Apple iLife '08 Reviews

• iMovie 08 Should Be Named iMovie Lite 1.0

  
  By A2XHOLOLKGV1FE on 2007-08-14
  After several days of experimenting with iMovie 08 (part of iLife 08), I have found that I cannot use it. I have gone back to iMovie 06. With no ability to set Chapters where desired (without using Garageband!) no timeline editing and no sharing with iDVD I found the program unusable.
  
  iMovie Lite 1.0 (iMovie 08) is fine to edit a 3 minute video to share on youtube, but it lacks features that are needed for longer projects or if you want to make a DVD of your movie.
  
  iMovie Lite 1.0 (iMovie 08) lacks a true timeline, Nor does iMovie Lite 1.0 (iMovie 08) let you add DVD chapter markers to specific spots in a movie, such as the beginning of each major scene (each day in your vacation, for example).
  
  I feel bad for people who purchase iMovie 08 but have never used 06. They may never know how good Apple can be at designing entry level video software.
  
  But what if you want those missing capabilities? Apple has a great video-editing program for you: it's called iMovie HD (iMovie 06).
  
  I am confident that Apple will eventually correct this mistake. (I understand that Apple has made iMovie 06 a free download for owners of iMovie 08!) I believe that the best course of action would be for Apple to continue upgrading iMovie 06 (iMovie HD) with full support for iDVD and DVD burning. Rename iMovie 08 (iVideo?) for small, quick little videos or slideshows for absolute beginners that don't want to burn a DVD.
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Bugs make iPhoto a minefield

  
  By AB7EZ16KMH8YJ on 2007-09-02
  I purchased iLife mostly for the improved organization of iPhoto. While I like the concept and presentation of events, bugs in importing, sorting, selection, and organizing have made the program an enormous waste of time. Twice in two days, large chunks of photos and events have simply disappeared, requiring reimporting and reorganizing (I was fortunate that I had backed up my library before installing 08). iPhoto often adds photos to a selection on its own (I suspect this is behind some of the mystery deletions) and when emptying the trash seems to also discard related photos still in the library. It's to the point where I dare not delete anything for fear of what else will be discarded. Some events display the wrong dates for the photos within and so are placed out of order. iPhoto08 continues iPhoto06's tradition of importing multiple duplicate files despite instructions not to import duplicates.
  
  A program which should have been a big improvement in organization and convenience is instead a frustrating mess. I have many Apple products, and this is the first time I have regretted a purchase.
  
  

• Great consumer software

  
  By A2YO5JDPKQKHU7 on 2007-08-21
  It seems that some people are disappointed in the new iMovie, which is substantially different than the old one. The new one is much easier for most non-computer people to use, making it possible for just about anyone to make a movie quickly and easily. So what's wrong with that? That ease of use sacrifices many of the uber-advanced features that technical people love. Everything is packaged and ready-to-go to look good, but you can add advanced volume or video controls and filters. In the end, this will push the technical people to buy the more advanced Final Cut Express, and make the majority of the population able to finally make a movie quickly. What you think of this depends on what you want. Personally, I like it because I don't have a lot of time to satisfy my inner geek.
  
  The other software is generally improved. I am a big fan of the new iPhoto events, which groups your photos according to the days and times you took the photos. For this to work, you've got to set your camera's time and date correctly; otherwise, the events are grouped into odd clusters. iWeb is improved with better management for personal sites. Garageband has a new Magic Garageband feature that makes it much easier to generate your own music. All of this software is more efficient at handling today's huge data files.
  
  One caveat to all of this software is that there are more bugs than I'd like. Apple does do a good job fixing bugs, though, and most things I do work fine. Also, this software appreciates a newer Mac - either a 2.0 Ghz or faster G5 or an Intel Mac are required to use the new iMovie. So if you're using a G4 or older processor, you might be disappointed by the speed of this software. On the other hand, with a newer computer, you'll probably be impressed by the speed.
  
  Generally, if you like fast, easy-to-use software and you have a newer computer, you'll love the new iLife. If you're a technie and you like to have lots of features and options, this update might not impress you.
  
  

• Bad Apple!

  
  By A20RNT0G1NCC3Z on 2007-08-14
  In the past 10 years I have bought every single piece of Mac software as soon as it came out. And THIS is the only time I've felt burned. And burned bad.
  
