KEY POINTS:
iLife is awesome, that's why. I haven't had a full trial of iLife '09 yet, but anyone who uses the suite at all will be looking forward to new features, despite a price hike I think has more to do with the big plunge in the NZ-US exchange
rates over the last few months.
It often escapes people that Macs contain awesome pre-installed applications, a good reason of many to go Mac. Actually, to be honest, it often escapes Mac users too, that awesome applications are pre-installed on their Macs. I know this because I teach people how to use them. You should see their faces when the power is revealed.
iLife '09 features major upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand. It includes a revamped iWeb and iDVD. Phil Schiller, in his Macworld keynote, mentioned the first three applications in some depth but iWeb - which I use every day for updating my own mac.nz site - and iDVD were both skipped over.
iWeb may not be a coders' delight (they complain of its bloated code, although iWeb 08 still managed to build standards-compliant sites) but it sure is easy to use, and it sure does create slick results even for novice users.
iWeb really benefits from a MobileMe account. It's actually possible to upload an iWeb-built site to another web space, but a MobileMe account ($140 a year) gives you a web space and enables many more features, plus adds a ton of convenience in posting of sites and content.
However, iWeb '09 will allow users to export directly to non-MobileMe domains they own via built-in FTP and SFTP. This is great news as before we had to use third-party uploaders after publishing the site to a folder on our hard drives. Messy.
iWeb '09 also offers support for publishing multiple sites to multiple servers. Clicking on a site's heading reveals publish settings for that particular site - that means you can publish two different sites; one to MobileMe and one via FTP, or even to two separate MobileMe accounts.
Charteris of Ars thinks this will drastically improve iWeb's appeal to a broader range of users who need a simple WYSIWYG editor with lots of drag-and-drop integration, but don't want a MobileMe account.
You can also now link individual iWeb sites to a Facebook profile via Facebook Connect. Updates will be automatically be posted to Facebook, complete with convenient links. This could be good.
iPhoto looks after a quarter of a million photos. I prefer to use Image Capture to get my images off my cameras, actually, because iPhoto's complex file directories can get corrupted, which makes me feel uneasy.
Image Capture also sits in all Mac users' Applications folder. You just open that or iPhoto and set the preferred downloading app in Preferences. Image Capture just drops your images into the Pictures folder, which I prefer (I do trust my Finder).
But if you do like, but have problems with, iPhoto, there are various repair options built in: hold down the Command and Option keys together and click on iPhoto in the Dock to boot it; tick what you think applies.
iPhoto admittedly has some genuinely breathtaking tricks for a 'free' (if you buy a new Mac) app - for example, its straighten tool is one of the best I've used and it has adjustment and correction tools, too. And making a book and a calendar that gets delivered is an absolutely excellent service - I have tried it, it's wonderful. I definitely recommend iPhoto for that.
If you like iPhoto already, the new Faces and Places categories, using face recognition and geotagging respectively, certainly offer a lot more power in organising your collections - into books and calendars and slideshows, for example.
iMovie '09 is another new version I'm really looking forward to - it brings back the best features of iMovie '06 HD, for a start, and adds the Precision Editor, video stabilisation, advanced drag and drop, and even animated travel maps. Effects are back, too, plus DVD chapter markers plus exporting directly to iDVD. All good!
GarageBand is another awesome application I use extensively, both for music creation and for recording podcasts. GB '09 introduces 18 basic guitar and piano lessons. Ho-hum. Hum hum hum ...
However, I'm really looking forward to the new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam (which lets you play along with a virtual band you create) will most likely be fun to demonstrate.
iLife '09 will cost you $179. An iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorised Reseller on or after January 6, 2009 for a shipping and handling fee of just $19.
Note that a 'Mac Box Set' should be available by month's end. This MBS consists of the newly-announced iLife '09 and iWork '09 suites together in one box, plus Mac OS X v.10.5 'Leopard'. It will go on sale for $419 - buying all three separately would cost you $557. A Mac Box Set Retail Family Pack for five users will cost $559 (iLife and iWork Family Packs cost $249 each and the Leopard Family Pack is $299).
- Mark Webster, mac.nz
PHOTO: A screenshot from Garageband '09.