Announced at Macworld in January and available at the end of the same month, iLife ‘09 is the latest revision of Apple’s digital lifestyle software, first available in 2003. With major new features in iPhoto and iMovie, it’s a must have package for all Mac users. As is the custom with Apple there is no special upgrade price; you simply buy the whole package even if you have the old version.

iPhoto ‘09

The main new things in iPhoto ‘09 are Faces, Places, and FaceBook integration. When I first heard Phil Schiller talk about them at the Macworld keynote speech I was not very excited, but after using the new iPhoto for myself for a while I can tell you it’s really cool and you will want a copy for yourself for sure. A caveat is required up front though; for Faces to be really effective it requires you to put in quite a bit of work yourself and for Places to be useful it requires you to have a camera that records the right geographic location information. If we start by looking at Faces, the basic idea is that you take lots of photos of people: family, friends, colleagues, etc. With Faces, iPhoto will help automatically recognize people’s faces in photographs and catalogue them accordingly. You will first, however, have to put names to faces because iPhoto doesn’t know that a particular face is Mohammed’s and not Ahmed’s, for example. And as is the case with many similar technologies, the more instances of someone’s face you mark in iPhoto the better the software will automatically detect who it is. This is a ground-breaking functionality for iPhoto and you will love Faces, I’m sure. Apple also did the world a favor by making sure the face recognition information syncs with recognized people in your Facebook account. Places brings geo-tagging to iPhoto. If you take photos with a compatible camera, which includes the iPhone, iPhoto will automatically put your photos on the world map, so to speak. From a map view you will see push pins where you’ve taken photos and you can quickly go to Dubai, for example, by clicking on the push pin for the city. If you don’t have a compatible camera you can still place your photos on the map but you’ll have to do it manually, which drastically reduces the usability of Places. The camera touted as very compatible with this functionality, the Nikon P6000, we found to be pretty much useless in this regards. The GPS would take too long to try to connect, even outdoors, and too slow to keep up when we were moving. Forget about using it indoors. In terms of editing there are a few new things in iPhoto ‘09, and most of them seem borrowed from Aperture. Despite the editing enhancements, most users will find the new slideshow templates much more cool and useful. It’s safe to say that slideshows built from photographs have never looked better. We know how popular Facebook has become and it’s about time Apple supported it more actively. Now there is a Facebook button in iPhoto, and with one click of the mouse you can send photos to your Facebook account. The Facebook integration is greatly welcome, but Apple, where is Twitter and Twitpic integration?

iMovie ‘09

When iMovie ‘08 came out and Apple ditched the timeline interface of iMovie HD many users were upset with Apple. iMovie HD was however still available as a free download from Apple until recently. You might be happy to know that although Apple hasn’t brought back the timeline in iMovie ‘09 they have drastically imporved the editing functionality. One of the first things you should do when starting to use iMovie ‘09 is to go to Preferences and check the “Show Advanced Tools” box. It will show many more options in several places throughout the application, like when you drop one clip on another. Perhaps it’s a bit bewildering at first, but you’ll soon see the light of day and the value of the extra functionality. Apple has appeased some iMovie HD fans by adding functionality like slowing down or speeding up individual clips, direct iDVD export with chapter markers, and more. The timeline hasn’t reappeared but the Precision Editor does much of what a timeline does. It’s not all good though as some much-coveted features are still missing. One such thing that puzzles me is that you can’t control volume levels for parts within a clip, only for the clip as a whole. Among the cooler things in iMovie ‘09 are new titles. The most rewarding for all geeks is of course the Star Wars inspired text that scrolls into the screen. Probably the most impressive new feature in iMovie ‘09 is image stabilization. You can analyze clips on import or on demand and iMovie looks at every frame and applies corrections necessary to reduce the shake in the picture. It can’t perform miracles, but it’s amazing how well it works. But if you want iMovie to analyze a longer segment, you’d better get prepared to wait quite a while. Cool, but of very short-lived value, are the animated travel sequences. Pick a starting place, a destination, and iMovie will animate the trip over a spinning globe. I’m not an advanced video photographer or editor but I do shoot and edit video for Shufflegazine as well as privately. And the editing I do is pretty limited but iMovie ‘09 makes the work easier, more enjoyable and the end results look better. The same will be true for you, I would guess.

Garageband ‘09

My experience with Garageband extends to working with a short-lived EmiratesMac.com podcast quite some time ago now and fundamentally Garageband hasn’t changed much. It’s still the best application available for the wanna-be musician or audio podcaster but now it has a few interesting additions. What got most attention at Macworld was the lessons in the new Garageband. There are Basic Lessons, which teach you how to play an instrument, and Artist Lessons, in which a celebrity teaches how to play one of their famous songs. What didn’t come through at Macworld was how customizable the lessons are. There are a wide range of options for how to go through lessons and what you see on the screen. Unfortunately when trying to get Artist Lessons it just says they are not yet available in our region. Another sign that Apple isn’t giving Apple fans in the Middle East everything they deserve.