  First of all, iWeb is buggy. It has a huge problem reading previous sites. The "translation" process loses all your pictures, and if you have a site with a zillion pictures, like me, then you're up the creek. And although it now "allows" you to publish to a non .mac site (finally, duh), you still can't manage multiple sites. Which is absolutely stupid.
  
  iPhoto is fine. An improvement, even.
  
  Garage band seems fine so far, too.
  
  Haven't use iDVD yet....
  
  However... iMovie is a disaster. And nevermind all the horrible, horrible reviews the new iMovie has received. The fact is I spent $84.93 on iLife '08, and iMovie WON'T INSTALL ON MY COMPUTER! ...that is unforgivable, Apple.
  
  That's right. I have a dual 1.25 PPC with 2G RAM. I run the newest version of every single professional graphics, audio and design application without a hickup... My computer is lean, mean and fast. And the iMovie installer won't let me even "try" to install iMovie.
  
  Apparently, you need the very "newest" Mac supercomputer to utilize this "consumer" application.
  
  Give me a break.
  
  This is VERY un-Apple. And the exacty opposite of WHY people choose Apple products in the first place. ...to FORCE people to upgrade their computers by artifically creating performance limits on applications that are designed, and advertised to be "for the whole family" is insane. At the very least give me a warning: "you may experience sluggish perfomance...".
  
  Just keep innovating the iMacs and the MacPros. People will upgrade every few years or so anyway. Just don't be underhanded about it.
  
  As a long-time Apple fanboy and stockholder, this is a travesty.
  
  For shame, Apple.
  
  

• Read before you buy. A step backwards in user control.

  
  By A35I0JT8OGH86O on 2007-08-11
  Customers are well advised to read reviews of ILife 08. It is a large step backward with IMovie. Customers used to previous versions of IMovie will be disappointed with loss of simple control. Two examples. First, you cannot alter audio volume within clips. You can only affect the overall volume, rather than making some parts silent, quieter, or louder. Second, you cannot change the length of transitions, for example crossfades. Preset speeds, no alterations. The software will be simple, I guess for some, but is a real step backward.
  IDVD is not much better. There are 7 new themes, all are very simple, with limited spots to insert video or photos.
  IPhoto seems better. I like the way pictures can be ordered by events. Pretty slick.
  
  I'll be using my older version of IMovie, and the new version of IDVD and IPhoto. Doesn't seem worth the money though for the huge loss of functionality in IMovie.
  
  
• Terrific Productivity Suite
  By A1XE4MMJOHIC5V on 2007-08-12
  I've been a Mac user for two decades...both professionally and personally - in education and out. For most users this suite is terrific. The functionality and collaborative features are incredible. You can much more easily see what photos and movies you have, use them and share them. You can now have web galleries of your photos much more easily available to others and you can collaborate with them.
  
  If you want more details, to see the functionality and features, go to http://www.apple.com/ilife/guidedtour/ and see for yourself.
  
  Some people have complained about the new iMovie application. I personally think the new iMovie is a far step ahead of the old one - but if you don't like it, you can download the old one for free from Apple!
  
  
• Bloatware hits Apple's iLife (and does less with more)
  By A2EYVLDGH8OJZB on 2007-08-12
  The two reasons some high-profile Mac users are now using PCs & Windows are that the mac (i.e., Apple software) didn't easily do what it is being sold as being easy to do, namely Photo and Graphics. Virtually any low-cost PC-based photo program was better than iPhoto 06 and earlier. iLife 08 does improve one major flaw, it now allows you to selectively import photos from your media card--can't believe you couldn't do that before.
  
  But the new design has a entirely new set of confusing interfaces that look like the software developers wrote, approved and implemented the specifications--that is no real users actually sat down and field-tested this thing for usability.
  
  The other growing problem with Apple software in general and iLife 08 specifically is that of bloatware. That is software that grows in size, slows in performance and has fewer features. I blame this mostly on using Intel chips (my G5 Mac version of the updates Apple provides are always 1/3rd to 1/10th the size of the Intel versions of the identical patches). But that's a non-scientific opinion.
  
  I upgraded because I thought (A) the software is low-cost ($75 on Amazon, $79 in the Apple Stores) that is cheap unless you're a software pirate, then I don't really care if you think its too expensive.
  
  But the sad thing is it is so much slower and so much fatter than iLife '06 and has only two major updates.
  1) Selective import of pictures.
  2) New iMovie interface.
  
