Apple iLife '05 (Mac) [OLD VERSION]

by Apple

Product Features

• Fun-to-use suite of tightly integrated creative tools
• Import, organize, edit, and share digital photos with iPhoto
• iMovie HD quickly turns home video into home cinema
• Create Hollywood-style DVDs with iDVD; iTunes digital jukebox
• Easily perform, record, and create music with GarageBand

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B0007GCZ46
• Item model number: M9779LL/A
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 11, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,792 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #39 in Software > Video & Music > DVD Viewing & Authoring
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

iLife ‘05--the suite of tightly integrated applications that continues to lead the digital media revolution--offers significant new versions of iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand and the latest version of iTunes.

With iLife ‘05, the must-have upgrade for everyone who uses a Mac, you can easily create stunning softcover books; import, organize, and edit RAW photos; and stun them with fully customizable slideshows using iPhoto 5. Edit high-definition 16:9 video from the newest camcorders and create movies automatically with iMovie HD’s new Magic iMovie feature. Drag and drop video clips, pictures, and music into the new animated drop zones found in iDVD 5 templates. Or create multi-track recordings in GarageBand 2. Of course, iTunes seamlessly integrates with iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD and GarageBand and syncs with every member of the iPod family. You won’t find a better or easier-to-use set of creative tools than iLife ’05.

iPhoto 5: Make photos picture perfect.

From stunning new softcover iPhoto Books (available in three sizes) to fully customizable, cinematic slideshows, iPhoto 5 lets you do more with your photos. In fact, it even lets you import RAW photos and use them throughout the application. Take video clips? iPhoto 5 imports them, too. iPhoto also helps you keep every photo in its place with new hierarchical folders that let you store multiple albums, iPhoto books and separate slideshows. You’ll also enjoy more options for finding photos: a Calendar View, for locating photos by day, week, month or year; and a search field for lightning fast, iTunes-like searches. And wait till you try the new Advanced Editing Dashboard. With its tools, you can modify exposure, white balance, saturation, contrast and more. Even straighten those slightly off-kilter horizons.

Top new features at a glance:

• Breathtaking books give you more choices of sizes, styles, and designs.
• Advanced Editing Tools let you edit like a pro.
• Make Mine Raw: iPhoto supports RAW throughout the app.
• Create fully customizable slideshows with new cinematic transitions and effects.
• View your photos by calendar date or range of dates.
• iTunes-like search field finds photos lightning fast.

What’s New in iPhoto 5?
There’s something new for every photographer in iPhoto 5. Better organization tools--such as hierarchical folders. Instant searching via an iTunes-fast search field and a new Calendar View that lets you find photos by the day or week. Support for more formats: both MPEG-4 video clips and the RAW format preferred by more advanced photographers. Much more powerful photo editing. More advanced slidedshows: they’re cinematic and completely customizable. And a completely new generation of iPhoto Books with new designs, new sizes, and more affordable pricing options.

Exciting News about iPhoto Books
iPhoto 5 delivers a completely new way to make books that’s dramatically better than it was before. And that took some doing. To get you started, you can have iPhoto automatically create a book for you. Just choose the photos and let iPhoto lay it out for you. Then use the new layout editor to turn it into a personal work of digital art--rearrange photos, change page designs, even edit photos until they’re perfect.

There’s more. You can now choose from an entire family of stunningly beautiful yet highly affordable iPhoto books. This includes new soft cover books available in three sizes--small, medium and grand. Prices start at just $3.99. All books now offer duplex printing, including the highly popular hardcover Keepsake books, which now start at just $29.99. And wait till you see the great new designs you have to choose from.

Make Mine RAW: iPhoto Supports New Formats
Pros do it and an increasing number of you do, too. Capture photos in the RAW photo format, that is. Shooting RAW lets you take advantage of every pixel of detail and the full dynamic range your digital cameras can capture. iPhoto 5 not only lets you import and organize uncompressed RAW images, but it supports RAW photos throughout the application, letting you edit them until they’re picture perfect, add them to your slideshows, order prints of them, and include them in iPhoto Books.

