Aug 16

Apple iLife 08 Software Suite

A recent upgrade to the all-in-one software suite from Apple, iLife ’08 represents the “biggest jump since we introduced it,” Jobs said.  It has been available for a few days now for $79 and is included with all new Macs.  Following is a mini review of what’s new.

GarageBand ’08 now supports multi-take recording along with what Apple is calls “Magic GarageBand,” which provides a range of musical genres for “musicians and non-musicians alike.”  They can use these around their currently available music sets like blues, reggae, funk, rock, jazz and others.

iPhoto ’08 now supports an option called “Events,” which will let users of the software that can more easily organize your photo albums.  It now has a .Mac Web Gallery feature which lets the user publish and share photos on the Internet with Web 2.0 functionality.  The iPhone, as previously reported, is able to send photos to the online gallery and sync it up with photos already stored in the gallery.

iMovie ’08 has been completely redesigned with some exciting new features which some users are worried will hamper their video production.  As having used this program already, it includes a new preview function for already downloaded movie clips.  Just by moving your cursor over a clip, plays the portion of the clip in the preview pane.  This also works if you move your cursor from the right to the left of the clip which then plays the video and sound backwards.  There is no rendering time to play the clips and it also provides some entertainment while editing transitions and titling.  iMovie is more like iPhoto is the new version.  It has a function where it will be “one library for all your video.”  It will also work in higher resolutions “than DVD.”  It shares iPhoto’s online capabilities which will let you share videos to your .Mac Web Gallery.  It even encodes and uploads directly to YouTube and it supports video for the iPhone, iPod and Apple TV.

iWeb ’08 gets a smaller but important upgrade to it’s website building software.  It now includes support for Google’s AdSense, GoogleMaps and “live web widgets,” which will let users copy any “web snippet” and paste it onto a website.  A recently introduced example of a live web widgets includes customizable data directly from your iTunes online store account recommending songs, albums and artists.  It may even have an option to show recent iTunes online store purchases to share with your friends.  A great idea to get your friends to buy songs through the iTunes store.  iWeb has new options for photo pages, new themes and support for personal domains.

iDVD ’08 receives a smaller upgrade where users will get “pro encoding” and a few new themes.  The talk about the upgrade is that it has “really high production values.”

As with any software upgrade with this many new features there are new system requirements.  While iLife ’08 requires an Intel, PowerPC G5 or PowerPC G4; iMovie requires an Intel Mac, a Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0GHz or faster), or an iMac G5 (1.9GHz or faster).  iDVD however, requires a 733MHz or faster processor.  512MB of RAM or 1GB is recommended Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later, 3GB of hard drive space or larger, a DVD drive for installation and QuickTime 7.2 or later.  More requirements are listed on Apple’s site. Via Engadget.

One Response to “iLife '08 From Apple Introduced As Biggest Software Suite Upgrade Yet”

  1. Apple Upgrades iLife '08 Includes GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD » The Macintosh Wizard And PC Tech Blog Says:

    […] has just released software update to its famed creative software suite iLife ‘08.  The updates from Apple are available for GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie and […]