1. Microsoft Office 2004

Let’s face it, Microsoft Office isn’t cheap, and Office 2008 wasn’t that great. Some features in 2004 weren’t in 2008 (though many were reintroduced in 2011), and when 2008 included the new .docx format, 2004 users didn’t want to move to a new format that could cause problems. Because of these issues, it’s not unusual to find users two versions behind. Alternatives: Office 2011, iWork, Google Docs.

2. Appleworks

Appleworks, why can’t we quit you? I’ve been a fan of Appleworks since the Apple II days. You worked equally well on Mac and PC, and included a database that’s easier to use and understand that those used by either Filemaker or Access. In fact, Apple was still selling Appleworks until 2007. Fortunately, iWork will open most files in Appleworks format and Apple has a full transition guide about moving Appleworks files over to iWork. Database users will either need to export the file to spreadsheet format or move up to Filemaker. Alternatives: iWork, Filemaker, Bento.

3. Freehand

Die-hard Freehand users refuse to use Illustrator. Freehand MX was the last version released before the purchase and discontinuation of the product by Adobe. Freehand holdouts might balk at the cost of Illustrator, or at having to relearn using new software, but it’s time to move on, or Lion won’t be able to open your files. Alternatives: Illustrator (this guide will help).

4. Eudora

Eudora was an outstanding cross-platform email program and a longtime Mac standard. It easily imported into Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or Microsoft’s Entourage, but some of us, myself included, were lazy and didn’t import old emails. Instead, if I needed an ancient email, I just opened Eudora. Now’s the time to import those emails before you run into problems with Lion. And if Eudora is still your primary email program, it’s definitely time to move onto something else. Alternatives: Penelope/Eudora Open Source, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook.

5. Quicken 2007

Although Intel Macs have been out since 2006, Quicken still hasn’t updated the program. And Quicken 2007 is still being sold, because Intuit’s new product, Quicken Essentials, is a scaled-down version of its 2007 predecessor. Essentials lacks features such as bill pay and sophisticated stock tracking. Intuit generally keeps their Mac products somewhat behind the PC versions. Intuit’s suggestions for what to do with the end of Rosetta are laughable. Fortunately, a wide variety of alternatives exist for these users, but be sure to research these carefully, and import your data into a new program before you make the move to Lion. Alternatives: iBank, Moneydance.

What still-in-use programs will you have to say goodbye to when you make the leap to Lion?

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I abandoned moribund Quicken in 2009, and since then I’ve used iBank through several point releases and the latest major version update. Not surprisingly, upgrading from iBank 3 was quick and error free, but so was switching from Quicken 2007. An old QIF file with two dozen accounts and a decade of transactions imported without problem.

Finances appear in a two-pane interface; accounts and information on the left, selected accounts like the register on the right. Instead of an editing pane, transactions are now done in the register itself. The developers opted for a two-line list view to better handle investment data and to support multiple currencies, features lacking in Quicken Essentials. Personally, I prefer single-line transactions, but it’s not a deal breaker. Regarding editing, splits could be better. You can only see four splits without scrolling, annoying for paychecks and other many-split transactions.

The register also has a Cover Flow view of dubious value, and the more relevant and functional reconciliation view, straightforward “checkbox” reconciliation.

Transaction Templates encompass the concept of repeat transactions, scheduled, as seen above, as well as imported. If a downloaded transaction meets certain criteria, like payee name, then appropriate type, categories, splits, memo data are automatically added as expected.

While Quicken Essentials claims support for thousands of institutions, you can find out if iBank supports direct downloading for yours here. If not, or more likely if your financial institution charges an egregious fee for direct downloads, the built-in WebKit browser allows logging in from within iBank for downloading. This is a nice feature, though it would be nicer if iBank supplied ID and password too.

Reports are a big improvement over iBank 3, the biggest changes being combining report data and charts, WYSIWYG printing, and the ability to “drill down” to individual transactions in a report. The depth of accessible detail offered is well in advance of “spending cloud”  gimmicks and the simplistic reporting of Quicken Essentials.

Speaking of gimmicks, iBank 4 adds “envelope” budgeting. Instead of categories, you get envelopes, but with the ability to “borrow” unused money from one envelope for another. The problem is that there are no envelopes. It’s a metaphor too far, but iBank 4 retains category budgeting, so not a big deal.

