MAC USER
Apple’s New iLife ‘11 iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband updated, future uncertain for iWeb and iDVD Apple has unveiled iLife ’11 at its Back to the Mac event in Cupertino, demoing three of the suite’s updated applications—iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband. The updated suite will come preinstalled on all new Macs as well as sold as a box in retail.
iPhoto ’11 First up was Phil Schiller— describing iPhoto ’11 as “the best version yet”—who started his presentation by showcasing the program’s newly redesigned full-screen mode. Taking a few design cues from the iPad, iPhoto’s full-screen mode features a row of tabs along the bottom of the screen for Events, Faces, Places, Albums and Projects. Faces and Places look similar to their iPad counterparts, while Albums adds the ability to pull read-only photos from both Facebook and Flickr accounts. New slideshow templates offer auto-
generated transitions, labels, and background music. Photo sharing, too, has been simplified. “Share via Email” allows users to select a group of photos, click the option, and have iPhoto automatically create a postcard within the program. Choose from several different templates; drag, drop, and resize photos within; and choose whether to attach the full-resolution photos or just the postcard. A new sharing panel links Flickr and Facebook accounts and shows the user’s sharing history. Book creation, meanwhile, has undergone a complete carouselinspired redesign. Users can pick an album, click Create, select Book, and are brought into the new fullscreen book creation view.
iMovie ’11 If you polled iMovie ’09 users and asked them to name their biggest complaint about the
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software, there’s a good chance it would involve audio editing. Apple, it seems, has listened to these complaints. When introducing the program, Steve Jobs noted that it was “the number one request we got after the last version of iMovie,” and as such, the first fix to be showcased on stage by Apple engineer Randy Ubillos. Audio waveforms— color-coded to show peaked levels—now appear under video clips in both iMovie’s Project and Event views, and can be easily adjusted by dragging the volume slider along the clip. To change a section of a clip, highlight it, then drag. Users can also adjust fade-in and fade-out on each side of a clip. Audio can be altered, too, using effects rendered in real-time—in the demonstration. In addition, though not specifically highlighted in the demonstration, iMovie ’11 features Single Row View—known to most people familiar with nonlinear editing programs as “timeline view”—which translates your project into one horisontal sidescrolling row for easier editing access. iPhoto’s Faces feature has also found its way somewhat into iMovie ’11, thanks to a feature called People Finder. It analyses clips and organises them by the number of people in a
scene, specific faces, and whether the clip is a Group, Closeup, Medium, or Wide shot. Building upon iMovie ’09’s initial effects pane, iMovie ’11 adds “one step effects”—real-time video and audio alterations to your clips. Demonstrated at the event were Instant Replay and Flash and Hold; Apple’s Website also features an effect called Jump Cut at Beats, which matches background with your audio and performs an automatic jump cut at the appropriate time.
GarageBand ’11 The final program to get an on-stage demo Wednesday was GarageBand, shown off by Xander Soren, product marketing manager. Soren focused on GarageBand’s new recording and instrument tools, including new Flex Time, Groove Matching, and “How did I play?” features, more guitar amps and effects, and new piano and guitar lessons.
iWeb and iDVD? Although not mentioned directly in Wednesday’s presentation, Jobs did note in his initial speech that iLife ‘11 would feature the same programs as its predecessor, and both iWeb and iDVD are listed on Apple’s iLife Website— though it’s not clear what, if anything, has changed for these programs since iLife ‘09.