  I really do a lot of video editing and often revert back to iMovie when Apple's high-end Final Cut Studio 2 doesn't like the camera or format I've filmed in. iMovie always saves the day by just working.
  Sadly, from what I've read, this may also be a fading star. In fact, non of the more than $500 in iMovie plug-ins I've purchased will work in iMovie '08. Its great to expose an interface, but guess what Apple, you're supposed to actually support it forever.
  
  Bottomline, there is absolutely no reason to update to iLife '08 from '06. If you are buying a new Mac, you'll get it anyway, and thus, may not see/know the difference. If you have a Power PC G5 or earlier, it just runs to slowly to be usable (but after the first run, everything except iMovie did seem to respond better).
  
  You are better off getting PhotoShop Elements for Mac.
  For movie editing, you can stick with iMovie '06.
  
  If you get iLive '08 for some reason, know that Apple is providing a no cost download of iMovie '06 for free to anyone who has iMovie '08--even Apple no realizes they made a mistake.
  
  
• Extremely Disappointed!!
  By A2F8R90I9THO2J on 2007-09-08
  iMovie 08 is a horrible step back from 06. Plus, it imports your movies and destroys them, taking out all transitions, music, titles. Many others have detailed the problems. I just have to say I'm a huge Apple fan and absolutely HATE HATE HATE this product.
  
  
• They should have a zero stars option
  By A2FYBT14P4BLVC on 2007-08-15
  Let's say little Joey catches his first baseball. Want to slow it down. Sorry. A bunch of kids at a party running around and want to speed it up? You can't. Want to change a transition? Can't. Want to use some plug ins. Nope. Do not buy this software if you use iMovie. I should have read the reviews. The reason you can make a movie so fast is because there aren't those annoying features that get in the way. You can download iMovie 06 for free though! While you're at it go ahead and download OS 8, it's free as well.
  
  
• Only reccomended for upgrading.
  By A1CSSACYTB9DK0 on 2007-08-14
  iLife has made some positive and negative changes.
  
  iPhoto: iPhoto is much better. You have a gallery view for all photo albums, and all of your books, cards, and libraries are seperated so everything is organized.
  iMovie: Horrible. the themes in HD '06 have been removed, importing videos currently on your computer is actually hard. I reccomend using iMovie HD '06, because it is better than '08
  iDVD: it has improved. better themes, yet same interface. the drop zones are no longer it's own transluesent window so it makes the DVD Preview window used for typing and viewing dropzones is smaller, but it should not affect the use of the program in a negative way.
  GarageBand: I only use this for editing so I haven't noticed very much, but I am sure that it would have better ease of use. I have noticed that you can burn songs onto a CD for playing on a CD player.
  iWeb: better themes, new web widgets, new page type and other cool features. this is a great improvement.
  
  overall: I do reccomend upgrading to iLife '08, so you can still use iMovie HD '06. everything in this is great... except for iMovie '08.
  
  
• Do not buy it for iMovie
  By AJRO64M88RTT0 on 2007-08-23
  I used to buy iLife just for iMovie and iDVD: I'm on a different universe with music so I never opened Garageband, I do not have a .mac account and don't use iWeb. iTunes is a free download, so really this suite for me is iMovie, iDVD and iPhoto. Iphoto is nice but I could live vith previous versions too, and for what I've seen iDVD seems quite fine (no big modifications), but iMovie is just a shadow of what it used to be. Although I have to admit that the skimming feature is quite cool to see, the "new iMovie" has many drawbacks. No timeline, no integration with iDVD (no more share to idvd option), no chapter markers, just really basic audio editing, no video effects, no more transfer back to camera and so on. So if you (such as myself) use to buy iLife just for iMovie and iDVD, my tip is to pass on this one.
  
  
• horrible!!
  By AIDRNB615AMKR on 2007-08-27
  The problems with iMovie are legion and well documented. I bought the 08 anyway because I dont use iMovie and didnt hear any negatives about iPhoto or iDVD which I do use. In iDVD, you cant import music. You are told that you are not authorized to import a song from iTunes. Then, you jump through hoops to authorize it and still no music. iPhoto will jumble your photos into "Events" and good luck in sorting your photos out. It will take a while. I have no idea what the purpose of this is other than to create more confusion. Plus I lost about 100 photos in the process. This is a really bad program. I'd like to erase it and go back to the old version; more trouble.
  
