Here’s an interesting little nugget of information related to the Quicken 2007/Mac OS X Lion debacle. In case you missed it, Apple has decided to drop Rosetta from their next major update of OS X (10.7; dubbed “Lion”). This means that software that hasn’t been updated to run on the Intel chip architecture won’t run on Lion.
To me, this is an understandable move by Apple. They’ve accommodated developers for years by including the Rosetta environment in their OS, and the vast majority of software has since been updated. It’s not Apple’s fault that Quicken hasn’t been updated in years, and they can’t be expected to be held back by Intuit’s inattention.
Anyway, back to that interesting little nugget…
A commenter named George pointed out a recent MacObserver article in which an Intuit exec named Aaron Patzer revealed that they’re negotiating with Apple for permission to embed critical bits of Rosetta into an updated version of Quicken 2007, thereby enabling it to run on Lion.
It’s still not clear if Apple will allow this, or if Intuit will be able to make it work, but there’s a chance that Quicken 2007 will be capable of running on Lion by the end of the summer. In the meantime, Intuit is hopefully working to make Quicken Essentials for Mac suck less – but that’s a pretty tall order.
In related (and very welcome) news…
Patzer also stated that the ability to import your data into Mint.com is “likely coming in the next six-to-nine months.” Given that Patzer founded Mint, which was later acquired by Intuit, so he hopefully knows what he’s talking about.
What do you think? Would you switch to Mint if you could keep your Quicken data? To me, it would largely depend on whether or not it has the ability to track investments down to individual trades, keep track of tax lots, etc.
Will Quicken 2007 kill Lion? If I’m forced to go to Windows for Quicken, there is no much sense to stay with Apple, after all I have been using Mac a short time…since Mac plus in 1988.
I switched over to iBank 4 after reading some information at iBank 4 Reviews. I’m sure they will fix the issues but it’s obvious the Mac is not a priority for Intuit/Quicken.
Knight: You can’t. You’ll need to open your file on a machine still running Snow Leopard or earlier and then export as QIF so you can import into something else. See here:
http://www.fivecentnickel.com/psa-export-your-quicken-2007-data-before-upgrading-to-mac-os-x-lion/
So, how do I run Quicken 2007 and use the data, now that I have downloaded Lion?
I’ve been using Quicken 2007 for years and just recently bought Essentials to prepare for OS X Lion. After running them side by side, I have really grown to love Quicken 2007 even more. The 2007 registers are cleaner and I can enter data much faster in 2007, the Scheduled Transactions functions much better (I still haven’t fully figured out the Essentials version), and the Account Reconciliation function is much more complete in 2007. Essentials is very bare bones, almost like a spreadsheet rather than a program. I really hope they are able to patch 2007 to run on Lion.
I would have been much happier if they rewrote the code under 2007 and left the screens and flow as they are.
I use Quicken to pay bills too frequently to buy the upgrade. Either Apple or Intuit will have to reach a compromise, or I’m stuck with the old operating system.
It seems to me that the folks at Intuit would be better served if they just included the missing functionality from the 2007 mac version into Quicken Essentials for Mac. What a novel idea. Maybe more folks would buy it.