Apple introduces iLife '08
By Donald Melanson 
posted Aug 7th 2007 12:38PM
posted Aug 7th 2007 12:38PM
As expected, Apple's given its iLife software suite a refresh in the form of iLife '08, which Jobs calls the "biggest jump since we introduced it." A bold claim to be sure, but you'll soon be able to judge for yourself, as the whole lot's available today for $79 (and, of course, bundled with all new Macs). Here's the breakdown app by app:
iPhoto: New to iPhoto this around is "Events," which promises to let you more easily organize your photo albums, and the .Mac Web Gallery, which'll let you publish and share your photos on the web, with other folks also able to contribute to it. What's more, you'll also be able to send photos to the gallery directly from your iPhone, and sync up your iPhone with photos already in the gallery.
iMovie: Described as a "whole new app," iMovie looks to have taken on some increasingly iPhoto-like characteristics, with it now now being touted as "one library for all your video." It'll let you work in resolutions "higher res than DVD" and, as with iPhoto, you'll be able to share those videos on your .Mac Web Gallery. It'll also encode and upload directly to YouTube and, of course, tailor videos for your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV.
Click on through for details on the rest of the apps.
iPhoto: New to iPhoto this around is "Events," which promises to let you more easily organize your photo albums, and the .Mac Web Gallery, which'll let you publish and share your photos on the web, with other folks also able to contribute to it. What's more, you'll also be able to send photos to the gallery directly from your iPhone, and sync up your iPhone with photos already in the gallery.
iMovie: Described as a "whole new app," iMovie looks to have taken on some increasingly iPhoto-like characteristics, with it now now being touted as "one library for all your video." It'll let you work in resolutions "higher res than DVD" and, as with iPhoto, you'll be able to share those videos on your .Mac Web Gallery. It'll also encode and upload directly to YouTube and, of course, tailor videos for your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV.
Click on through for details on the rest of the apps.
iWeb: Getting a somewhat smaller upgrade is Apple's website builder, which now boasts including built-in support for GoogleMaps and Google's AdSense, along with something called "live web widgets," whichll let you copy any "web snippet" and paste it onto your site. You'll also get some new options for putting together photo pages, some new themes, and support for personal domains.
iDVD: Not a whole lot new here, it seems, but you will get "pro encoding" and some new themes, which promise "really high production values."
GarageBand: Among the updates to GarageBand this time 'round are multi-take recording, and what Apple's calling "Magic GarageBand," which will give you a fairly wide range of genres that "musicians and non-musicians alike" can play around with, including blues, rock, jazz, country, reggae, funk, latin, and others.
Hurry! More iLife info! Lunch is almost over!
YAWN!!!! **
__
** above yawn applies to all Apple related announcements.
then stop reading the stories
awwww... apple fanboys... so stupid, but so cute.
Well, guess you must be one of those sympathetic, successful Zune fanboy...
Hope you are intelligent enough to know I'm being sarcastic.
No, I'm no Zune fanboy. Simply bored with what Apple and his Jobness had to offer this time around. thus the YAWN, rather then a rant on how this product or that OS is better then Apple's offering.
and I'm standing by my previous comment... YAWN!
Um I think mediocre Apple hardware is a tad interesting as I like the aesthetics of some products.
However, the software is just crud. I would only buy a mac to stick XP or Vista on it.
The entire computer industry is talking about how disappointed they are with Vista.
Thats because when compared to XP, Vista isn't exactly so ooooo and aaaaa.
XP is better than any OS just because of the amount of software out there for it and not because its "better" than OS X or any other OS for that matter.
But iLife is yawn...
For most every project aside from professional ones, Jobs has done the absolute right thing (except for the .mac cost!), provide a fabulously integrated suite of applications that make it EASY EASY EASY to enhance your life. Vista, shmista! It's a pile of garbage wrapped around more garbage compared the actual THINKING that has gone into generations of Mac software. But I'm not here to complain (nor install Vista, hah!).
Thanks to iLife '0x my family has benefited from beautiful photo books, DVD's of talent shows, edited movies with sound effects, titles, music... And many more opportunities, because for an extremely low cost of entry (your precious time spent), you CAN produce something personal and beautiful, without crashing, without rebooting, with grace and style. You can get something done, nab the DVD at the last minute, race to your destination and wow family and friends how you made their day. Sure you can't do everything... But when you're making home movies or photobooks, does it really matter? It's the content that's most important, not the framework. People are ALWAYS asking "How did you do that? It's amazing." It's because you can get DONE with iLife an OS X.
