Apple Debuts iLife ‘08, Revamps and Upgrades Galore
Everyone expected Steve Jobs to show off some new Mac hardware at Tuesday’s Apple event down in Cupertino, California. And yes, the new Macs are sexy — but Steve also unveiled some equally hype-worthy stuff when he walked through the new iLife 08 suite of desktop applications.
The suite of apps, which includes iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, iDVD and GarageBand, is available now for $80. The suite also ships on all new Macs starting today. Apple skipped iLife 07, so this is the first upgrade to Apple’s desktop personal productivity suite since 2006.
You can view all of the enhancements (and get a peek at the aluminum and glass iMacs) over at Gadget Lab, but here are the details on the software updates.
iPhoto 08:
- New interface. Looks much more like iTunes with aluminum-looking skin and a revamped Sources list. Photos get cleaner rounded edges.
- New "events" — all photos taken on one day get grouped together automatically. You can split and merge events, like "wedding ceremony" and "wedding reception" for instance.
- Hide photos you want to keep, but that you don’t want showing up in your library.
- .Mac subscribers can publish photos to a slick new web gallery. Photos are resizable and laid out on a grid (sort of like inside iPhoto). The galleries work on the iPhone. Other users can contribute to your gallery via e-mail, and you can download their photos to your computer. You can also upload photos from the iPhone to a web gallery.
iMovie 08:
- Steve says it’s a "whole new application," and there are several key enhancements which back up his claim. There’s a new interface as well, looks more like a professional video app — see the screenshot above.
- New "skim" feature makes it easy to quickly add clips, music and titles to a movie.
- Mix and match formats and resolutions.
- Support for more video formats, including the new AVCHD format used by those hot new hard disk camcorders. This is huge news for fans of Sony and Panasonic prosumer cameras, as support in editing apps has really lagged.
- Send movies to YouTube, .Mac, iPod, iPhone or Apple TV from the Share menu.
iWeb 08:
- New "live web widgets." Drag in Google Maps, YouTube video or dynamic web snippet.
- Google AdSense built in, and you can register for the ad service right in the app.
- Media index page lets you organize the media content used on your website.
- Support for your own domain name.
iDVD 08:
- Pro-grade DVD encoding.
- 10 new themes.
- Improved performance.
GarageBand:
- 24-bit recording now supported — great news for audiophiles.
- Recording performance has been enhanced.
- New "Magic GarageBand" feature. Pick a genre (rock, funk, jazz, etc.) and GarageBand builds a song instantly. Swap out instruments to customize it.
Jobs also announced some enhancements to Apple’s .Mac online storage and services platform:
- All subscribers now get 10GB of storage, up from 1GB.
- Web galleries for photos and videos.
- Still $100 per year.