  
• Disappointed Apple Fan .....
  By A1ZBDFMDJEUR5W on 2007-08-13
  I have had such a great respect for Apple Products and could not wait for iLife 08 but Alas the Suite is not all its cracked up to be ..... If you dont have a brand new system forget about iMovie .... I have the last Generation Powerbook (1.67 GH 120 GB 2G Ram ) and have spent Thousands of dollars with Apple.... Now The New software is not compatable ..... That is a slap in the face for all Long Time Apple Users ..... From another company i might just shine it on as another Money Trip but with Apple I trusted that they were realy Solid with their Customer Base ..... I dont want to second guess or do my Homework as some reviewers have suggested .....This is iLife 08 and Darn it ....its suppost to be Totaly There ..... and Work ..... Im not giving up But....Im also not installing any more of the 5 loads that I have in the "FAMILY" pack.....
  
  
• GarageBand, GarageBand, GarageBand, GarageBand, GarageBand, GarageBand!
  By A19847LLVNZ1FO on 2007-08-21
  GarageBand 08. That's what I bought iLife 08 for. I don't see any reviews here for this superb and yet unjustly, incorrectly maligned program, so I'm here to fill that gap, and tell other musicians why I think GB is worth the entire price of iLife 08 by itself. First, I don't use iPhoto - I use Adobe Bridge CS3. I don't use iMovie... nor do I have any need to make DVDs with iDVD. For web production, I use Dreamweaver CS3 and Photoshop CS3, not iWeb. And I don't need podcasting capabilities.
  
  I payed my money for GarageBand alone, less than a tenth of the price of Logic Pro (which I also own), and GB has all of the essential bits and pieces that I need to play, mix and produce excellent quality music. I skipped upgrading to the last version of iLife, because GarageBand was suddenly turned into a Podcast program during the height of the Podcasting craze, and the musicians wants and wishes took a back seat. This version of GarageBand has been improved so much it is serious competition for the "Big Boy Pro Applications."
  
  GarageBand 08 is now a home studio capable of recording a full blown CD with (new) 24-bit audio recording and playback. - You must have a 24 bit capable USB or Firewire audio interface to record Real Instrument tracks (guitar, vocals, mic'd drums ..etc.) to take full advantage of this feature. - These are abundant and affordable on the web. Some of the other features that I like (that are new) are featured below.
  
  But first a word about "Magic GarageBand". When I first saw this I thought it was the lamest, most pathetic looking thing I had ever seen! A corny mock up of a stage spotlighting each instrument??? Come on! But then I auditioned one of the Blues "genres". And to my surprise... I liked it! I brought into the multi-track time line, plugged in my Les Paul and was jamming with a great band! This was a great treat for a home studio musician like me. It was really nice jamming with some one other than my self and loops.
  
  Now for the new features that I love and are new in this edition of GarageBand.
  
  1. Multi take recording. Say you mess up a Real Instrument part. Simply set up a loop over top of the track(s) you messed up and re-record another 1, 2, 3 ..etc takes. Then audition each take, pick the best one and throw out the rest. This feature has only been available in the high priced programs until now.
  
  2. Visual EQ: If you have a track that has too much treble, you can adjust it, by making the EQ curves visible, clicking on the pencil and manually pulling the Visual EQ curves down into the correct range. You can also do this with bass and low and high mid frequencies as well.
  
  3. Arrangements: For songwriters this functionality allows you to keep track of verse, chorus, middle eight and all the other bits and pieces that make up songs while composing. This means, that you can mark off the chorus, and copy and paste it in farther down the line. A brilliant time saver.
  
  3. Automation: With this feature you can dig into the mix and speed up, slow down tracks, making a song pick up tempo on all tracks without making the singer sound like Mickey Mouse. And speaking of vocals, if they don't match the song's present key, simply click on the LCD and raise or lower the entire key of the song to fit your vocal range! Another nice touch previously only available on the "Pro" applications!
  
  Finally, GarageBand 08 has an elegantly simple user interface that does not get in the way of me and my creative spark. No interface distractions, no I/O problems ... it just works. Buy it, it's worth every penny, and a bit more.
  