Video Clips from Your Camera
That’s not all. In addition to supporting RAW photos, iPhoto 5 also lets you import and organize MPEG-4 video clips, as well. You import them right alongside your photos. In fact, you can keep the clips in the same "roll" as the photos and use them in slideshows. You don’t even have to leave iPhoto to see them, either. Just doubleclick to watch them. And if you want to use them in iMovie HD or iDVD, you can just drag them into those other apps or import them via the iLife media browser.

Edit Like a Pro
What about editing your photos? Thanks to an entire suite of sophisticated tools, editing in iPhoto 5 has been significantly improved. In fact, you may never have to leave iPhoto to make your photos absolutely perfect. Using the new advanced editing dashboard, you can easily optimize saturation, exposure, sharpness and more. You’ll even find a tool for straightening horizons that includes its own grid to make the job as easy as possible.

Advanced Slideshows
A wide range of new transitions and effects lets you easily create dazzling cinematic slideshows. Taking advantage of the new slideshow editor, you can rearrange photos with drag-and-drop ease; assign attributes--such as duration, transitions and effects--on a slide-by-slide basis; and save your slideshows separately from albums. iPhoto 5 can also automatically modify the length of your shows to fit the music you’ve chosen. You can customize slideshows as much as you like--and save them alongside the albums you use to create them.

Find Photos in an Instant
And thanks to a new iTunes-like search field, you can search for your photos more easily and find them much more quickly--especially since you can now tag photos as you import them for instant retrieval. You’ll also like iPhoto’s new Calendar View. A click lets you see all the photos you took on a day, week, month or in a range of dates.

iMovie HD: Turn home video into home cinema.

Are you ready for high-definition (HDV 720p and 1080i) 16:9 widescreen video? So is iMovie. Or, more accurately, iMovie HD. Though still as easy to use as ever, iMovie HD lets you import and edit video from the newest camcorders--not just HDV cameras but the tiny and affordable flash media video cams, as well--and in the latest formats, including HDV, MPEG-4 and 16:9 widescreen SDV. Dramatically increased performance lets iMovie HD move quickly through even the most complex projects, and new and improved tools let you edit quickly and easily. Take, for example, the Timeline. Now you can use it for all your editing, including rearranging clips. You’ll also like the new Skywalker Sound audio effects and even more effects and transitions. And you’re really going to enjoy creating movies automatically with the new Magic iMovie feature.

Top new features at a glance:

• iMovie makes it easy to work with High Definition Video (HDV).
• Connect your camera and let Magic iMovie do the rest.
• Take on bigger projects thanks to major performance gains.
• iMovie HD lets you rearrange clips directly in the Timeline.
• The Preview button quickly shows effects and transitions.
• Copy video clips from other projects or from the Finder.

What’s new in iMovie HD?
The new name gives it away. Now iMovie supports HDV, the new high-definition video standard. But that’s not all. In addition to dramatic performance improvements, iMovie HD lets you create movies automatically, offers easier and more powerful editing features and comes with an assortment of new audio and video effects and transitions.

Edit High-Definition Video
Want to shoot with state-of-the art video cameras? The newest camcorders let you capture widescreen (16:9) high-definition (HDV 720p and 1080i) video, and iMovie HD lets you import it and edit it just like standard digital video. In fact, iMovie makes it easy to work with HDV. Trim it. Add transitions and effects to it. Burn a high-quality DVD and show it on your widescreen home theater or on your iMac G5.

Supports More Formats
In addition to HDV, iMovie HD supports the new flash media video cameras. Small in stature and lean in price, these video cameras capture MPEG-4 video, which provides high quality while requiring less storage capacity. iMovie HD lets you import and edit the MPEG-4 video. It also can import live video from your iSight video camera--without the need for transcoding. And iMovie HD also supports the widescreen, 16:9 aspect ratio of standard digital video (SD DV), offering you lots of new options.

Create Movies Automagically
Pressed for time? Now you can connect your FireWire video camera to your Mac and take advantage of a new iMovie HD feature. Called "Magic iMovie" for good reason, it can import your video, place your clips on the Timeline (complete with scene breaks), insert transitions, include titles, add chapter markers, introduce a soundtrack, even send the completed project to iDVD--all automatically. Ideal for both novices and experienced editors, Magic iMovie can get your next project off to a very fast start.

