Customer Reviews

iLife '11 Family Pack [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

DO NOT BUY THIS SOFTWARE UNTIL IT IS FIXED! This pains me to write this. I live in the Applesphere and have for more than 2 decades. I am proud of my Apple computers, devices and software, at least I have been up until now. This review is about iPhoto '11. I've been an iPhoto user since 2005. In 2006 it became my only photo database. I've used versions '05, '06, '07, '09 & now '11. I have almost 17,000 pictures and add over 2000 a year nowadays with a 2 year old around the house. I use iPhoto almost every day. I consider myself an iPhoto expert.

iPhoto '11 is not a good upgrade. If you already have an earlier version of iPhoto, stay with it until Apple can come out with a version of iPhoto '11 (currently iPhoto 9.1) that fixes the issues. I'm only going to mention what I've hit my head against today. I have written feedback to Apple on each of these along with a half dozen other things.

Features eliminated or changed for the worse:
Copy of Edit>Adjust settings has been eliminated
E-mail restricts photos to 8 predesigned Apple formats and restricts file size selection to 2. Text on formats only 3 lines, 74 characters each. Drag & drop to an e-mail results in full file size. Work around is time consuming.
Description area in photo info is limited to showing 2 lines. Cannot select any other size. To put more into box you must type it on outside resource like Word or Pages, then copy & paste.
Search feature now looks for any word (of a group of words) you type versus looking for EVERY word typed. This dramatically decreases it's helpfulness.
Program does not allow you to view two pictures enlarged side by side to compare! This makes editing similar pictures or choosing between several, very difficult as you have to open and then move from one to another.
Full screen view of image impossible!!!

Bugs:
Program hangs up, crashes
Adjusting date and/or time won't resort photos within an event when sorting by date. To see properly sorted after adjusting you have to exit to Events or another folder and then reenter the event.
Places sometimes won't show entries after you select them. To see them to confirm your entry you must either exit the event or quit the program and restart it.

Again, these are only what I have bumped up against today. I wish I had never up(down)graded to this version. Here is what I like, the new card selections are nice. The share, create & add to menus are better.

I'm not sure how to review this: some people could potentially be buying this to upgrade a very old version of iLife. If I review this as a standalone piece of software, it's fantastic and quite a value. For less than $50 you get a world class digital music studio, one of the best photo organizing programs, and a remarkably capable video editing package. (Oh, and passable web editing and DVD authoring programs, but nobody cares much about those, least of all Apple.) Easily five stars.

However, if I judge this as an upgrade from iLife '09, it's extremely weak. Here's what you get of any substance: the ability to better edit audio in iMovie, slightly better full screen modes in iPhoto, really impressive time warping facilities in Garage Band to fix timing, and some very nice guitar and piano lessons which actually show you where you making mistakes. All great features, to be sure. But are these worth $50 if you have '09? Probably not.

The frustrating thing is that the most major feature in this upgrade is just plain silly: they added the ability to make cutesy little fake "trailers" in iMovie. This is apparently their big innovation. You can now replace your boring home movies with one of eight or so two minute jokes that I guarantee you will get old very quickly. Very quickly. They also added a fake news program theme, and a fake sports theme. All very gaudy and over-the-top, even for iMovie standards. And not at all useful beyond just playing with them once.

It's pretty clear that Apple's focus has shifted away from Mac OS X and iLife and on to the greener pastures of iOS: the iPad and iPhone. In fact, from now on we'll likely see features come first to their consumer devices, and then later to their desktop computers. I'm afraid the days of getting truly major updates to iLife every two years is a thing of the past.

So, as an upgrade from '09, I give this one or two stars at best. If you're upgrading from '09, I hope I've saved you some money. Otherwise, this is a great software package, easily five stars, just not much of an improvement from what you could get two years ago. As such, I'll split the difference and give the package three stars.

I've been with the iLife suite from the start and have found it to be a great resource for creative production that's easy to use. But this time I'm very disappointed: there's not a lot new here and worst of all, iWeb - the excellent website creation software - has been ignored, it's the same as the version in iLife 09. Big miscue by Apple as the software is overdue for an overhaul to keep it from becoming an also-ran. If you haven't used iLife, go for this version (although new Macs ship with iLife, so every Mac owner will have a version) - otherwise stick with 09.

As always, Apple products are elegant and easy to use but this version doesn't offer much of an upgrade over the previous version, so where I really like the software and it works as advertised without fail, I feel it was a bit expensive.

