Intuit releases Quicken 2015 for Mac, with stock tracking
Loyal users of Quicken for Mac, Intuit's flagship personal finance manager, have not had the easiest road over the past few years. The product froze in amber with the Quicken 2007 release, which remained on its legacy PowerPC code base well past the best-if-used-by date; while Quicken Essentials, released in 2010 with input from the Mint.com team, delivered a shiny new money management experience, it also lacked many Q2007 features (integrated bill payments, investment management) that users counted on.
Many unsuspecting Quickenians upgraded their Intel Macs from 10.6 Snow Leopard to 10.7 Lion without fully realizing that Apple's move to drop Rosetta support from the Mac's OS meant that Quicken 2007 would never launch again. To Intuit's credit, the wailing and gnashing of teeth of customers was heard and acknowledged; in March 2012 it released a Lion-compatible version of Quicken 2007 which remains on sale today. Still, the anxiety around Quicken for Mac created opportunity for competing apps to haul in some market share, including the capable iBank (now at v5, including bill pay and other marquee Quicken features plus QIF data import).
Intuit is now aiming to turn those Mac personal finance users back into Quicken loyalists with the shiny, mobile-savvy release of Quicken 2015 for Mac. Never mind that 2015 is still months away; the US$74.99 rebuilt flagship app delivers some key functionality, including synchronized iOS and Android mobile apps that allow you to take receipt photos on the go; detailed investment tracking that can support tax reporting requirements; and a revived, Mint-y fresh user interface that makes it easy to see where your money is going. Quicken 2015 is built atop the Quicken Essentials codebase (rather than the PowerPC legacy of Quicken 2007), but it's decidedly its own, more capable product that was guided by customer input and lots of public beta testing.
These new features are great, and Intuit says that additional features will be delivered as free upgrades to the base 2015 edition. Unfortunately, it isn't committing to which features will be added -- and there's a pretty long list to choose from, including a few crowd favorites (integrated bill payment, calendar/12-month view, loan amortization) that are in Quicken 2007 and/or Quicken for Windows, but still aren't part of Quicken 2015. Intuit has posted a comparison chart where users may vote for the features they would like to see sooner rather than later -- vote early and often.
Personal financial management is a conservative corner of the software market, and adopters of a particular application are often resistant to change for change's sake (it's only your life savings, after all). Users who depend on a specific tool in Quicken 2007 that isn't yet implemented in Quicken 2015 will likely have the same reaction they did to Quicken Essentials -- a more or less polite "No thank you." But for those who don't need those particular pieces (or are willing to wait) and who haven't jumped to an alternative, it's certainly a cheerful bit of news that Intuit has renewed its commitment to the Mac market with Quicken 2015.
You can buy Quicken 2015 online today as a download from Intuit, via the Mac App Store or via Amazon software delivery. Boxed availability at retail is scheduled for October 2014. There is no trial version of the $74.99 application, but there is a 60-day money back guarantee if you find that the new app does not suit your requirements.
