Hopeless Geek

Please explain how this indecisive and backpedal-friendly text:

“Intuit is currently planning for 2008 Quicken offerings and is investigating the best possible ways to serve the entire Quicken community. With anticipation of the launch of the new Mac OS X (Leopard) and Intuit’s ongoing focus on delivering customer driven innovation, more information around future Mac offerings will be shared at a later time.”
MacNN | Intuit speaks on Quicken 2008 Mac, Leopard

Became this declaratory statement:

Continuing to show commitment to the Mac OS X platform, Intuit says it is looking ahead to 2008 Quicken for Mac product introductions and anxious for Leopard’s release. … While no official word has been released, it appears likely that similar features [to Quicken 2008 for Windows] will appear in the forthcoming Quicken for Mac releases, though specific product options and pricing will likely differ.
MacNN | Intuit speaks on Quicken 2008 Mac, Leopard

This is most certainly not what the above text said. That statement said “We haven’t announced Quicken 2008 for Mac and haven’t decided if or when we’ll do so. Here’s a vague statement about Leopard to distract you.”

Newsflash: Quicken barely runs on Tiger. They’re not waiting on Leopard features. Distraction.

I’ve attended the past two WWDCs and the last MacWorld. I’ve spoken with Quicken devs and sales monkeys. I’m not believing that there will be anything past a Quicken 2008, and maybe not even that. Let me summarize what I know about Quicken to demonstrate this reservation.

It’s Old

Quicken for Mac is essentially the same program it was when it was called Quicken 7 in the late 90s. Some things have been tweaked, bugs have been added, but it’s overall the exact same piece of crap they unloaded on us then, only now it’s $20 more.

When Quicken was written at the time, the IDE of choice was Code Warrior. They’re still using it. In fact, Quicken is still in PEF format because it’s still in CW and whatever they’ve done to it prevents it from leaving CW or becoming a Mach-O application. This is bad. As noted in the Wikipedia entry I just linked to, Apple stated that PEF applications cannot be Universal Binaries. So Intuit needs to port their project from Code Warrior to Xcode, and then port it and all libraries of code to be Universal as well. This is required just to release an Intel version. This is saying nothing about adding new features as well.

It’s Abandoned

What was the last new feature added to the core of Quicken for Mac? They added DotMac backup … via a tack-on program that QfM calls on exit. They added iCal support … by sending an Apple Event to add one transaction to your calendar. They added additional programs the bundle, sure, but what in Quicken has changed in ten years?

Nothing of consequence.

They have de facto abandoned the core product.

It’s Crap

It’s a fucking Mac OS 8 application that’s managed to do the zombie walk into the land of Mac OS X. Every curve ball Apple’s thrown in ten years about how to write software, Intuit has dodged with a patch or hack that let them keep doing things like they always have. Now here we are with a PPC-only PEF application that’s been utterly unchanged since the late 90s and they have the gall to issue yearly releases and charge money for it.

Command-A opens the account window. It does not Select All.

QIF export does not create a file that its own QIF import processes correctly if you use transfers a lot (which the loan feature outright requires). Further, if I import that QIF file into Quicken for Windows (which requires manual voodoo with the QIF file’s line endings and format) then QfW will read all the dates as 19xx rather than 20xx. It still has a Y2K bug. Which is to say, in short: if I export my data, I cannot reliably import it again.

It’s Gone

The developers that identify themselves as being from Intuit at WWDC sessions ask questions that are very centered on future development at a core level, going straight down to getting C++ code working on Intel coming from a Code Warrior project. They’re scared about 64-bit, they’re scared about Xcode, they’re scared about moving forward in any fashion. They’re just scared.

I think we should be too.

Happily for me, I exported all my data, fixed the QIF file, and then moved to Quicken for Windows in Parallels. And hey, now I can download from all my banks without issue. One more thing they forgot to update in Mac Quicken.

Is it any wonder it’s not bundled any more?