Apple iLife 06 (Family Edition) (Mac)

I agree iLife 6 is a great product and for all its new functionality well worth the asking price. New additons include the Podcasting Studio built into Garage Band, photocasting added to iPhoto and the all new application in the bundle iWeb.

The Upside:

1. New web page design program iWeb
2. New podcasting audio creation suite in Garage Band
3. A whole bunch of cool loops and effects for GB
4. New templates for iDVD and in iPhoto for layout out calendars and cards
5. A media browser integrated within all the iLife apps
6. Full-screen image viewing and editing in iPhoto
7. Better audio control and editing in iMovie timeline
8. Third-party DVD burners supported with iDVD
9. Improvement to the Ken Burns effect

The Downside:

1. You MUST be running Mac OS 10.4.3. it would not install even on 10.4 flat
right out of the box on a Mac Mini -- not backward compatable at all;

2. You must have 10 GB of free disk space which if you own a Powerbook,
iBook or older G4 with a 20 GB or 40 GB hard drive, iLife will eat large portions
of your internal hard drive space leaving no room for media and
your finished work;

3. Some features in iWeb are still funky, clunky and not well thought out (for
instance, being able to size resolution of photos to maximize speed of loading
images to the web);

4. Photocasting will not work without a .Mac account and some features of the
old HomePage worked better than the newer iWeb application;

5. Apple is long overdue for improvements for the editing capabilities in iMovie
such as the ability to group audio and video clips in seqeunce on the timeline
and lock-down a sequence or scene to rearrange, shift in order or copy to
another movie or new bland document

All-in-all this is a really good upgrade of the iLife suite and we truly hope Apple comes out with a fix to the problems with installing the new apps and iWeb clunks. It would be nice if Apple would provide ways to load personally created media to the iPod other than through iTunes. iTunes is a mess as a file managaement because it is infected with DRM and all the media resources used for iMovie and GB (effects and such) do not need to be all mixed in with songs, podcasts, TV shows, etc. And especially, personal media does not need to be effected by rights management issues.

iLife 06 is the next generation of Apple's digital lifestyle software suite that delivers a set of tools designed specifically for the exploration and conquest of the digital media hobbyist. This is a rock solid upgrade from previous versions that packs some exciting new features to the well known group of applications as well as a couple of new features included for additional versatility. For those who have used the previous versions of iLife products, this newest version will literally be a zero learning curve upgrade to a much more powerful set of applications to tackle your music, photos, video, DVDs, music creations and web based publishing. For first time users, you will find the interface to be slick and intuitive with an amazing proficiency of allowing you to learn and perform the tasks you want without having to bog down into the mechanics of the process. Your creativity is free to explore as you glide thru the interface which is intelligently linked together providing a cohesive set of tools linked to all of your digital media.

iPhoto 6 has seen a significant improvement which now sports an interface that looks very much look Apple's professional photo application called Aperture. iPhoto now allows you to maintain and edit a photo library of over 250,000 images, up from a limit of only 25,000 allowed in iPhoto 5. You can now edit your images in a "full screen" mode which allows you to see your photos up close as you make critical editing decisions. There are some new built in one-click effects tools that are a nice addition as well as the same editing tools that were present in iPhoto 5.

iMovie and iDVD have new movie themes for your home video projects and now also allows you to create and save videos in the High Definition format. Garageband has also seen some new features added including new music instrument loops and tools that allow you to create and record your very own podcasts. The newest addition to the suite is iWeb which is an interface allowing .Mac users to easily create Blogs, Photo Journals, Podcasts, and other webbased content with sublime ease. When I tested it out I was able to put together a Blog and publish an article complete with pictures and an introduction in about 5 minutes and family members miles away were able to log in and enjoy my professional looking Blog. iWeb is a first generation app and as such has some limitations. You can only publish to .Mac accounts using the one click "publish button" and the app does not use CSS stylesheets. However, you can save out as HTML files and publish to other web sites using a third party program. Hopefully, these limitations will be dealt with in the future, but if you are a .Mac user, then you will have a new app that can assist you in creating new and exciting web publications with minimal effort.

