Intuit To Rewrite Quicken, Demos TurboTax 2008

Financial software maker Intuit has been busy over the past year. Two of its major software titles for the Mac, Quicken and TurboTax, have seen or are in the process of being re-written from the ground up to make better use of modern technologies.

002916 QuickenFLCoverflow 400

Quicken Financial Life for Mac
Quicken for Mac has long existed as a Carbon application due to its pre-existence on Mac OS 9. However, in recent years the Quicken for Mac designers have increasingly felt that they were not bringing the product to its fullest potential. With a Carbon code base, and varying 3rd party libraries, a universal binary version of the application became impossible without a ground-up re-write.

Therefore, Quicken 2007 for Mac will be the last in the current line of Quicken for Mac products and a brand new Quicken for Mac product, currently called "Quicken Financial Life for Mac" is being written. This product will use a slew of Mac OS X technologies. Here's a quick preliminary technical specification rundown:

- Cocoa based
- CoreData for information storage
- Universal Binary
- Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Only
- Coverflow and other Mac OS specific views

Because the application is being built from the ground-up, it will initially contain only a subset of what is currently found in Quicken 2007 for Mac. While it will fully support cash-flow accounts (cash, checking, savings, credit cards), it will start with extremely limited support for investments, though you will be able to track your balances and holdings and calculate your net worth. However, TurboTax and DirectConnect/WebConnect support are all to be expected in the 1.0 product.

Pricing hasn't been ironed out yet, but the final version is expected to ship in fall of 2008. Quicken was good enough to supply us with these exclusive high-quality screenshots of the application, but note that the application is still in pre-alpha, so the screens are subject to change.

002918 QuickenFLScorecard 90
002917 QuickenFLRegister 90
002915 QuickenFLCloud 90


TurboTax 2008 For Mac
TurboTax has also seen a ground-up rebuild this year. While the changes may not be quite as drastic as Quicken, Intuit says that several highly requested Mac-specific features have been added to this year's product.Features shared by the Windows product include life change questions that are placed earlier in the preparation process, a help system tied into Intuit's user community, an improved audit risk meter, and a free audit support tool in the unlikely event you are audited.

Mac-only features include:
- A form view that is always accessible and flips into view. Users who are used to filling out paper forms can switch between the interview and the form at any time.
- Save returns to iDisk
- Archive return and TurboTax 2008 to CD
- Create multiple returns (good for figuring out if you want to file jointly or separately)

002037 TurboTax1 500
The TurboTax guys

One More Thing...
Unfortunately, while Intuit has made its strides this year, it has also had its setbacks. In the wake of a very public data loss issue involving QuickBooks 2006, I asked Intuit for an update on the incident and the product.

Intuit was frank that they definitely had encountered a nightmare scenario, and that they took the incident very seriously. Unfortunately, the solution for 2006 users was to turn off automatic updates; however, a fix has been put in place for the 2007 product to ensure that such a scenario does not occur in the future.

As for QuickBooks: users can expect an update this fall with new and improved features, but no it isn't a rewrite.

Popular Stories

AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Just Months Away – Here's What We Know

Friday April 18, 2025 5:16 am PDT by
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
iphone 17 air dummy unbox therapy

iPhone 17 Air's Extreme Thinness Demoed in New Video

Tuesday April 22, 2025 10:22 am PDT by
Apple plans to release an all-new super thin iPhone this year, debuting it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We've seen pictures of dummy models, cases, and renders with the design, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy today showed off newer dummy models that give us a better idea of just how thin the "iPhone 17 Air" will be. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be ...
ipad air windows 11 arm

M2 iPad Air Runs Windows 11 ARM via Emulation, Thanks to EU Rules

Tuesday April 22, 2025 5:01 am PDT by
A developer has demonstrated Windows 11 ARM running on an M2 iPad Air using emulation, which has become much easier since the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations came into effect. As spotted by Windows Latest, NTDev shared an instance of the emulation on social media and posted a video on YouTube (embedded below) demonstrating it in action. The achievement relies on new EU regulatory...
iOS 18

iOS 18.5 Includes Only a Few Changes So Far

Monday April 21, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 18.5 to developers today, and so far the software update includes only a few minor changes. The changes are in the Mail and Settings apps. In the Mail app, you can now easily turn off contact photos directly within the app, by tapping on the circle with three dots in the top-right corner. In the Settings app, AppleCare+ coverage information is more...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iphone 17 pro majin bu sky blue

iPhone 17 Pro Allegedly Coming in Sky Blue Color Used for MacBook Air

Tuesday April 22, 2025 4:08 am PDT by
Apple will unveil the iPhone 17 Pro in a new Sky Blue color, the same color that debuted on the latest M4 MacBook Air models Apple released in March. That's according to the leaker Majin Bu. Concept mockup from Majin Bu Writing on his website, Bu claims that "sources close to the supply chain confirm that several iPhone 17 Pro prototypes have been made in various colors, with Sky Blue...
maxresdefault

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Sunday April 13, 2025 7:52 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and ...