v6: This is your iLife…
Monday, February 6th, 2006
So after giving myself the time and space to play with iLife, I’m happy to say I’m impressed. It is a solid upgrade but one that will not be necessary for all users. There is something for everyone.
iPhoto
On my PoweBook G4, 1Ghz with 1g of RAM and a photo library of 7400 images totalling just over 3.0GB in size, this was certainly the app I tested most heavily as it is the one I use most frequently. And as per the claims of Apple, it is certainly faster. These aren’t the most scientific results, but from v5 to v6 startup time has reduced enormously from 8+ bounces to 2. The app startup time has been reduced and a brief “Loading Images” message follows usually for no more than a 2-3 seconds.
As is the way with Apple, the app has been refined ever moreso with a more minimalistic UI. As in iTunes, Apple has dropped the brushed metal look. This lends itself well to getting a better sense of the image and editing a single image out of a batch. In addition, there is a useful Compare feature which allows a user to select multiple images and view them side-by-side. More intermediate photographers will surely like this simple feature in editing large sets of images.
In addition, there are numerous additions such as enhanced output options for printing calendars, and double-sided bound glossy photo books (both are features I have yet to use with v6, but they sure as heck sound cool) as well as the ability to set up web feeds of certain albums and as Steve Jobs lamented during MacWorld, this suits parents who want to broadcast new images to Mac-enabled family in a different location e.g. grandparents. This feature is great but limited to .Mac users and somewhat overlaps the feature set of Flickr.com. For my money, Flickr outweighs .Mac in both price and performance offering unlimited space at a quarter of the annual price. Note: For those who are wondering, the iPhoto plugin that exports directly to Flickr is perfectly compatible with the new version of iPhoto.
A new feature that has gone largely unnoticed and unmentioned has been the reengineering of the structure of files and folders that compose the iPhoto library, in a users Pictures folder in their home directory. This is important in case you ever need to actually find an image file without the use of iPhoto, for one reason or another (corrupt images, access with another program such as Adobe’s Lightroom or even iView Media Pro)
If you’re like me then you surely keep snippets of various random images that you love in a special album of iPhoto. I, for example, keep an album with screen captures of various great photographs, cool sites/blogs and generally inspiring design. In version 5, Apple added the Safari support of a contextual menu item (”Save image to iPhoto”), where you could right click on an image and have iPhoto v5 import the image directly without having to save a copy on your desktop. It was a great idea, but was unfortunately dead-snail slow and importing one image would literally lock up both Safari and iPhoto in spinning-beach ball purgatory for 10-20 seconds. The performance of this feature has been greatly improved and it is certainly useable and recommendable.
As for iDVD, iMovie, iWeb, and GarageBand…
I have yet to really put any of the aforementioned through their respective paces, save for GarageBand. The podcast studio, while great, isn’t particularly useful yet and likely will not be. There may be a sliver of performance improvement, but it is difficult to say whether it’s perceived or factually existant. Having said that, I temporarily defer reviews of all of the apps to MacWorld.com who, rightfully so, are taking a good inspection at the apps and rating them appropriately.
‘Nuff said on my part. Your homework is below.
Related reading:
http://daringfireball.net/2006/01/mwsf_2006
http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/reviews/iweb/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/reviews/gband3/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/reviews/idvd6/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/reviews/imoviehd6/index.php