I've been using the iLife software suite since the 2003 version and I can truly say that each year Apple somehow manages to make the product better. The 2006 versions is no exception. It is the best collection so far and one that every Mac user would probably gain much benefit and enjoyment from on their Macs.

First, this is a major upgrade to the now familiar "suite" of applications from Apple. You've always known iLife to consist of iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, iTunes (although provided as a free download separately) and Garage Band. Add to this list of media apps iWeb. For $79, $89 or $99 dollars this is the most jam-packed set of software tools you'll find anywhere.

Sure, iPhoto has full-screen editing added in this version and you'll love it if you have a big Apple Studio monitor but especially if you have a laptop with limited image real estate. iPhoto is faster even on older machines and there are a range of new templates and better quality printing options for making photo books, calendars and greeting cards. Apple has added photocasting to the range of tools that integrate iPhoto with web publishing. Additionally you will find a new set ot one click effects woth checking out.

One really big new feautre of Garage Band is Podcasting Studio, a working area within GB to make and upload your podcast to Apple iTunes. This is dead simple and anyone who tells you that professionals don't use GB totally misses the point of "computers for the rest of us." Podcast studio works like an audio template providing tracks for laying down your voice, adding the background music, placing the artwork and bookmarks and it is designed to get you to the end result without having to go to terminal prompt or resort to coding html or parsing metadata. The upgrade to iLife 6 is worth the price just for Podcast studio alone.

One drawback is that Apple has made saving podcasts to MP3 format unduly difficult. This is, like Apple DRM in iTunes, a vexing nuisance to the end-user but can be worked around using another application or iTunes itself to convert AAC to MP3 after you've finished in GB.

To make up for this nuisance, perhaps, Apple has bundled a lot of new loops and sound samples to add to your library of composing elements. Another great innovation is the addition of auto ducking that lowers levels of the music score when you introduce voice or narration to keep the voice audible. All these tools are designed for the audio amateur and to make recording much easier for those user who do not have unlimited hours to tweek and adjust (although, if you are inclined you can still tweek to your hearts content).

But podcast studio, as big an addition as it makes, is not all you gain with this upgrade. iWeb is the newest stand alone application in the iLife pack. Apple makes creating an web site extremely easy with iWeb and allows you to work with all the media you have in the other iLife applications. iWeb comes with a media browser that allows you to pick images from iPhoto, music from iTunes, movies from iMovie and place them through the templates Apple has set up for you. It is as easy as drag and drop.

Again, anyone who says that you need a .Mac account to use iWeb to share photos, slideshows, blogs, movies and songs missed the intro meeting. You don't need a .Mac account. iWeb will publish your pages to a folder that you then, using FTP software upload to your ISP or web server. Having a .Mac account makes it all easier, no question, but it is not required.

A person might find a few defects with this first implementation of iWeb. For instance, it sometines mishandles verticle photos picked from iPhoto and plops them on their side in the blogger index. Ehen you chose a 6 megapixel photo in iPhoto it does not give you an option to optimize the size for the web as Apple does in iPhoto with emailing photos. One can only hope Apple is working on fixes to this first implementation of iWeb.

When it comes to iMovie, Apple has made some minor improvements such as added audio controls, better integration with iWeb for publishing your movies to your web page or video podcast to Apple iTunes. You can open multiple versions of your movies or have mulitple windows with different projects open simultaneously. With iLife 6 the media browser finds it way into each media sharing application giving a more uniform media handling experience with the stand-alone applications.

Apple has taken steps to improve the Ken Burns effect rendering ( great concept but clearly inferior in past versions to applications like Photo to Movie) and Scrubber Bar editing. In the past with iMovie, the bigger you project grew the greater frustration you had with iMovies limitations. Apple still needs to get a better handle on allowing the user to group and lock frames, sequences, scenes and acts in the timeline like grouping objects in Illustrator. Adding this would make iMovie and awesome yet simple application.

iDVD has added more templates and improved auto formating, auto-fill and an enhanced map view capabilities. For many frustrated users of past iDVD versions Apple now supports burning to thrid party DVD burners.

This is an upgrade well worth the price and Apple gives you more capabilties with added features, better integration, and a whole new app in the bundle.

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