There is absolutely no way this would have been accomplished on a PC (the laptop I'm on 90% of my time). After coming out of hibernation (since the equivalent of Mac's "Sleep" called "Stand By" generally fails losing all your work and sucking lots of battery the whole time anyways), and waiting 10 minutes because the hard disk is thrashing and some poorly written driver is leaking memory all over the place, or the 500 virus checkers are conflicting and you're closing popup boxes confirming the crap you have to so that when something you don't want comes along you can not confirm it, or the pile of non-friendly applications you're using are both contending for your disks or cameras or dvd players, finally you spend an hour watching your DVD burn only for it to say it failed, or ran out of hard disk space, or the buffer overran... And so you go to your destination DVDless, late, and extremely miserable.
Tell me this hasn't happened: When it comes to actually getting something new, creative, fun and media rich DONE and DONE QUICKLY, Macs generally succeed... PC's burn your ass...
When I want to check the weather, I open the Mac. When I want to check movies, I open the Mac, when I want to snap a quick frame of a stopmotion video each day of my wife's growing belly, I open my mac. And within seconds, I'm done. I've accomplished my task. I'm on to other things... Just try standby on a PC... I dare you... I don't know one person who hasn't said that it hasn't hung them out to dry. I consider myself lucky when standby comes back when the PC somehow decides that's what it wants to do by accident. When I need to work and I'm going to be doing the same thing I always do, using the same programs I always use, and I'm not going to try anything creative, or try to "think different", I use the PC. It still sucks, but at least it shouldn't botch up...
So you see, one of the reasons I spend 90% of my time on a PC is because the Mac doesn't waste my time when I'm trying to be creative with every day stuff. I get in, I create, I get out. Done. I shudder at the thought of doing that in the heterogeneous, non sharing, non-friendly "hodge"podge of programs built on a house of cards operating system that is windows...
iLife *anything* augments your life... 06, 08, big whoop. It's all golden when you just wanna share, and you don't want to risk donating another whole weekend to reformatting your windows machine after trying to install three different shareware programs because some codec didn't work right and you need to convert some file, and you spent three hours looking for the right shareware after searching forums for why it wasn't working just to burn that extra cute DVD for you mom and dad's anniversary... Please.
Who's with me on this?
Sounds like you have no idea how to use a PC. XP is ridiculously stable these days. Regardless, OSX and its accompanying software are quite friendly, easy-to-use, and all those other wonderful things you described. It's great for a lot of people. But their Luddite-like behavior of restricting the operating system to their own overpriced, almost completely non-upgradeable hardware is unacceptable to me. OSX also has far less software support than the ubiquitous XP, and since I like having almost every program in existence WORK on my machine, I'll stick with Windows. I enjoy gaming. I'll stick with Windows. I can hand-build a computer that's more powerful than their highest-end (1 GB) model for less than FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS...I'll stick with Windows.
Don't get me wrong, I'd dual-boot OSX all the time if they'd let me. But they don't. So screw them.
@James:
Ok, I can see why you love it and all, and I do too.
But other programs and some of Vista's multimedia apps. aren't 'garbage' or 'trash. That's just so wrong. It doesn't take a heavy amount of skills to figure out how to make photos and movies look good with programs that aren't iLife. I use iLife, and I admit, it does some things, better in some spots, but it isn't all that. It's basically a cut down version of other Apple programs, but still mighty expensive.
Plus what's this rebooting and crashing 'all the time' that you talk about? I've used several programs on a wide variety of Windows and PC's and not all of them are like that. Sleep and stand by do not go all crazy, and 500 virus checkers? Seriously, I bought one good AV program, and it does the job.
And what confirmation pop-up boxes that come up? On Vista, it's only the first few days that it's so annoying. You eventually don't see it that often and get used to that.
All of that sounds like you've got a crappy computer. Not because it's Microsoft or Windows or it's not Mac and not OS X.
I bet if you actually bought a high-end/mid-range computer (and I'm not talking about your usual Dell's, HP's, and Gateway's), got one nice AV program, and even Vista (which doesn't run so bad on these machines), then you've really got no problems.
I think this is another case where a Mac fanboy goes into exaggeration and half-truths' phase. You sound like a marketing machine from Apple. I'm also a Mac user too, but you're like completely twisting words and making false interpretations of things going on both sides.