Dramatic Overall Performance
You’ll notice it the first time you use iMovie HD. From launching to editing to scrubbing to saving, iMovie HD offers noticeably improved performance. As a result, iMovie HD lets you tackle even the most advanced movie projects quickly and easily.

Easier and More Powerful Editing
You’ll enjoy both the powerful new tools and the improvements made to familiar tools in iMovie HD. Now you can do all of your editing, including rearranging clips, right in the Timeline. From the Timeline, you can also drag and drop clips to and from the Clip Viewer, to and from other iMovie HD projects, to iDVD drop zones, to other applications or to a folder on your hard drive. iMovie HD also offers smoother scrubbing, better clip management, non-destructive video and audio editing and a new Save As feature to safeguard your project as you work.

More Effects and Transitions
Add more style to your movies. iMovie HD includes 10 new video effects, three new transitions and 12 new Skywalker Sound audio effects.

iDVD 5: Create stunning, Hollywood-style DVDs.

When it comes time to share your musical, cinematic or photographic accomplishments with others, there’s no better way to do it than with a DVD. And when it comes time to author a DVD, you’d be hard pressed to find a faster, easier way to create Hollywood-style DVDs than with iDVD 5. For starters, iDVD 5 makes it easy to import movies, images and music via the built-in media browser or by dragging them from other iLife ’05 applications. Beautiful new themes now include gorgeous animated drop zones that move across the TV screen, dazzling and delighting anyone who plays your latest DVD project. In a hurry? With iDVD 5, you can create a OneStep DVD, a one-click, camera- or videotape-to-DVD solution. And you can burn that project or others onto a wider assortment of DVD media, including DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW.

Top new features at a glance:

• Animated drop zones let you create truly dazzing DVDs
• Pick your favorite from 15 gorgeous new themes.
• OneStep DVD offers a one-click video tape-to-DVD solution.
• Burn to almost any DVD media: DVD-R, -RW, +R, +RW.
• Seamless integration with iPhoto makes slideshows a snap.
• Map view lets you see at a glance all the components of your DVD.

Thanks to increased performance, you’ll find iDVD 5 more responsive, making it easier than ever to create and edit your DVD projects. But it’s the new themes and their animated drop zones that really steal the scene in this production. Customized with your photos and video, they move across the TV screen, offering you new opportunities for creative expression. You’ll also find exciting new options for editing your DVD projects, including a new editable DVD Map, a new Drop Zone Editor and Scrubber, and even more drag-and-drop ease than before.

New Themes Featuring Animated Drop Zones
Take your next DVD project to the highest creative level. Innovative and exciting, the 15 new, Apple-designed themes in iDVD 5 will amaze and entertain anyone who sees your DVDs. Exquisite in design, they include "animated drop zones" that move across the TV screen while displaying your still images and playing your movie clips, slideshows and, of course, the music you select from iTunes. You’ll also really enjoy the new drop zone editor and scrubber: they make it much easier to add media to and reorganize the media already in multiple drop zones.

OneStep DVD
Can’t wait to see the latest footage you shot? With "OneStep DVD," you simply need to connect your video camera to your Mac, and iDVD will quickly transfer your video onto a DVD. In fact, iDVD not only provides a one-click tape-to-DVD solution, it also rewinds the tape for you and automatically creates an auto-play movie on DVD. So all you have to do is pop the DVD into a DVD player.

Burn Projects onto New DVD Media Formats
When you’re done with a DVD project, it makes sense to archive it. And with its support for a wide variety of DVD media formats--including DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW--iDVD 5 teams up with a compatible SuperDrive to offer you more media options than ever. In fact, iDVD 5 even lets you archive projects as Disc Images. Saved this way, your projects are extremely portable, take up less space and are read-only, as well. What’s more, they’re also already encoded, so you can quickly burn them to DVD.

Support for HDV and Widescreen Video
You’re using the newest video cameras. Shooting the latest video formats. And importing it all in iMovie HD. So it’s only natural that iDVD would also let you import the high-definition video (HDV) and 16:9 widescreen formats (both HDV and SDV) you can edit in iMovie HD. iDVD, in fact, quickly and easily converts them to a standard definition DVD format, letting you create DVD projects of stunning quality.