They removed Calendars from iPhoto '11 and there is no way to downgrade back to iPhoto '08 to get them back.
It is almost the beginning of November just when you want to make calendars ... nice one apple.

major features have been removed, without explanation (tool for to simply emailing photos, calendars).
Many bugs.
Very few noticeable improvements.
This is very disappointing from Apple, especially with something as close to the users' hearts (photos).

I was very disappointed with the iLife '11 suite when it was introduced. With the upgrade Apple has added one or two novel features to iMovie, Garageband and iPhoto and has completely ignored not only iDVD but it's great web design software, iWeb. I was dreaming in hoping that apple would introduce blu-ray compatibility to iDVD but I was almost sure that they at least cared enough to clean up some of the sloppy code in iweb.
I would only recommend the upgrade if you are unhappy with the social networking features in iPhoto or the audio editing abilities of iMovie in iLife '09, otherwise save your money.

The best version of iMovie is still iMovie 06.

Beginning with iMovie 08 Apple dropped the Timeline concept which is used in ALL other video editors (Mac or Windows).

iMovie 11 will give you lower quality DV video than iMovie 06. iMovie 11 processes the DV video differently, it discards every other field from interlaced source material, causing a quality loss. If you want to maintain full quality you need to use iMovie 06 or Final Cut Express.

iMovie 11 is counter-intuitive and difficult to use (and Third party plug-ins are still not supported). iMovie 06 is the best (I was editing movies in 5 minutes and never looked at the manual.) I quickly grasped how iMovie was supposed to work - you have a box that shows a preview of your footage with boxes on the right showing your various clips. You dragged and dropped clips to the Timeline - hi-lighted whichever one you wanted to add an effect to or transition from - you could SIMPLY rearrange clips by dragging and dropping them like icons on your dock, VERY easy.

In iMove 08-11, you have 'Events' and Libraries and mini timelines that resembled sentences with hard returns snaked in a cramped interface. You're supposed to choose segments from your footage by dragging a box around it - all the while almost guessing it's what you wanted to select because there is no larger preview of what you're doing. Then just try and figure out how to split a segment and add any effects (which have been scaled down - or more like dumbed down) while still trying to keep everything flowing correctly in this odd snaked mini footage view. And don't even try and work with the audio.

The good news is that you can have and use iMovie 06 with iLife 11. iMovie 06 and iDVD 11 work together well using Snow Leopard. (you can also use iMovie 06 with iDVD 08/09 with OS 10.5)

My stepson, a music fanatic, practically tore the installation CD from my MacBook Pro last night. The reason? Garage Band. A feature I would never have even cared about has him totally stoked. GarageBand has a feature mimics famous amps and pedals (I didn't know that amps or pedals could be famous) and syncs instruments that are slightly off beat with no distortion.

I got it for iPhoto, and the improvements are both real and enjoyable. iPhoto doesn't have to compete with the high-end photo-editing programs. Aperture 3 does that quite nicely.

iMovie is the member of the suite that remains the biggest mystery to me. I have never wanted a Hollywood trailer of my own so I fail to see the point. Perhaps regular users appreciate its new features, but I for one haven't acquired the taste for the program much less the features. I will just stick with photos and maybe learn to get a couple of good riffs out of my Mac.

Oh, get the family pack. You will be adding more Macs to your life, and you won't have to buy the software again.

iPhoto now is optimized for social networkers and actual photographer related features have been burried under another menu layer. Editing, flaging and email are my main functions that have been eliminated from the main screen and require additional clicks or keystrokes to function. I really don't get the change in interface? Did anyone ask the users about these changes? I can see no benefits at all in iPhoto 11 from iPhoto 9. It appears to just be an annoying interface change. Additionally, the install program created duplicate photos in at least one of my albums (One high quality photo and one thumbnail quality). So now I must go through each album and find and delete the second low res thumbnail the install program created. I have over 23,000 photos in my file.

Apple (thankfully) left the iMovie interface alone and appears to have added better sound editing in iMovie 11. There are also some additional features that I have not tried (reducing motion distortion, transition overlaps, higher quality rendering). I do have a gripe with the ability to change the duration of photos. I can't seem to make the duration exactly what I want. It appears to have a mind of its own and always changes the duration to something other than my input. This is a show stopper since trying to make the slides match the beat of the music is now very difficult. In the past, this photo duration issue can be related to the duration of the transition and easily overcome by making sure the transition and photo durations were sufficient. In iMovie 11, getting the exact duration of a photo is just plain difficult as it always changes my input. I'll update this rating I find my system or my "training" is at fault. I have made over 100 videos with iMovie and would really like to know what I am doing wrong in iMovie 11. (transition overlaps or snap to beats features may be improperly selected???)