I think you're purposely putting mis-info. to make it sound wrong. I use a top-of-the-line Sony Vaio and nothing's gone wrong. That's why I feel so bad for the people who actually listen to your info. It's just not half-ways true. It gets me angry when consumers aren't smart, and they have to 'automatically' assume Macs are painless, when they buy a cheap computer with zero AV on it.
It's really sad, how people like to do this.
@James
Because everything important in life is the picture/video capabilitiy that Macs and *gasp* Windows have.
I'd really like to see a better argument for Mac besides "Windows crashes ALLL the time" "I ALWAYS get BSOD" "Photos and movies are like SOOO much better on a Mac"
I've been thinking about all this complaints (which I do myself), but aren't we, as people who have some knowledge above the average consumer, just asking too much from Apple and Microsoft? They are not magicians, afterall, they need money to do their tricks too...
Let me just add a few points ok on my PC and dont say i dont know how to use one i have a degree in it.
1. MY pc can get the following Virusess a lot more than my mac.
2. My boot up time on my mac i much faster because all the programs its not using are compressed and only expand when you start to use them.
3. FINAL CUT PRO better than any other video editing software on the market.
4. Leopard full 64 bit suppport and if you have seen the demo thats much faster for my rendering times.
5. High quality High spec components.
6. My mac can do anything your PC can and more.
7. Soundtrack pro the best music software ever and so easy to use.
8. I takes me mins rather than hours to get a new mac up and running Plug in turn on import and im done.
9. Nearly every piece of hardware now works with my mac without needing to install drivers or software.
10. Got my Digital SLR Plugged it in and it imported the photos for me.
11. Ok so your going to tell me that your PC plays games better wrong again. Any game released on a mac and PC runs better on the MAC.
12. If macs are shit why are most games companies now making games for MAC.
13. MY MAC OS is finished when its released.
14. My browser on my mac has never been hijacked.
15. MY mac was able to do 802.11n before pc manufacturers knew what it was.
16 simplicity my mac is as simple or complex as i make it. ]
17. Leopard there will be a higher uptake on leopard than vista fact.
18. On the plus side Vista runs faster on my mac than my same specked PC. Hang on doesnt that mean that my mac is faster than my PC.
19. Render times under 64 bit are faster than under 32 thats a fact that means that all architects will be using a mac to render there projects.
20 They just work and look good.
21 I have been using a mac for 4 years and have not had to do one single reinstall
.
Also you obviously never used a mac and probably just play games on your PC if you think the software is crud its because you cant use it.
If they are not announcing that photos can be stored on .Mac for free then whatever else they add doesn't matter. Flickr and a host of other photo sharing sites are either free or some nominal cost per year for UNLIMITED space. Why would anyone pay Apple for that which they can get for free some place else? Flickr defines photo sharing on the web. It's not like we have to take an also-ran to get it for free.
Smittie
Great point! I was reading the article hoping it was free too as I have a sudden need to easily post photographs and videos for friends and families and the idea of using .Mac is unacceptable. I was looking at flickr, twango, picasa, etc... At the very least, iPhoto should be able to work with Picasa photo albums since Apple's already in tight with Google!
I used all the other 'free' sites until a friend bought me .mac. Suddenly all those little pain-in-the-arse 'click here' then 'click there' problems just dissapeared, the hosting is flawless, downtime negligable, the webmail is the best in the business (or at least as good as googlemail). It's a bit like suddenly driving on smooth tarmac, it just feels nice!
Ok, it's not entirely worth the money, but when the year is up I'm going to have a serious think about being nice to my friend.
Uh, OK. I thought I was a Mac fan-boy but even I'm not all that impressed with .Mac. I basically pay the .Mac subscription so that I can have the vanity email addresses. .Mac webmail pales in comparison to GMail in my opinion. Most other aspects of .Mac leave it far behind other Web 2.0 offerings.
Nothing too earth shaking on the iLife news.
Also that photo should be seen as an embarrassment to your organization. You'd have been better off running this entry without a photo. How hard is it to set your camera appropriately for low light photography? Apparently too hard for Engadget photographers. This photo looks more like the most recent Sasquatch sighting than it does a product announcement.
The box shot is a nice improvement. I was going to recommend that.
next time... I have camera and will travel. no reason not to get a decent shot for these announcements.
I've been waiting for the latest iMovie and iLife. Very interesting and should be worth the $100 or so dollars.
Hey! Wait a minute! What about Leopard?
Too late!
Give us the "one more thing ...." already
I just bought a Macbook pro, now i need to buy this new updated software.
What a joke!