Improved, Editable Map
If you liked it before, you’re really going to enjoy the new, enhanced and editable DVD Map. In addition to offering more options for viewing your project, Map View lets you edit--even batch edit--your project. For example, you can change themes, menu and button settings, and transitions between menus or for slideshows without leaving Map View. Like to add media to your project? Just drag it in. You can drag music directly into a navigation menu or a slideshow. And if, for example, you drag a video or slideshow into Map View, iDVD will automatically create navigation buttons for them.

GarageBand 2: Record your next big hit.

Since its introduction a year ago, GarageBand has made it easy for novice and experienced musicians alike to perform, record and create their own music. Now, without missing a beat, GarageBand 2 delivers an impressive encore performance, offering, for openers, multi-track recording.

That means that you can now play the guitar and sing while recording both tracks at the same time. Or invite the band over to back you and lay down up to eight audio tracks at once. You can accomplish this feat using any audio input/output device compatible with Mac OS X. GarageBand 2 also provides built-in real-time music notation. And it includes smart recording features that let you enhance the tuning and timing of audio recordings (real instruments and vocals).

Top new features at a glance:

• Multi-track recording handles up to eight tracks at once.
• GarageBand can display music notation in real time.
• Enhance timing and pitch for better quality recordings.
• Change the tempo & key of your recorded instruments at any time
• Tune your guitar before you start recording
• GarageBand 2 lets you save your own recordings as Apple Loops

GarageBand lets you easily perform, record and create your own music. Whether you’re an experienced or aspiring musician. Or just want to feel--and sound--like a rock star. With the new version of GarageBand, you can even record multiple tracks at the same time. Sing as you play the guitar, harmonize with your best singing bud or jam with the band, and GarageBand will record every note. And when all your tracks are in place, you can view them in full music notation and take advantage of new GarageBand features to enhance the tuning and timing of your recordings.

Multi-track Recording
Thanks to its new multi-track recording capabilities, GarageBand now lets you record your own vocals as you tickle the ivories or strum the guitar. You can sing a duet, or you can invite the band over to back you. GarageBand works with any I/O hardware device compatible with Mac OS X and can record up to eight simultaneous audio tracks--eight Real Instruments and an additional Software Instrument track.

Display Musical Notation
Wish you could view full musical notation as you record? Now you can. Whether you’re recording software instruments or recording your own live performance, GarageBand can now generate music notation in real time, displaying it on the fly.

There’s more. You can now choose how you’d like to edit software instrument recordings. You can use the "piano roll" view you’re used to using. Or you might want to try something new. GarageBand 2 lets you edit your recorded music--adjust, replace or move notes--using the new music notation view.

iTunes 4.7: Organize, share and enjoy your music.

Regarded by many as the world’s best digital music jukebox for both Macs and PCs, iTunes also has another significant claim to fame: as the world’s number one music download store, it offers you a choice of more than one million songs from all four major and more than 600 independent labels, and it’s sold more than 200 million songs. iTunes not only manages your music remarkably well, it also automatically syncs your music to the growing iPod family, including the unpredictable new member of the clan: iPod shuffle. What’s more, iTunes plays an essential role among the members of the iLife suite, too. Not only does iTunes serve as the conduit to iPod photo for iPhoto users, but it lends its library to iPhoto, iMovie HD and iDVD whenever a song or playlist is needed. And it serves an important function for GarageBand, letting you export the songs you create to your personal music library, where they can be burned to disc, added to playlists, transferred to iPod, shared via AirPort Express with AirTunes or used in other iLife projects.

Top new features at a glance:

• Supports iPod shuffle, the newest member of the iPod family.
• Create playlists instantly with Party Shuffle.
• Print your own CD inserts using album art.
• Stream music wirelessly to your stereo with Airport Express.

Recognized as the world’s best digital music jukebox. Acclaimed as the leader against which all online music stores are judged. iTunes continues to delight, offering music lovers the easiest way to manage the music they own and the absolutely best way to discover and purchase even more music, as well as audiobooks.

Connecting with Your Life and iLife
Whether you purchase music from the iTunes Music Store or import it from the music CDs you own, once your music is in iTunes, you can use it in many fun and exciting ways. As part of the highly-praised suite of iLife applications, iTunes seamlessly integrates with iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand.