  
• Worst "upgrade" ever.
  By A2SU6CA6HSK85I on 2007-09-15
  It's not just that iMovie has been completely ruined. It's also that none of the things that were missing from the last iLife have been improved, or have been made worse.
  
  iPhoto still doesn't understand standard metadata in IPTC or XMP formats, so all your categories and captions get lost as soon as you export, and if you have captioned photos the information is lost when you add them to iPhoto.
  
  iTunes has gained a new lockout to prevent other software from accessing your iTunes music library, and to prevent use of iPods on Linux.
  
  iWeb still can't produce something as simple as a page with an HTML heading and some paragraphs; everything is meaningless DIV elements.
  
  GarageBand still lacks a basic sample editor. I guess it's OK if you like presets.
  
  
• Imovie - one third the power
  By AI19TV79W9HKQ on 2007-08-24
  I believe that Apple has made a serious mistake eliminating features from Imovie 08. I was planning to switch to a Mac in November after OSX 10.5 was released. I planned to switch for two reasons:
  
  1. Clean design - eliminate a lot of cables.
  
  2. Imovie - I currently do quite a bit of video editing for my church on my Dell 4600 using Pinnacle Studio 9.35. Pinnacle Studio's interface essentially is a knock off of the old imovie 6. Very easy to use. However, Pinnacle is buggy and unreliable!
  
  Imovie 6 is about 80% as powerful as Pinnacle Studio. Unfortunately, I wrongly assumed that the next edition of Imovie would be more powerful than Imovie 6. Therefore, I have been waiting for over six months for the new Imovie to be released before I purchased a new Imac extreme edition. Now I see that one of the major reasons for purchasing a new Imac has been removed.
  
  Final Cut Express to me is a difficult and frustrating product to use. (No automatic segmentation of imported video clips, no storyboard mode.) If I am stuck with Final Cut Express I might as well keep my PC and buy Sony Vegas. (It does not have a storyboard mode but at least it does segment video clips).
  
  I sincerely hope that Apple reconsiders Imovie 08 and releases a true competitor to Pinnacle Studio or Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. As of right now the PC has the lead in mid level video editors when it comes to ease of use. This should not be!
  
  I don't think that Apple understands what a selling point Imovie was. I have had several clients buy Macs in the last year and almost all of them wanted to play with Imovie. These clients are not sophisticated users, yet they figured out Imovie in a matter of minutes and have been producing nice movies now for several months. They have been eagerly awaiting the new Imovie because they were looking for more features. Sadly they will be disappointed. Some may be forced to run Pinnacle Studio within bootcamp. Not exactly what I or they had in mind!
  
  
• iPhoto and iWeb rock. iMovie needs work
  By A1TD4H3SD2FCAI on 2007-08-27
  Short and sweet:
  
  iPhoto: They added some new features that are great. Photo editing capabilities and photo management work well.
  
  iWeb: A major improvement. Could not be happier with it.
  
  iDVD: A few more templates, nothing too earth shattering but the new templates are nice.
  
  GarageBand: I don't use it but it looks real pretty.
  
  iMovie: They changed the software to much it's unrecognizable as iMovie. When you update a program, you should add, not take away. Some of the new features are nice but not at the expense of losing so many others. Very surprised at Apple.
  
  When they (hopefully) fix iMovie, it will be even worth it. If you use iWeb, it's DEFINITELY worth it.
  
  
• disappointing
  By A1ZJ8BWVM5L5GW on 2007-08-28
  iWeb has lost functionality so I didn't install it. So iPhoto is the only application I use. What was film rolls from iPhoto 6 is now events, so this is better.
  
  I set slideshow settings (time and music) and click on save settings button but it randomly reverts back to default settings. Random event is selected when I start iPhoto up, so I need to scroll for a while to get to latest event. New iPhoto library being a package makes it more time consuming to back up, I can't just back up 2007 photos. Still no way to write IPTC info to pictures, so I don't use iPhoto comments. Last 12 months do not seem to work correctly.
  
  Disappointing.
  
  
• iMovie 8 doesn't support Slick software!!
  By A25N75ZD5I9JBC on 2007-08-28
  I am assuming if you are reading these reviews, you want to find out about the new iLife before you order it. I was doing the same thing and decided to pass on a little information I picked up.
  
  I do not own iLife 8, and may not purchase it because the Slick software for iMovie will NOT work with the new version of iLife- the new version does not support plug-ins. I obtained this info straight from GeeThree. However, GeeThree also told me that it will leave iMovie 6 on your hard drive, so you can still use it with the Slick software. I hope this info helps someone!!!
  
