green-z's Full Review: Apple iLife ’09 Upgrade Version for Mac (5 User/...
A new year, a new iLife. But is the new iLife ‘09 all that new? I’ve concluded, not really. In it’s early iterations the justification for upgrading annually was easy because Apple packed in new features worth the price. But like any maturing product, the innovations in the iLife suite have slowed, and, unfortunately, as I have found, the new features included don’t all work as advertised. Others work fine, but are they worth the price of admission?
iMovie
I was nearly in tears in 2007 when Apple gutted he wonderful iMovie video editing application. It was a serious back step from the great progress the app made since it’s 1.0 debut. Gone was the timeline, the ability to add 3rd party transitions and special effects, and so much more. Apple told us the “new” iMovie 8 was easier to use and made it quicker to edit. I didn’t find it that way so I was forced to put in the time to learn Apple’s more advanced Final Cut Express editor.
I was not alone grousing about the changes and it looks like Apple listened to some degree. The new iMovie 9 included in iLife ’09 is a big improvement to what I still think is a wimpy video editor. Some of these changes include a video stabilizer, which works quite well, “themes,” which are basically templates so you don’t have use your own creativity (what fun is that!), and a new precision editor that helps you make exacting cuts.
Apple also dropped in a few special effects which noticeably missing in the previous version. Still these effects, which only change the look of your video, are fairly benign. If you are looking to add rain into your video like you could with the iMovie of old, Final Cut Express is still your go-to editor.
If you are planning a big mult-city vacation then one new feature of iMovie will grab your attention: animated travel maps. It allows you to mark where a video was taken and then it will illustrate your journey on a map as you progress. Of all the new features I like this one best, although I have no big trips planned. I could have used it a couple years ago though.
Another nice touch to iMovie ’09 is the ability to directly upload videos to YouTube. This makes perfect sense since iMovie ‘08/’09 is best suited for making short, no frills web videos. It’s also nice to see Apple acknowledging that people share videos on platforms other than their own “dot Mac,” now known as Mobile Me.
If you are an iMovie fan then iLife ’09 is a worthy upgrade as iMovie 9 is heaps better than the all but useless iMovie 8. If you are not a frequent user of iMovie though read on. iPhoto
At this year’s MacWorld, where iLife ’09 was introduced, iPhoto took center attention because of one new feature: face recognition. After watching the demonstration on the Keynote video (viewable at Apple.com and iTunes) I thought it was pretty cool, even worthy of buying the upgrade. I was wrong.
Once you install iPhoto it will automatically scan your photos for faces in the background. That part works for the most part. Once this is done you can assign names with faces. Theoretically once you do this enough times your computer will learn the face and match the rest for you. Theoretically.
My own experience was hit and miss. It frequently confused my face with my sisters, my brother’s face with his wife’s, and so on. Bottom line on this feature is, if you want to do a lot of work it may work better, but after naming people in over a hundred pictures I became both bored and exhausted. For me it was a time waster. Apple needs to tweak this and offer iLife ’09 a free update. What I want is the Faces feature shown off at MacWorld. That one worked flawlessly.
The other “big” addition to iPhoto this year is the recognition and location mapping of GPS data embedded into photos. Of course very few cameras, other than cell phones, have built-in GPS antennas right now. But it will become a standard feature in the next year or so. It’s great to see Apple ahead of the curve on this feature. If you own a camera with GPS you’ll love iPhoto. Never again will you have to wonder where you took a picture. But even if you don’t have a GPS-enabled camera yet, you can still manually input the location.
Not quite as exciting, but maybe more important to iPhoto ’09 is Apple’s beefed up photo editor. Since iPhoto 1.0 I’ve always programmed the “edit” button to open the picture in Photoshop. iPhoto’s own editing abilities were just too lacking. I might have to change my thinking now though. No, it’s not Photoshop, nor would I expect it to be. However, it has a large enough range of editing categories from “highlights,” “exposure,” “definition,” and such to be able to tweak all but the most hopeless of pictures. It even lets you instantly erase spots and skin blemishes with ease. Nice.
Just as iMovie lets you directly upload movies to YouTube, iPhoto now allows you to send pictures directly to your FaceBook or Flickr page. That in itself might be worth the price of admission if you are a heavy user of these sites. Garage Band
To be honest I’ve never been a huge user of this application. Actually I use it mostly to make ringtones for my iPhone. For the most part Garage Band is unchanged from last year’s version. But in light of the huge success of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Apple has incorporated video guitar and keyboard lessons from within the app. While this isn’t really a useful feature for me, it might be to someone who thinks they might want to learn to play an instrument.
The videos explain the basics of the instruments, and I can see how they might give one a confidence boost to go out and get real lessons. However, I’m doubtful these video lessons could act as a substitute for a live teacher. Once you are finished with the basic lessons you can download more advanced ones via iTunes. Some of these are free while others that feature known artists run $5 each.
That is the extent of “what’s new” in this year’s Garage Band. The app has always been kind of a “bonus” for me. I wouldn’t buy it if sold separately but it does make a nice companion to iMovie. iWeb
iWeb is much beefed up this year. Perhaps the biggest improvement is that you no longer have to publish to Mobile Me. You can use any compatible hosting service you want, which is great because Mobile Me’s hosting features are quite limited compared to what you get with a dedicated hosting service. If you don’t know a lick of HTML but have always wanted to publish your own web site iWeb is now a great choice to author your site. Features you see on other sites are now available in the form of easily understandable widgets that are similar to the ones you already use in OS X.
Of course there are other great free platforms like Wordpress.com so iWeb is somewhat a “throwaway” application. That is to say, I wouldn’t buy iLife for iWeb. It’s a “me too” app, though a nice one, in a crowded field.
iDVD is the granddaddy of iLIfe apps. It was the first, and for me, in conjunction with iDVD, has excited me the most. It’s clearly a mature product with nothing much to add to improve it. In year’s past Apple has freshened it up with new themes, but not this year. iDVD is unchanged. In my hope of hopes this is a signal that a new Blu-Ray recording app is on the way, but logic tells me otherwise since Steve Jobs himself quashed the idea of Blu-Ray on the Mac last year. At any rate iDVD is what it was, and nothing more. Conclusion
iLife ’09 is as great a multi-media suite as its ever been. That said, I’m not sure owners of iLife ’08 really get much value by upgrading. There are some nice new touches as noted, but the big new feature, facial recognition in iPhoto, doesn’t work consistently plus its time consuming to set up. As an iLife ’08 owner, I don’t think I got my $79 worth, but, oddly, I don’t feel ripped off either.
On the other hand if you skipped iLife ’09 and are still tooling around with iLife ’06 (there was no iLife ’07) then it’s well worth the upgrades from both ’08 and ’09 you’ll get.
One other thing to consider: if you are planning on buying a new or Apple refurbished Mac you’ll get iLife ’09 either pre-installed or, if not, available via Apple’s “up-to-date,” program for $10 shipping.
iLife '09 lets you get the most out of your photos, movies, and music on your Mac with new versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb and iDVD Organ...More at Amazon
iPhoto 09 Organize and search your photos in new ways. Easily find photos of the people in your life using Faces. Explore your library based on where...More at Apple Store
Get more out of your movies, music and photos with the iLife '09 Family Pack, featuring a variety of exciting features designed to make it easy for yo...More at Best Buy ®
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.