You may be wondering what’s new in iLife ’08? Well, I’m here to answer that question. As Steve Jobs expressed during the special event on Tuesday August 7th, this is the biggest upgrade to iLife in its history. Well, what’s so big about it? Let’s take it one application at a time.
iPhoto gets easier and faster way to manage thousands of photos. The concept is called Events. Photos taken on the same day are organized into events. So, rather than browsing through thousands of photos to find the one you’re looking for, now you can look through hundreds of events. When you have narrowed your search you can locate the photo you want within the event. Events can be split or merged in case you had 2 events in one day or 1 event over several days. In addition, search and tagging has been improved. Some other improvements are new editing tools, new calendars and books and .Mac Web Gallery.
iMovie has been completely redesigned. It is a whole new application. To distinguish it from the prior iMovie Apple has created a new icon. The iMovie ’08 makes creating videos a lot easier and faster for the average user. The pro may still want to stick to the prior iMovie or the professional software such as Final Cut Pro. In addition, iMovie now functions as a library of all of your video content, much like iPhoto for pictures. The other changes are improved sharing and publishing support and expanded support for video formats.
GarageBand was also included in the wave of change. One of the major enhancements to GarageBand is the addition of the Magic GarageBand. This is new wizard like feature allows you to create more sophisticated audio tracks from a set of templates that you can modify by adding or taking a way certain instruments at various points in the track. You have a range of genres to select from. Some other enhancements are multi-take recording, visual EQ, automation of tempo effects and instruments and a new Vocal Jam Pack.
iWeb now supports web widgets, Google Adsense and Maps. In addition, the new iWeb allows you to switch the theme after you’ve created the site. In the prior version you were stuck with the theme you selected when first creating the site. This is a welcome enhancement for me personally, since I’ve been looking for a way to switch the theme on a personal family site that I maintain.
And finally the iDVD. Steve Jobs believes that because of the enhancements to .Mac and sharing features in iPhoto and iMovie, people won’t be burning DVDs much any more. However, Apple still made some improvements to iDVD. It now includes 10 more Apple-designed animated themes. It features advanced menu customization, pro-quality encoding and better performance.
I think Steve Jobs is right. This is a major upgrade to iLife. I haven’t been around the Mac long enough to confirm his claim that this is the biggest improvement. But it sure is welcome. There are many new features that make the upgrade worth the $79. At this price its the best software bundle deal that you’ll ever find. Steve Jobs believes this and I agree with him.