  
• Keywords in iPhoto is mangled
  By A2OFQ8ZNGWAYPV on 2007-08-18
  While everyone is beating up on iMovie 08 (deservedly) there's other things people need to beware of before upgrading to iLife 08. iPhoto 08 has mangled the Keyword interface, making it less efficient and a pain to use.
  
  I use iPhoto 06's keyword feature to organize and recall photo's totally. While 06 allowed you to have a single keyword interface up all the time for Assigning and Filtering (and allowed you to resize the Keyword buttons so larger keywords are shown) - this is all gone in 08.
  
  Now you have two interfaces for keywords, one for assigning and one for filtering. Both interfaces have to be called up when you want them (you can't have them load up at app start), the filtering interface (the one you'd use the most) fades out after you move you're mouse somewhere else, then you have to call it up again. The button's with the keywords for both interfaces (assigning & selecting) are now rediculously small and won't get them sized much larger - designed for one word keywords obviously. Any keyword more than two small words is abbreviated. Have two keywords like "name 2006 birthday" and "name 2007 birthday" both look like "name 200..." now. If you have keywords with two names in it that aren't both short forget it, abbreviated so second name is non readable. You can't reorder the keywords in the interfaces, to group the related ones together, like you could before - alphabetical only now. In the Filtering interface you have an area to put often used keywords, but again it groups them alphabetically defeating the purpose if you have more than 5 you want to use there as you have to start scanning alphabetically to fine your keys.
  
  The sad thing in all this is that the original area where the prior version keyword interface existed is still available - this update for keyword functionally was totally unnecessary. To think that alot of development effort was wasted to make a key feature more complex and less useful is a real downer - and should be a black mark for the project manager who did this.
  
  If I could unload iPhoto 08 to get iPhoto 06 back I would. I want to keep the rest of 08 on as I like them (using iMovie 08 as video organizer with HD for edits for example). If Adobe updated Photoshop Elements for Mac to use its tag interface from Windows I'd be all over it now. In fact if they did this for Photoshop Elements and did a good port/update of Premiere Elements to the Mac, Apple would be in a bad spot with regards to iPhoto 08 and iMovie 08. Sad...
  
  Keyword users, beware of iPhoto 08.
  
  
• iPhoto is a living nightmare in iLife 08... Save yourself and DO NOT INSTALL!
  By A1VSXINKAVZRE7 on 2007-11-05
  I purchaed the software after reading all of the wonderful improvements to iLife 06 -- I expected iPhoto to be better organized, lightning fast, and have the ability to store more images. NOT TRUE. It is slow as a snail (and I have 2GB of RAM!), you cannot toggle between editing screens like before and the images I attach to emails now come in bitmap instead of jpg format -so nobody can do anything with them!
  
  I was also looking forward to the iWeb upgrades and so far, so good, but Apple promised the capability to use one's own domain name without mask forwarding and so far, I cannot figure out how to accomplish this.
  
  From what I've read iMovie is a disaster as well, although I haven't tried it. My plan is to empty my iPhoto library and uninstall iLife 08 asap. I much prefer iLife 06 for it's ease of use. Hope this helps someone..wish I would have known!
  
  
• Excellent for the non-Tech
  By AU7USG59IWV44 on 2007-08-17
  I was a little surprised by the ratings I saw by some of the Apple / Mac "faithful", on this latest edition of iLife. I just received my copy, and found it to be a pleasure to work with, and was particularly pleased with iPhoto and its enhanced interface. This suite of software is, principally, geared to the non technical person, and is excellent for for my family and friends who don't work the WEB for a living, as I do. Of course, I work with CS3 and a number of very high-end packages, but it isn't fair to compare them to iLife, which seems to be what some of the other reviewers are doing (or wish it was). If you're looking for a package that will more than please the bulk of the Mac users, you won't be disappointed --- if you're looking for professional products with a great deal more features and flexibility, you'll have to spend your money elsewhere.
  
  
• A step backwards
  By A2ECALU639XDRN on 2007-09-15
  I've been an Mac fan for years and this is the worst piece of software they've delievered.
  
  
• iMovie ruins the whole package
  By ATAJ76QAMBVVL on 2007-11-09
  I considered giving iLife '08 four stars because for the most part it's a very good package. But after trying yet again to use iMovie, forget it...if the new iMovie is any indication of where iLife is headed, the next release will be total garbage.
  