That suite was from 2006. I don't think you should complain.
I just bought it, I think there is room to complain.
You should have done your research. It was widely knows that Apple would be releasing a new version of iLife at this event.
First, does your Macbook Pro work any worse for you today than it did yesterday? No. Second, the application you are complaining about is a freebie from Apple thrown in when you buy a new Mac. As an owner of a no longer new Mac, you get to buy iLife just like me and everybody else who wants to upgrade. Finally, if having the latest version of iLife for free is so important to you, why did you buy before an Apple event where new products were slated to be announced? I can understand feeling disappointed, but it's not Apple's fault.
^^ doesn't know what a .torrent file is.
I just ordered iLife to go with my 3 week old MacBook Pro.
And do you hear me crying? No. Why? 'Cause I'm not a little sissy girl.
Actually, I'm a big girl. Big where men like it. And I'll make some very naughty videos with my new version of iMovie. And maybe I'll cry in the videos, not because I'm a little sissy girl (like Christopher), but because a real man has spanked me hard for being bad.
Okay....I thanks you C@ck Holsters
Actually, look for the upgrade coupons in the MacBook box and/or the iLife box and give Apple a call. You might be able to upgrade for cheap.
look Ilife 08 is great n all but if your really wouried about cost just wait for leopard. That will have 08 and if you dont really need the new features right away then play the waiting game. Why fork out for somthing you dont need right this second take my advice wait until leopard otherwise your just paying $79 for an app that you will only use for a couple of months. Also on the .mac thing .mac isnt just about photo's and fliker have to let apple allow users to upload from iphoto there is issues there. .MAC is about intergration im sending podcasts and photo's to a friend in NZ and i life allows me to do that so she can look at it using the built in i site it makes life easier.
multi take recording. Nice.
Wait a second! You mean Mac users have to BUY this app? This stuff doesnt come standard on a Mac? Wow i had no idea... i thought Macs has all this stuff built in like, *gasp* Vista....
It is included on all new macs.
Mac users may choose to purchase this upgrade or they my choose to stay with the software version they currently have on their Mac. Yes, iLife '06 is standard on any new Mac--up to today. Thanks for asking.
Or when you buy a new Mac, it'll come with it. When was the last time a software gave you a free upgrade to the next version???
Just Wait It will come with Leopard No need to buy this
Once again, no it won't.
Ok, sure. iLife '08 will come with Leopard.
For an additional $79.99.
Wombat just talked to gizmodo, and apple, and ilife 08 comes with Leopard.... I don't think you can dispute that.
Just Wait It will come with Leopard No need to buy this
Thanks!
I'm pretty sure that's not true. iLife has always come free with new Macs, not with a new OS.
iLife and iWork do NOT and NEVER HAVE come with the operating system. iLife comes with all new -systems- (and if you buy a system today or after you are eligible for the up-to-date offer to get it if it's not pre-installed) and all new systems have a 30-day demo of iWork, not a full version.
And buying a new system with 1.5 year old software is just that - consider it a $79 upgrade price if you want to upgrade the software. We've gotten two new systems in the past two months, and will get a third now, but I have no issues w/buying the software for the other machines we have.
No it doesn't.
@ Chicksta- iWork was included in Mac OS 9.x, if not others.
Just talked to Apple, and Ilife 08 comes with Leopard in October, so why would you buy this now???
'Post a new photo simply by sending an email, or snap a picture on iPhone and select “Send to Web Gallery.”'
This would imply an iPhone update soon...since this feature currently doesn't exist on the iPhone as far as I can tell.
Fantastic!! I'm on the same boat mate! My daily personal/family digital needs are totally fulfilled by Apple's software and hardware. It's really amazing how integrated and "get it done" they are. Some friends keep teasing me on Picassa, Flickr and other softwares, but they actually get wowed when they actually see iLife running. On the other side, my daily job is done on Windows. When Intel's Macbook showed off and Parallels were introduced I came to it, just to check if I could get rid of Windows in the running course. Fact is, I keep 90% of my time on Windows, and very few time on Mac (speaking on daily job, of course).
Anyway, I loved new iLife software, loved the new iMac and the new keyboard. As someone else already said, it's just to be expected a brand new reshape of Apple's mice.
iPhoto now looks like a dumbed down copy of Adobe's Lightroom. Except you can't work in RAW format natively and lacks non-destructive photo manipulation.
iPhoto supports both Raw and Non-destructive editing. It has since at least the 06 version.