Your music is never more than a mouse click away when you’re creating a fully customized, cinematic slideshow in iPhoto, adding an audio track to a movie you’re producing in iMovie HD or looking for the perfect song or playlist to add to one of the new dynamic motion menus in iDVD. Particularly strong: the tie between iTunes and GarageBand. When you save the compositions you create in GarageBand, you can export them to iTunes. And once they’re in iTunes, you can access and use your GarageBand compositions in iPhoto, iMovie HD and iDVD; add them to other iTunes playlists; transfer them to an iPod; or burn them to a CD or DVD.

Take It with You
Designed to enhance your digital life, iTunes works seamlessly with our growing iPod family: the classic white iPod, iPod mini, iPod U2 Special Edition, iPod photo--which lets you carry as many as 15,000 songs or 25,000 photos from your iPhoto library--and the latest member of the family, iPod shuffle. Just connect your iPod to your Mac or Windows PC, and iTunes takes care of the rest, automatically synchronizing the new items in your music library with the songs and audiobooks you already have on the iPod. And, in the case of iPod photo, iTunes automatically creates thumbnails and transfers images from iPhoto (or a selected folder on your hard drive), letting you take up to 25,000 photos on the road.

Have you assigned ratings to songs on your iPod? Created On-the-Go playlists? Read a few chapters of that new bestseller? iTunes keeps track of that information, too. Not wanting you to miss a beat or turn to the wrong page, iTunes makes certain that Play Count, Last Played dates, Song Ratings, bookmarks and other settings remain in sync.

Share Your Music
If other people you live or work with enjoy music too, you can let them listen to yours. That’s because iTunes lets you share your personal music with others, streaming it over a local network from your Mac or PC. Share your entire music library or just select playlists with every iTunes user on your local network.

That Sounds Great
iTunes supports a variety of musical formats, including Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). A cutting-edge audio codec that’s perfect for the Internet, AAC encoding compresses much more efficiently than older formats such as MP3, which iTunes also supports, while delivering quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio. In fact, expert listeners have judged AAC audio files compressed at 128 Kbps (stereo) as virtually indistinguishable from the original uncompressed audio source. You’ll appreciate this quality whenever you purchase music from the iTunes Music Store.

Staying in Tune
Like to mix and match the songs you listen to? Create playlists that fit your needs and moods to a T? iTunes offers two options for creating playlists. You can create them manually just by clicking and dragging individual songs, groups of songs or whole albums.

Or you can let iTunes do all the heavy lifting for you by taking advantage of its ability to generate dynamic Smart Playlists. You simply define a few parameters--such as ratings and year--and iTunes will scour your library, collecting just those songs that match.

Burn CDs of Playlists
When you’ve created a playlist that’s just perfect--all your five-star favorites, perhaps--iTunes makes it easy to create a CD you can play in your car, home stereo or computer (Mac or PC). Just select a playlist in your library and click the Burn CD button.

It’s that simple. And you’ll want to take advantage of the simplicity of iTunes to archive your growing music library, particularly those songs you purchase from the iTunes Music Store. With iTunes 4, you can burn playlists too large to fit on a single CD or DVD to multiple discs, a feature called disc spanning.

Product Description

Featuring five best-in-class applications—iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, and iTunes—in a single, integrated suite, iLife '05 provides your customers with all of the tools they need to enjoy, create, and share their digital media.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It only gets better...and better, March 11, 2005

By 

Douglas VanderMeulen (Fargo, ND) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apple iLife '05 (Mac) [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I have used both Mac and PC computers. I have also used software written for both. There is nothing easier or more intuitive than Apple iLife and '05 is a genuine improvement over '04. You would have to buy several software programs at $400-$600 each to do what iLife can but they will never match iLife or ease, simplicity, and intergration. It doesn't take a lot of computer savvy to maximize iLife and it does most of the work for you - and now even more quickly than ever. Other softwares we have used for loading pictures are slow, hard to manage, and really a pain. If you are looking for a software that allows you to manage your pictures, make movies, post things on the internet, and be able to access them, you will not find a more user-friendly program anywhere.