Besides tracking general securities information, as seen above, iBank 4 does your stocks, funds, and retirement accounts all the way down to individual transactions. Can you imagine personal finance software that doesn’t? It’s called Quicken Essentials.

If you think I’m dismissive of Quicken Essentials for Mac, you’re wrong. There’s not enough there to be dismissive about. Assuming Intuit continues development, instead of ultimately pushing Mac users to Mint.com, it will be a long time, if ever, before Quicken Essentials catches up to iBank. Why wait for Quicken Essentials? For the same price of $59.99, iBank 4 offers a robust, full-featured personal finance program right now.

“Quicken Essentials is our first Mac-native Quicken product, and demonstrates our new commitment to the Mac platform,” said Aaron Patzer, vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group. “We’re glad customers took it seriously when we asked for their feedback. These are the first in a series of changes we’re planning to ensure Quicken Essentials users have the tools they need to manage their money easily and affordably.”

New Features

The first set of enhancements to Quicken Essentials for Mac will be available by the end of the month and will let customers:

• Protect files with passwords.
• Export transaction data to spreadsheets for further analysis.
• Additional enhancements are expected throughout the year, enabling customers to:
• Obtain a complete picture of current net worth by entering investment holdings from brokerages that do not download to Quicken.
• Compare spending between time periods to better understand expenses.
• Export tax-deductible expenses to tax filing programs, such as TurboTax.
• Track budgets across several months

Existing Quicken Essentials for Mac users will get these updates automatically as they become available.

Lower Price: Customer Refund Available

In addition, Quicken lowered the retail price for Essentials from $69.99 to $49.99. Customers who purchased the product before April 19, 2010 can obtain a $20 refund.  The offer is good through May 31, and further details are available at www.quicken.com/macrefund.

Intuit Should Have Done More From the Beginning

These measures will be welcome news to many users. The features slated for free updates are a good start, although some will be upset that their favorite feature is still missing (check printing, investment analysis, etc.). I think it is a good move for Intuit to go public with its plan to release these new features as free updates this year. It is tough for software publishers to pre-announce new features, but Intuit is in a bind here and needs to communicate to users that they will not be stuck with an inferior product.

The rebate is also a good idea, but perhaps too little too late. In my original review, one of my first reactions was that the price was too high to begin with for such an anemic first release. Quicken Essentials should have launched at $29. Then the v2 release could be $49 with a $20 upgrade for v1.0 customers.

What Do You Think?

Is this enough to assuage your anger or lessen your disappointment in buying Quicken Essentials for Mac? Will the lower price and promised features convince you to go out and get it now if you haven’t already?

I spent the last week or so playing with a copy of the new Quicken Essentials for Mac from Intuit and I can make this review really short for you. If you’re a die-hard Quicken user, you will hate (I mean really loathe and despise) the new Quicken Essentials product. If you are new to Personal Finance Management (PFM) software, then you will probably really like Quicken Essentials but still feel a little confused about why you have to pay $60 $69 for it.

Quicken Pops a Mint

Quicken 2007 for Mac was released in August of 2006. Since that time, Intuit has struggled to define its Mac strategy and loyal users have felt left behind. Intuit tried an online product that worked with the Mac, but were bewildered when a little startup, created as an anti-Quicken, amassed more subscribers. Last September, Intuit took another look at that startup and acquired Mint.com and placed Mint’s founder, Aaron Patzer at the head of the personal finance group at Intuit. That move appeared to show that Intuit was floundering and was looking for outside help to fix its core PFM business. Understandably, the new Quicken Essentials shows a strong Mint influence.

The Essence of Quicken

To start on the new version, Intuit threw away the code for previous releases and started over to create a Mac native version with a modern look and feel. One of the design goals was to create a financial app that would feel at home as part of the iWork suite and it mostly succeeded. The new version looks great and shows a lot of attention to simplifying the user experience in areas like adding new accounts. People that are new to Quicken will love how easy it is to get started.

The new version had four key features: to see all your accounts one place, to see where your money is going, to stay on top of bills, and to track goals for saving money.

Accounts in One Place

Quicken Essentials will download transactions from about 12,000 banks out of the box (around the same number that Mint.com currently supports) and up to 16,000 financial institutions will be supported in the next few months. This is over 3x the number of FI’s that Quicken for Windows supports. This is a tremendous improvement.

