Sadly, as at August 2011 the Astra Desktop accounting range is no longer supported under the latest Apple OS, 'Lion 10.7'. Apple have, for whatever reason, decided that they will no longer support PPC based applications that would happily run on the previous OS'es under the Rosetta flag. This means that Astra Desktop accounting will no longer run on Lion 10.7 and so you must ensure that you keep your Mac under this OS - do you really need to u/g to 10.7?
Many people have complained to Apple and the web, forums, news-groups, are being flooded with enquiries, gripes and complaints - quite rightly. Many people reply (somewhat unhelpfully) 'just upgrade your software'. Well, that is OK if; a) if you can and b) if you can afford to!
While we cannot offer an Astra update to accommodate Apple's somewhat odd OS change of product support in 10.7, what we will do is for any user that has a Support package with us, we will provide them with a PC/Windows version of their system free of charge. If you do not have a support package, you can still swap your Mac product for a Windows one and we would be happy to offer your a considerably discounted quote to migrate your package. Note that the main advantage of doing this is you do no need to re-key any data as the database, ie your accounts, will work fine with the PC product.
The Apple web site says nothing about Rosetta and Lion. We hope very much that either Apple or a third party will find a way to bring back Rosetta, and so allow PPC applications like Astra to run again under Lion. Sadly we cannot guarantee that this will happen and we have no idea how realistic this hope is as emails, forums, etc, specifically aimed at Apple about this topic have not been answered. We are sure that some resourceful individuals, hopefully Apple, will resolve this problem soon.
Latest Developments:
12 September 2011 - We are in talks with a software development provider to revisit the options on creating and releasing a 10.7 'Lion' compatible version. This will extend the life of the Astra product for many years to come. We will post new info here as we get it so please stay in touch!
13 December 2011 - Initial talks and planning have not been successful and so we have restarted the conversion plan, looking at alternative developers. We are confident that we can get the Astra product updated for Lion and continue to look at all options and avenues. We did have a success story from one client who had issue with another PPC application that they could not update and this was to install a spare Mac they had and configure it with Terminal Services (Remote Desktop) which then enabled them to log in from their newer 10.7 Macs (each user had a log in) and run that application, along with Astra and a couple of other favorites they had too. Do remember that the PC version is available too if you decide to go that route.