iWeb

The good thing is that it’s as easy as ever to create good looking web sites with iWeb ‘09 and Apple has even added some functionality. There are two new templates from which you can build your sites and some new widgets that can enhance your web pages. The widgets from the previous version of iWeb, namely MobileMe Gallery, Google AdSense and Maps, as well as HTML Snippet are still in iWeb but they moved from the toolbar to a widgets sidebar. There you also find the new widgets: YouTube, iSight Photo and Movie, RSS Feed, and Countdown. Widgets are a fun way to spice up a web site, but I wish that Apple would adopt an open format so anyone could develop iWeb widgets.
Arguably the biggest news in iWeb ‘09, and one that is long overdue, is the ability to publish directly to an FTP account. Before, you had to export the site to a folder and then manually upload it to an FTP account, but now you can do it directly from iWeb. As before there is one-click publishing for MobileMe account holders, but the FTP publishing option lessens the tie to MobileMe that iWeb used to have. All in all, iWeb remains a great tool for beginners to create great looking sites full of functionality, such as blogs, podcasts, galleries, etc. But the shortcomings that make it less of a suitable tool for businesses are also still there in the ‘09 version.

iDVD

There is simply not much to say about the rest, meaning iDVD. Honestly I cannot seem to find anything new in iDVD, not even new templates. The one new thing concerning iDVD, and it’s really new in iMovie, not iDVD, is that you can set chapter markers and export your project straight to iDVD. This is great if you want to put your iMovie creations on DVD. But in all honesty, iDVD, and to a lesser extent iWeb, seem to be the forgotten parts of iLife, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not around in iLife ‘10 or whatever version comes next.

Conclusion

With iLife ‘09 Apple clearly focused on iPhoto and iMovie. And the simple fact is that they are in themselves well worth the price of the upgrade, even if there is no special upgrade price. Garageband’s lessons can be fun if you want to learn how to play an instrument, but the new features in iWeb are pretty easy to ignore and let’s not mention iDVD. But even with those issues it’s simple to conclude that if you live a digital lifestyle, buy iLife ‘09. You won’t regret it.

Apple iLife ‘09
5/5
Info: http://www.apple.com/ilife/
Needs: Intel Mac; Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later
Price: Free with purchase of new Mac; AED389
Pros: Amazing value for the price; Faces and Places add new dimensions to photo organization; iMovie much better for editing movies; GarageBand lessons great fun and surprisingly useful
Cons: Few cameras support geo-tagging for iPhoto; Still no plugins for iMovie; Few updates for iWeb; No update for iDVD; No Arabic Support

Note: This article was originally published in the March 2009 issue of Shufflegazine.

الملامح الجديدة التى المت ببرنامجي “آي فوتو “iPhoto” و “آي موفي “iMovie” جعلت من شراء الباقة أمر لابد منه بالنسبة لكل مستخدمي حاسبات ماك.
العناصر الأساسية الجديدة فى “آي فوتو٠٩” هي “فاسز “Faces”  و”بلاسيز “Places” بالاضافة إلى التوافقية مع برنامج “فايس بوك”.
الفكرة الرئيسية لبرنامج “فاسز” هي انك عندما تلتقط صوراً كثيرة لأشخاص سواء أفراد العائلة و الأصدقاء او زملاءك في العمل يستطيع برنامج “آي فوتو” التعرف تلقائياً على وجوة هؤلاء الأشخاص في الصور و تصنيفهم وفقاً لذلك.
أما خاصية “بلاسز” فقد وفرت امكانية الترقيم الجغرافي ل “آي فوتو” بمعنى أنك إذا التقطت الصور من خلال الة تصوير متوافقة مع البرنامج بما في ذلك كاميرا هاتف آيفون سوف يقوم برنامج آي فوتو بوضع صورك على خريطة العالم إذا جاز التعبير. الكثير من المستخدمين سوف يستفيدون من النماذج الجديدة لعروض الشرائح حيث جميلة ومفيدة.
ربما سوف تسر عندما تعرف أنه علي الرغم عدم وضع أبل لخاصية “شريط الزمن “Timeline” التي كانت موجودة من قبل لم تظهر مجدداً إلا أنهم حسنوا الوظائف التحريرية بشكل كبير. “Precision Editor” يقوم بالعديد من الأشياء نفسها التى كانت خاصية “شريط الزمن” تقوم بها. أفضل الملامح الجديدة في البرنامج هى تقليص الاهتزازات في الصورة.
أكثر ما لفت أنتباهي خلال معرض ماك ورلد كان الدروس المقدمة عن برنامج “جاراشباند “Garageband” الجديد. هناك “دروس اساسية “Basic Lessons” تعلم المستخدم كيفية العزف على آلة موسيقية كما أن هناك “دروس فنان “Artist Lesson” يقوم خلالها احد الفنانين المشاهير بتعليم المستخدم كيفية أداء إحدى أغانية الشهيرة.
إنشاء موقع اليكتروني بإستخدام “آي ويب “iWeb” اصبح يتم بشكل أسهل من اي وقت مضى. يمكن القول أن أهم التحديثات فى “آي ويب ٠٩” هى القدرة على النشر مباشرة من خلال حساب ” بروتوكول نقل الملفاتFTP”. لا يوجد أي إضافات جديدة لبونامج “آى دي في دي iDVD” وبكل أمانة لا أجد الكثير لأقوله. أبل ركزت فى باقة “آي لايف ٠٩” على برنامجي آيفوتو وآيموفي.
المحصلة النهائية و اضحة وهي انك لن تندم على شراء “آي لايف٩.” إذا كنت تعيش حياة رقمية.