Six ways to keep Quicken for Mac on life support, plus Quicken-gate updates
If you're a Quicken for Mac user, you're probably aware that Quicken will not run in Lion because it's a Rosetta application. All is not lost though. Here are four ways to keep Quicken for Mac on life support a little while longer:
- Mac partition. Re-partition your Mac hard drive with a smallish (15-20GB) partition with Snow Leopard and Quicken 2007. The downside is that re-partitioning is a huge pain, you have to reboot to use Quicken.
- Windows partition. Same as above except install Windows and Quicken for Windows on the new partition. Same disadvantage, rebooting.
- Dedicated Mac. Set up a Mac mini (or some other Mac) running Snow Leopard as a dedicated Quicken machine and optionally remote into when needed. Requires having an extra Mac around.
- Dedicated PC. Install Quicken for Windows on a spare/beater PC and RDC into it from the comfort of Lion. Requires having an extra PC around.
- Virtualize Mac OS. Install a virtualization application (like Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox, et. al.), then install Snow Leopard as the guest OS with Quicken 2007 for Mac. Requires system resources on the host machine.
- Virtualize Windows. Install a virtualization application (like Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox, et. al.), then install Windows as the guest OS with the Windows version of Quicken. Requires system resources on the host machine.
Another Quicken SNAFU
There's another potentially nasty Quicken/Lion issue that's come up since yesterday's post. If you take Intuit's advice and switch to Quicken Essentials you must migrate your Quicken 2007 data to 'Essentials while still running Mac OS 10.6/Snow Leopard. Once you upgrade to Lion, the Export/Import no longer works and you'd be stuck. According to this Quicken support article:
Just be sure you upgrade and transfer your data on your current operating system. It will not import on Lion.
iBank Responds
IGG Software, publisher of Quicken-competitor iBank, took issue with my friend's concern about the way iBank handled his security history in yesterday's post, stating that it's a limitation of what Quicken exports.
iBank can in fact handle the import of very large quicken data files going back many, many years - from both mac or PC. (and not all users need to do this.) iBank also has the best capability for handling investment accounts of any mac finance software.
There are many thousands of happy iBank users (it's now the top-grossing third-party app at the Mac App Store), and iBank 4 is constantly being updated. There's sync from an iPhone app, TurboTax export, and many more reasons why someone looking into a Quicken replacement might want to try iBank.
Campbell should be off the Apple Board
The crazy part about the Quicken Fiasco is that Intuit chairman William V. Campbellhas been on Apple’s Board of Directors since 1997. Intel continued to sell Quicken 2007 for Mac (sans Intel support) for four years under Campbell's "leadership." It's amazing that Apple shareholders have tolerated 14 years of oppression under the Intuit overlord.
Just like Eric Schmidt before him, it's time to dump Bill Campbell from the Apple Board.