Quicken Essentials for Mac Released!

Vaporware no longer -- Intuit has shipped Quicken Essentials for Mac! It's available for direct purchase and download from Intuit for $69.99 or you can save yourself $10 and get it from Amazon.

We'll be getting our hands on QEM soon, put it through its paces, and let you know what we think.

Interview with Aaron Patzer

TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) has an interview with Aaron Patzer, formerly of Mint.com, who now heads Intuit's Personal Finance Group. It's a good read -- I'm maybe a little optimistic when I read things like this:

"When I first saw Quicken Financial Life, it had Cover Flow for no reason," he laughed. Cover Flow? No reason? Gone.

The Quicken Essentials for Mac site has been updated to indicate a Feb 25th release date. Will our long national nightmare finally come to an end?

More details from the Intuit - Mint.com purchase

I'll admit, I've been slacking off on reading Intuit's Quicken Blog. Here's some interesting tidbits from the last few months.

As is typical in this type of acquisition, Intuit has decided to end-of-life their own product (Quicken Online), replacing it with what they just bought. Quicken Online is no longer open to new subscribers. Intuit is promising a seamless port from Quicken Online to Mint.com, and to bring some of the features that QO had.

In their December 21st post, there's some screen shots of what Quicken Essentials for Mac might wind up looking like. What's also interesting is that it seems that the Mint.com staff have become the group tasked with all of the Quicken products, regardless of platform. I'm maybe a little dismayed at the emphasis in this post on "glossy" features instead of, you know, useful features, or complete features.

Finally, in a post from earlier this week, Aaron Patzer (Mint.com's CEO, Intuit's new VP & GM of personal finance) says that the application is "just weeks away" from hitting the shelves. Says Aaron:

It’s a new era for the Mac product, with a new team at the helm, and gorgeous glossy design that will make you think it’s the missing iLife application. We can’t wait to show you.

Aaron -- we're looking forward to it. Remember -- cover flow is neat, but is no substitute for core functionality.

It's February 2010 -- will we finally see a new Quicken for the Mac?

February -- a time of groundhogs, cold weather, and...financial applications? According to Intuit's site, this month should see the final release of Quicken Essentials for Mac, the long-delayed, long-awaited update. They've been taking pre-orders for a while now, and have promised a February 2010 release date. Today's February 3rd -- will we see it in the next 25 days? Tick-tock, tick-tock!