  I've seen reviewers who said that iMovie no longer has transitions, this isn't true, they just aren't accesible in the same way. The really, really bad part is, iMovie simply doesn't work in any way that you would expect or even according to the documentation.
  
  For example, just try to load a video into iMovie '08. You might think that you could just drag a video to the landing area that says "Drag media here to create a new project", but you can't! Even if the video is in one of *the only three formats* iMove '08 will accept, you STILL can't drag it in. So, maybe you think you'll add the video to iTunes, and then drag it in off the integrated iTunes media pane. Nope! The ONLY way, and I mean the only friggin way to import video into iMove '08 is to select "Import Movies" from the Edit menu, but when you do this you better be sure to import the clips one-by-one in the order you want them to appear in the project, because if you don't there is absolutely NO WAY of moving a clip!
  
  iMovie '08 is utterly ridiculous. I can't imagine how Apple would even consider releasing this as part of their flagship consumer package. It's completely unusable. The funny thing is, Apple must have some idea of just how bad iMove '08 is, because when you install iLife it's the only iLife application which it saves the previous version in a special folder titled "iMovie Previous Version", so you can still use the version of iMove which actually works!
  
  So, maybe get this for the other applications which are all fine, but forget trying to use iMovie '08. It's utter garbage.
  
  
• Do not listen to these 1 star reviews
  By A262KNGN1RESSW on 2007-08-24
  These 1 star reviews are based solely on the fact that people struggle to work with the new iMovie. You can't judge an entire package based on ONE piece of software out of FIVE.
  
  The package is VERY user-friendly, especially imovie, which received a complete overhaul. If you had 06, and would rather use it, Apple doesn't delete it, so you're STILL free to use it.
  
  The only reason i take one star off is because of the slowness of magic garageband. But honestly, if you have at least 1-2 GB(which i don't), Garageband will run smoother.
  
  Also you get 30 free days with the iWork software.....how can you go wrong?
  
  For mac fans, this is a great investment.
  
  
• Balancing updates versus radical changes
  By A3K9LSW25KV5UV on 2007-09-13
  Several of the items have valuable changes, but the change to iMovie should have been handled better by Apple. The need for an Intel processor for iMovie is burdensome, but at least it doesn't wipe out iMovieHD on install.
  
  
• iLife '08 - worthwhile update
  By A1NC4OYFVABQLN on 2007-09-21
  I purchased the iLife '08 update a few weeks ago. iPhoto has been particularly well updated with easier to use and better photo editing.
  
  
• Horrid Downgrade
  By A262MYRGUL3RSE on 2007-11-17
  iMovie 08 threw away nearly all of the good features of iMovie 06. The only reason to use it is that it finally lets you import video from some hard drive video cameras. On one of my machines it just crashes on startup. See other reviews for the details of the great features Apple threw away when they made this "upgrade".
  
  One of the great reasons to use a Mac just disappeared.
  
  
• Very Dissappointing
  By A3KWGGI7SWZ3QK on 2007-12-05
  I purchased iLife 08 because it was iMovie was so slow to import 720p videos from my Kodak v1253 camera. However, it seems that the new iMovie won't import the files at all. Aside from that it is much slower to startup and hangs often. I messed with it for hours yesterday and still was unable to get to a point where I could start working with videos. I also tried on my wife's 24" iMac with similar results. iPhoto is incrementally better...some of the editing tools are actually useful now. However, it's still annoying that you can't share the videos in iPhoto over the network. Also the fact that you have to have iPhoto open (or minimized) to share photos is annoying. I don't understand why every other mac program can run in the background when you push the X button except iPhoto? Anyways, to sum up I'm sorry that I made this purchase and based on the small changes to the suite I think Apple should have released it as a free software update or at least bundled it with Leopard.
  
  As sad it sounds, I may have to just boot into windows and use the free "Windows Movie Maker" program...which is much faster and stable then iMovie. :(
  
  
• If you are upgrading from Iife 06 to 08 - DONT do it
  By A3G2AJDELO6HYF on 2008-01-13
  I got very disappointed with the new improvements... to expensive for what you get.
  On I Movie, you CANT transfer the movie to iDVD with one click anymore, now you need to export the movie as Quicktime format and then import it on iDVD..... and like this, other anoying new things.
  
  I just downgraded to iLife 06.
  
  

• Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard
• Apple iWork '08
• Apple .Mac 5.0 [OLD VERSION]
• Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (Mac)