With iLife, you can edit your pictures. You can order copies with just a click of a button. With just another click, you can e-mail them to anyone in your e-mail address book. Another click you can post them on a web-sight for your friends to see. In addition, you can set your pictures, web sights to your favorite music in iTunes and load them on your iPod and taken them anywhere.

Speaking of iTunes - . if you haven't discovered iTunes yet go to Apple's home page and check it out. iTunes makes it easier and more affordable to buy music. With iTunes you can buy entire albums or only the songs you want from a particular CD. Once down loaded, you can arrange them in any order you want, burn them on your own CD or hook your Mac to your home stereo and listen through you speakers. In addition, whatever music you have in iTunes is easily used in iPhoto, iDVD or the other applications iLife and is fully intergrated with iWork. You will not be disappointed with iLife unless you love to spend tons of money for three or four different software programs that will not work together as seamlessly as iLife.

37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another hit from Apple!, January 22, 2005

By 

Gary Carpineta (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apple iLife '05 (Mac) [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

Apple's hardware is great but their software is even better. iLife '05 is a huge update with many improvements over the '04 version.

Big improvments have been made to iPhoto and iMovie. Garageband has some nice updates as well but I don't heavily use it so I can't really comment on it too much. iDVD has some really nice new themes, a lot nicer than last years.

If you don't own a Mac, this is the reason to buy one. Nothing like this package exists on the PC and the price just makes it even sweeter. It costs a bit more this year but they made many more improvments so it is worth it.

If you do own a Mac you owe it to yourself to pick this up. This is a great set of applications that goes unmatched.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice little media package, November 25, 2005

By 

Rodney Ankeny "ambientfiend" (Dundalk, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apple iLife '05 (Mac) [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

At first I hestitated to upgrade from iLife '04. Like most people, I am only willing to spend the money on upgrades if I can see a notable need, or significant new features. I eventually sprung for it, using my student discount, and I'm glad I did.

The thing I find funny about a lot of the other reviews I see, is that the reviewers think that this is a professional product or at least review it like it is. Why? Nobody, especially not Apple, is claiming it to be so. It is, without a doubt, is an excellent product for its class, which is a suite of media tools for the novice to advanced amateur. I am a professional photographer, and I find myself using iPhoto nearly every day. iPhoto is an excellent image manager. One of the greatest new features is the ability to handle RAW files. Other nice features are the automatic card recognition, downloading, and organizing. The program has nice editing features, they are quick and easy to get to (what I call 'down and dirty'). A very nice feature is the ability to set what happens when you double click on a photo, you can aither go to the editor, open the iPhoto editor in another window, or pick an editing program of your choice- like Photoshop Elements, or my favorite Photoshop CS2, or any other program you may want to use. You also still have the ability to get to iPhoto's editor with a button at the bottom of the screen. IPhoto makes outputting your images super easy, you can email, post on the net, print, make and order books, export files, and set wallpapers and screen savers. I use the program as my main photo organizer, finding it much easier to deal with than Photoshop, or even the Adobe Bridge.

In the military, I am a videograoher, which I guess makes me Pro in that field, and I can say that Apple products far exceed the competition. We use Avid, and it absolutely sucks. It is the most counter-intuitive program, buggy, and chock full of inane error meassages that invarialby pop up on every operation. The answer is Final Cut, a fantastically easy and powerful program. But if you don't need a professional editor, than I can reccommend iMovie and iDVD. On a recent mission, we needed to cut a few DVDs, and the solution was not to use the Dells with the horrendous PC software, but to use my Powerbook and iMovie and iDVD. We banged out a nice product in no time using our finished stories from Avid. So, whereas I would never had bought these products individually, I am sure glad I had them as part of the iLife Suite.

GarageBand is also a very nice little program that I like to play with, music being a great interest of mine, though just for fun. I find GarageBand to be supercool, and all I need and more, and as usual, very easy to use.

One fo the best things about the product is that it is from Apple, running on an Apple operating system, running on an Apple computer, so compatibility is never an issue, and the Apple quality and ease of use runs throughout. Whenever Apple upgrades the OS, it immediately upgrades the iLife program if needed.

I highly recommend this product, either as a first purchase or as an upgrade, you won't be disappointed.