I've got hands on screen shots and commentary of iPhoto over here - http://blog.stewtopia.com/2007/08/07/iphoto-08-screenshots-and-commentary/
Enjoy.
Cheers,
Randy
iLife has some interesting little updates to it, but it has one MAJOR flaw in the video wing: old projects cannot be brought into iMovie 8. There's simply no way to do it unless your project has no transitions, no filters and no title effects. Then again, if your project has none of these things then what the hell are you using iMovie for in the first place? Making matters more boring, the new and "improved" iMovie doesn't offer much in the way of creative anything. The effects and transitions are built-in, non-expandable (no plug-ins allowed, I've heard) and don't require too many hands to count them all. If anything, iMovie is now "video editing for the rest of those who hadn't ever tried using iMovie in the first place." It's certainly not for the rest of us, as I read on another forum.
Sadly, the iLife app in most desperate need of a major upgrade--iWeb--didn't get much at all. I was sure Apple would add web-based blog editing for .Mac users.
It's not all bad though. Now I can put Google AdSense ads on my site to make money off all those freeloading friends and relatives coming to see the latest baby photos!
Actually it will talked to apple Ilife 08 comes with Leopard, and thanks for playing
Checked with apple Ilife 08 come with Leopard in October, sorry thanks for playing
Just called apple, they as usual are being nice and sending me a copy of the new iLife for my just arrived yesterday Macbook Pro. Don't complain if you haven't even given the company the benefit of the doubt.
I can dispute it all I want, 'cause it's wrong, and you're lying.
This is the first I've heard that iMovie '08 lacks audio track controls and the timeline view. If so, the software has been rendered nearly worthless. Final Cut Pro is a great product but, like Photoshop, requires a tremendous time commitment to master even mid-level editing functions. iMovie '07, while quirky, offered many (but hardly all) pro features in a logical, easy-to-use package. It's nice that the new version can manage videos and push them to an iPhone or YouTube, but that's trivial compared to offering control over the videos themselves. I'm hoping Engadget is wrong about some of this or I'll have to skip the entire upgrade. Frustrating.
I can't imagine any "musician" seriously using magic garage band. I mean, even for casual use it looks like a waste of time. If you're going to tinker around why not use ableton live or fruity loops, honestly?
Thankfully iMovie HD is automatically retained when upgrading to 08' :)
This is kind of amusing. The review section at the Apple Store gives it 3/5 stars based on 175 reviews... There is no way this is accurate. Even if they're taking the best 175 reviews out of the 200 posted, it would still end up under 2/5. Currently it sits at 1.13 stars by my calcs. Thanks Apple.
Bill Gates Owns a big chunk of Apple because of a copywrite infringement a while back they settled the suite with Gates buying into ALOT of stock.
The apple os is best on a PC intel chipset. mac g4 laptop vs macbook pro, macbook is 4-5 times faster than the previous g4.
BUT if you google "mac os on pc" you will note that Mac OS X on a Home built PC with intel chipset is 7-10 times faster than ANY OS RUNNING ON A MAC - ON ANY MAC!
I can see the two companies merging once Apple starts losing money and jobbs dies of cancer or somethin.
Oh yeah, you can build that Intel Based PC with Mac OS X for right around 700 Dollars... says alot to the people spending upwards around 2 grand for a macbook pro or any other mac around...
I have a macbook pro because I have to have it for school. It's easy to change things on it to make it unique - such as changing a picture to make the login screen background different than "Aqua Blue" which gets annoying lol
but i cant even get things like Yahoo Messenger to work on it. Open office.org 2.2 will not run on it so i can't even view pdf's unless im in Parallels Desctop under the Windows XP Pro partition. lol parallels even runs choppy - prolly on purpose.
alot of bugs and alot of hoo haaas - my home pc is still faster than my new macbook pro - mac sells because people think its "sexy" or what not - i dont trust anything about it accept for one thing.
That is the disk utilities "Erase Disk" to Securely erase data writing 0's and 1's over all your deleted data up to 37 times (though it taks around 10 hours to do) it is the military standard for erasing goverment computer files. or you have the choice to run it 7 times in a row or just zero it out with one pass.
other than that - mac has crappy software out unless you buy it from Apple itself - and they charge an arm and a leg for any software and for ANY hardware - wireless mouse = 80$ ... accessories are pricey.
that is what i think about the two - and ilife and iwork 08 suck, i liked 07 better where you can actually see everything - 08 freezes up unless you have the Dashboard turned off.
ya thats what i think