Where is My Money Going?

Quicken Essentials provides a nice looking home page with pie charts to quickly show where you stand. Instead of being buried in reports, this information comes front and center. QEM also supports budgets for tracking spending by category.

Plan for Bills

Quicken Essentials will analyze your previous spending and detect recurring bills to help you anticipate upcoming expenses. Of course, you can enter bills manually as well.

Set Goals for Saving Money

You can set goals and track your progress towards that goal.

The reboot of Quicken for Mac comes at a price in features however. While Intuit was fairly certain that they would cover 80 percent of the users from previous versions, there are going to be a lot of pretty upset users from the other 20 percent.

What’s Missing?

No Bill Pay

There is no Bill Pay feature in this release. Intuit found that less than 10 percent of existing customers were using that feature. Because major banks offer free online bill pay to their customers, this feature was axed as “non-essential.”

No Turbo Tax Link

There is no quick link to export tax prep reports direct to Turbo Tax. Many users would simply run the reports to look at spending by category and then type those numbers in Turbo Tax so, again, Intuit decided that this feature was also “non-essential.”

No Investment Tax Lot Accounting

QEM will track the current value of your investment accounts, but it does not provide any reports on the history of your transactions. Fortunately, all the transaction data is preserved in the underlying data and will be available to future versions that offer more comprehensive investment reporting.

The Future

Banking Services

QEM is one of the first places where you will see the integration between Intuit and Mint. All of the back-end will eventually be the same across Mint, Quicken for Windows and Quicken for Mac. Quicken for Mac will be the first product to get the big connection and then the rest will be ported over.

Parity with Windows

The whispered goal at Intuit is to bring parity to the Mac and Windows versions. This includes file format compatibility between different platforms. There is a clear acknowledgment that customers just want to get access to their financial information on whatever platform is available or convenient and Intuit is interested in being there.

Whither Quicken 2007 for Mac?

Quicken 2007 is still being fully supported. Intuit made it clear that it will provide support for a three-version window to include 2006, 2007 and Quicken Essentials.

iPad

No official statement here, but Intuit did discuss that the iPad is an “at your fingertips” device and financial data is a nice thing to have “at your fingertips.”

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I mentioned at the start that Quicken Essentials for Mac is similar in many ways to Mint. The product is streamlined, simple, visually appealing, and easy to jump into. They are so similar, that it is hard to understand why you should pay $59 for Quicken Essentials when you can use Mint.com for free. That decision comes down to…

• planning future transactions to manage cash flow
• importing historical data
• offline access

If you need any of those features, Quicken Essentials would be a good choice except for the price. For such a limited product (albeit a much cleaner and better designed product) I really think Intuit should have come out with $29 introductory pricing, $19 if you own any other Quicken product.

If you are a hard-core Quicken user and you like to reconcile your bank statements with your own records and you religiously enter all your receipts, you will be disappointed in this product. You might really like the next version that includes tax lot accounting and bill pay, but then hold on to your $60 $69 for a year (yes, I am an optimist and will hope against hope to see another version in a year). For the time being, hold on to Quicken 2007, or even Quicken 2010 for Windows, and see what happens.

Via the Quicken Blog, Intuit has announced a February release for the oft-delayed Mac financial software.

Intuit spokesperson Scott Gulbransen sought to “clear the air” regarding the rumored demise of Quicken for Mac. In recent days, Intuit had removed information about the formerly named Quicken Financial Life for Mac from its web site. This action, shortly after Microsoft’s cancellation of Money, may have led some to believe Intuit was giving up on a client-based application for the Mac in lieu of its online service. According to Gulbransen, the truth is much simpler: Intuit screwed up.

Feedback from Mac customers led us to rethink our approach to developing Quicken for Mac. We went back to the drawing board and are making changes to everything from what the program does to how it looks.

After being shown at Macworld Expos two years running, QFLM was finally released as a beta earlier this year. Reception was cold. As Gulbransen notes, “We learned the product was not doing what we – nor customers – wanted it to do.” Accordingly, development was reset, with changes including a new register, better reconciliation model, and a “robust” migration function for current Quicken users, including Quicken for Windows. They also dumped that idiotic name.

Intuit will be taking pre-orders for Quicken for Mac starting in October. Considering the troubled development history of the product, waiting until release would seem like a good idea. After all, what’s another seven months after three years?

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