Apple iLife -05 (Mac) Description:

Apple iLife '05 (Mac) review:
3 stars (iLife 04 vs iLife 05) - 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.
4 stars (Overall, wonderfully useful and better than before, but may be a bit buggy) - I purchased iLife '05 to accompany another upgrade I bought for my 2003 Powerbook G4, the Mac operating system 10.4 (Tiger). While it doesn't require Tiger and runs well on Panther (10.3), iLife '05 is important software for most Mac users, and the upgrade is worth it for the new features (HD content in iMovie, notation in Garageband, new themes in iDVD, the speed of iPhoto - which can now keep track of camera videos). But I did discover that there were a few bugs, although it seems Apple is doing their best to remedy them with consistent updates, which are automatically downloaded from Apple if your Apple is online (sometimes over 50MB need to be downloaded).



iMovie HD is less stable with my collection of older DV cameras, and switching between camera import and the clip editing screens frequently caused iMovie HD to crash while my camera was connected. Also, while iMovie HD may be able to recognize widescreen video from some DV cameras, it certainly isn't for all cameras, especially older models. But this really is a gem of a video program and there's nothing easier to use.



The latest version of iTunes continues to be free, but there's no doubt that it's integral to the rest of the software of iLife: iMovie HD, iDVD, and Garageband can all import easily from your iTunes music library, which makes it essential for quickly adding in specific songs (or exporting new ones from Garageband) with your music collection. And the Podcast automation is terrific, and it's easy to browse for new content servers, which opened my eyes to the breadth of podcasters. I believe some people take issue with how Apple expects Podcast MP3's to be tagged on the podcasters website, and hopefully Apple will adopt a more standardized way in the future.



As for iPhoto, even though it doesn't have true RAW file editing support, the editing abilities for your photos are now much more robust (exposure, temperature, tilt, and more), and it seems much more light on its feet (speedier) than previous versions. iDVD is equally nimble and the animated themes keep getting better and better.



On the whole, a necessary progression, and Apple has proven that they will continue to tweak and upgrade its potential. Even with a few little bugs, it's well worth the money!
5 stars (Apple comes through again) - iLife is superb; my only complaint is that it doesn't include a Version 5 of iTunes, but after installation one can upgrade to 4.9 in the usual Apple way. So far everything works great with Tiger (OS 10.4.2) in my 1 GHz G4 Powerbook with 256 MB DDR SDRAM without snap, crackle, or pop. That amount of RAM is the least I would recommend for Tiger and iLife use, however; otherwise the constant swapping in and out of virtual memory will drive you nuts if it works at all. As it is this amount feels marginal to me and an upgrade is on the way.