The noose is beginning to tighten around Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 as TurboTax developer Intuit announces the 2012 edition of its tax preparation software will abandon PowerPC entirely.
TurboTax publisher Intuit has notified Mac users via email that the 2012 edition of the popular tax preparation may cost some users extra next year — assuming you have an older PowerPC Mac, that is.
"The tax filing season is approaching and we want you to know that we have updated our Mac system requirements," an email to TurboTax customers reads. "For 2012, OS X 10.6.8 or higher is now required. To determine if you meet the above system requirements, visit our Apple User page.
"We implemented this change after careful consideration of our customers as well as our development environment," the company elaborated. "The specific reasons for this move are as follows."
Intuit then goes on to cite Apple's own discontinued support for OS X 10.4, 10.5 and the entire Power PC platform as well as the company's new annual release cycle "pushing more consumers to newer platforms."
The third reason is the most intriguing: "By moving to OS X 10.6+, we can now support newer features requested by customers including Mac app store purchasing, iCloud support, better performance and memory management, and more robust Mac patching."
Sounds like TurboTax 2012 will integrate with iCloud and could even use delta patch updates, all of which sounds great to us. In the meantime, for Leopard users being left out in the cold, the company does offer TurboTax Online as well as TurboTax for iPad, neither of which require PowerPC to use.
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