Quicken 2007 for Mac is Available--We'll Pass For Now
Since we upgrade every couple of years or so, we took a look at what's new in Quicken 2007 for Mac. The first thing that popped out at us was something it lacked--it is not a Universal Application! How can that be? Intuit has had over a year to create a universal binary so that Quicken runs native on Intel-based Macs and their main Mac application is labelled "2007" and it is not Universal? Unbelievable! Well, as disappointing as this is, especially since we primarily use a MacBook Pro, it is not really a show-stopper since Quicken 2006 runs just fine under Rosetta. But, c'mon Intuit!
Okay, the big five new features and our comments are:
1. Download and track 401(k) data. We suppose this is useful to those who have a large and complex 401(k) plan, do not get adequate reports on it, want to jiggle it frequently and can actually get the data via Quicken for Mac running on a Mac. We have a 403(b) account from our university faculty days and several IRA accounts. It's not clear that these accounts can not be tracked by Quicken 2007 but Intuit's literature doesn't say they can so we'll pass on this feature. Anyway, quarterly reports are fine with us and except when the stock market was in full bull prior to 2001, our jiggling has cost us money.
2. Track all paycheck information. This is a no-brainer for us. We have no use at all for it. Most people who get regular paychecks from businesses they work for probably also get a nice neat summary at the end of the year. We don't see this feature being particularly attractive to many people.
3. A QuickEntry Dashboard widget. You don't have to launch Quicken to make entries but you have to launch Dashboard instead, i.e. if you are running Mac OS X 10.4.x "Tiger" and you should be really. QuickEntry claims to encrypt the data entered and make it ready for import the next time you open Quicken--hmmm, even more steps. Well, does anyone else see this as a real time saver? We don't. In fact, now that its novelty has worn off on us we hardly ever use the Dashboard environment despite there being lots of really cool widgets available. But, of course, that's just us and YMMV.
4. Customize names of downloaded payees. We suppose this is helpful if you get a consistent set of nonsense names of payees from your bank's or credit cards' transactions and can't remember them. But if you get a lot of new ones with every monthly download, it seems to us that it would be a real chore to look up who the real payees are and create the translations only to likely be never used again. We usually get a couple here and there, mostly online purchases from web sites, and its not worth our time and effort to track them down and get the name exactly right in the data.
5. More options for scheduled transactions. Well, this is probably good but the literature doesn't say exactly what the new ones are nor are we currently confronted with limitations we can't live with.
So, we'll pass on the upgrade, at least for now. Since we now use TurboTax again instead of TaxCut, around tax time Intuit usually has a special for TurboTax that gets you Quicken for free or very close to it. We'll wait and re-evaluate our position then.
However, if you need a consumer to small business level financial management application, by all means look at Quicken 2007. We highly recommend Quicken. [Bill Fox]
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