 3 years ago when it first changed) that this is indeed the case, and that they only have this restriction on Mac, not Windows.
If it has changed, I'd love to know for sure. If not, please consider changing to another tax-prep software. I changed immediately to H&R Block because it seems like the only other viable option, it imports your old TurboTax data, and so far I've been quite happy with it.
Yes, I do worry about that with Quicken - mostly, just how much they know about me. For instance, to download transactions, you have to give them the name of the bank and other details. But, at least, I retain control of the password.
Yes, they were sold. But it is my understanding (misunderstanding?) that eventually, Quicken itself ended back under the control of one of its original owners. But QUicken Loans, Intuit and TurboTax is completely separate now. And, no, I do not trust any of them. I switched from TurboTax to TaxCut when it became clear TurboTax had lost their integrity. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith in TaxCut either -- but neither have I seen anything to raise my suspicians about them.
Read these and your suspicions will be indeed be raised:
It's not just the "free" versions that sell your data. It looks like TurboTax may actually have better policies than H&R, but there's no way I'm going to do ever do e-file when to do so means sending all your financial info to a 3rd party. TurboTax does not let you print your tax forms to your own printer without going online. Unacceptable.
I don't have to trust H&R policies because the computer I prepare my taxes on never touches the internet when that software is running, and I print the forms directly to my printer over a simple USB cable.
I don't use the free versions of any of them because they all store your data on their servers. The paid version let's you keep it on your on computer (like Quicken does), but there is that e-file thing. And I haven't been clear just what information they keep (and sell) from that. So, thank you for the information (although I couldn't see the WaPo article). I am hopeful that all they see is the return itself without downloading all the back up information -- but who knows?
I fault the IRS for this. They limit how you can e-file by requiring a vendor do it for you. Here in Pennsylvania they went fully the reverse: you cannot file on paper anymore -- if you don't use software, then you have to file the entire return on their website -- much like the free, online version of vendor software. I guess that is better...
Anyone find a place to see the full list of magazines and news papers offered?
MacStories.net put together a list. Bear in mind they excluded newspapers and digital-only mags for the purposes of their article, and also bear in mind these are VERY early days -- a year from now it will be at least double this -- but here you go:
It looks like Medium isn't on board and I can understand why. I've really been wanting to subscribe to Medium but can't quite justify the $10mo. If they jumped on with News+ I think I could stomach it, but since they seem to be doing fine without Apple's cut it's probably not happening anytime soon.
Comments
I also like the fact that you don't have to buy an entire magazine for one or two articles that you may be interested in. I just don't have the time to peruse a whole magazine and now that they're online, I can read at my convenience without having to carry them around.
[sorry for the double post]
You sound like the people who subscribe to Apple Music and then complain about all the pop music available on there.
If you think News+ is somehow curtailing free speech, then add me to the list of those ridiculing you.
Oh, and I can turn off the subscriptions at any time, and turn them back on again at any time? Now this, to my mind, is subscriptions done right.
Bear in mind that Apple doesn't expect most people of average means to sign up for every service they offer. It's a balancing act of the value you get versus the money you spend, and subscriptions need periodic review to ensure you're still getting what you feel is good value from them.
Re: price in Canada -- the exchange rate requires that price to be at least $12.50 at the moment, so no it's not pricey -- it's close to a straight exchange, actually.
On that topic, even if you are 100% sure that your financial data is only stored on your own local device, are you sure other information isn't being sent back to the home office about how you're using their tools? Or which parts of their tools you're using, etc.? Unless you have packet-sniffing tools, or something like Little Snitch, it's really hard to know. If they encrypt the data they send back, then you really have no idea what they're sending back, and if they don't encrypt it, that's obviously even worse.
I realize that Quicken was purchased, but it does bring up a related issue. Everyone should consider switching from TurboTax to H&R Block for tax preparation software. No, I have no affiliation with H&R Block, but TurboTax made a change a few years ago that's unconscionable.
Let's say you prefer to print your tax returns and send them in the traditional way, by postal mail. If for nothing else, because you don't want 3rd parties to have your entire tax data, investment profiles and personal data. You can no longer do this with TurboTax! (unless it changed back this year?).
They literally disable the print functionality unless you first send your tax data back to the home office! I call BULLSHIT! THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON TO DO THIS! They do not (or at least did not, as of a couple years ago) have this same restriction on the Windows version of TurboTax! Again, complete bullshit!
If you have TurboTax for Mac, try this experiment. Turn off your wifi. Plug your computer directly to your printer via USB. Yeah, old-school, right? Try to print your tax return, or even the first page of it. Not possible. You can't even use print-to-PDF locally to save to a file. And yes, I did confirm with TurboTax tech support (this was about 3 years ago when it first changed) that this is indeed the case, and that they only have this restriction on Mac, not Windows.
If it has changed, I'd love to know for sure. If not, please consider changing to another tax-prep software. I changed immediately to H&R Block because it seems like the only other viable option, it imports your old TurboTax data, and so far I've been quite happy with it.
Yes, they were sold. But it is my understanding (misunderstanding?) that eventually, Quicken itself ended back under the control of one of its original owners. But QUicken Loans, Intuit and TurboTax is completely separate now. And, no, I do not trust any of them. I switched from TurboTax to TaxCut when it became clear TurboTax had lost their integrity. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of faith in TaxCut either -- but neither have I seen anything to raise my suspicians about them.
The paid version let's you keep it on your on computer (like Quicken does), but there is that e-file thing. And I haven't been clear just what information they keep (and sell) from that. So, thank you for the information (although I couldn't see the WaPo article). I am hopeful that all they see is the return itself without downloading all the back up information -- but who knows?
I fault the IRS for this. They limit how you can e-file by requiring a vendor do it for you. Here in Pennsylvania they went fully the reverse: you cannot file on paper anymore -- if you don't use software, then you have to file the entire return on their website -- much like the free, online version of vendor software. I guess that is better...
Thanks! this is what I couldn't figure out!
It looks like Medium isn't on board and I can understand why. I've really been wanting to subscribe to Medium but can't quite justify the $10mo. If they jumped on with News+ I think I could stomach it, but since they seem to be doing fine without Apple's cut it's probably not happening anytime soon.