Customer Reviews

Apple iLife '05 (Mac) [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I thought iLife '04 was good, but this version is even better.

iPhoto now supports RAW images, which is all I ever shoot on my Canon 10D, so now iPhoto has all of my images cataloged in it. I also like that iPhoto will now catalog video clips. Most of the clips I have are just silly videos I have found out on the net, but now I have a better place to store them.

iDVD has some really beautiful themes! I just wish Apple had released '05 a few months ago - I could have really used some of the new themes when I was working on some video projects!

I am also glad to see widescreen hit iMovie. I don't do any HD stuff, but I do like to shoot in 16x9 mode. I do wish Apple had included some more goodies in iMovie with regards to transitions/effects/titles, but just having the upgrade to do widescreen is worth it to me.

Haven't and don't really intend on playing with Garage Band, so can't comment on it.

I'm sure this is a nice suite of programs from Apple. I love my Mac but cannot install the full program on my (now) puny 400 MHz G3 iMac - the slowest system it can work on. It requires 4.67GB on your startup disk. That's half of my almost full harddrive! And the installer won't allow it to be installed on an external drive. I've got lots of space there! Must be on startup disk. Dang.... GarageBand also doesn't work on a G3 system like mine. iPhoto 5 on a G3 system leaves off the advanced editing tools. So, be very careful about ordering this. Read the fine print about system requirements. I am very disappointed. Oh well, it's almost time to buy that G5 iMac with the 20" lcd.

This is a great suite of software. Each component is best-in-class, and taken together, they constitute a real value for your money. I haven't used the iDVD component, but the others are very simple and intuitive to use. I'd used iPhoto and iTunes in earlier versions, and the changes to the latter are relatively minor (and a free download, if you don't want the whole package). The iPhoto changes are the ones that have been the most useful for me. I'm hoping to spend a bit more time with GarageBand soon, but a couple of the changes there are already appreciated, even though I'm very, very limited as a musician. It's just fun to play around with.

One other note - another reviewer has rated this one star because he or she couldn't install it on a computer running OS X 10.2. First of all, I'd say the reviewer seems to be unclear on the point of these reviews. Following his/her lead, I suppose I'd have to rate a lot of Windows software at one star, because I can't install it on my computer at home. And I have to wonder whether that reviewer, and the others with the same problem, saw that the latest version of iTunes will run on 10.2 and just extrapolated that to the idea that all of iLife will run on 10.2. Of course, I suppose it is possible that the website wasn't clear.

iLife '05 is supposed to support RAW image processing (see product description above) for photos in iPhoto. The surprise is that although my Canon camera is supported, it's RAW image format is not, rendering iPhoto useless for most of my photographs. This was unexpected as third party companies have image conversion software that manages to do this with little problem. I know there are many RAW image formats, but it's the job of good technology to simplify a complex environment.

I'm new to Apple products and very pleased overall since we purchased the imac G5. It seems like in most cases "it just works" describes their system well, but in this case, I guess we needed to read the "fine print".

I also noticed that it is still not possible to record anything on GarageBand with the iSight's (Apples webcam/microphone). Apparently there is some type of software/hardware incompatibility. Expected in Windows machines, (fortunately) unusual in Apple products. Not a major issue for most, but the incompatibility of Apple hardware and software is still an unwelcome surprise.

All works great except iMovie HD. If you try timeline editing it seems to leave some invisible footage at the end of your video. Makes editing small clips or small videos very difficult. The invisible footage does not get exported but it just feels more flaky than a fully updated iMovie 4 (as long as you remember to SAVE PROJECT before emptying trash).

Would only buy for the new iDVD, so if you don't have a superdrive, iLife5.0 will be a waste of money as iPhoto will be your only useable app.

I purchased iLife 05 since it was touted as a major advance over iLife 04. I really wanted only iPhoto but the rest came with it. I found that there is an improvement in the editing capability in iPhoto 05. IPhoto is an excellent program for photo processing but the advances in 05 over 04 are really not worth the $70.00.

All of the improvements are great. I was editing a video for a presentation when my order arrived. There was a transition that I simply could not get the old iMovie to do. I installed the new iLife and told it to make the same transition in the film and it worked perfectly. I don't know why or how but I was sold five minutes after the box arrived.
I still think iPhoto is the best improvement however. I really like the scrollable photo index when looking at a picture in edit mode. I also like the ability to eject the camera from within iPhoto(I sometimes forgot to do this before.) And the one-touch red-eye correction is nice too.
Also I like the new themes for iDVD. The movie I was editing ended up getting one of the new themes instead of the old theme I had originally picked and I was very pleased with the end result. The presentation was a big success.