The Macalope: An Apple blog

David Pogue takes a contrarian position to the Macalope's view on iMovie:

Most people are used to a product cycle that goes like this: Release a new version every year or two, each more capable than the last. Ensure that it's backward-compatible with your existing documents.

IMovie '08, on the other hand, has been totally misnamed. It's not iMovie at all. In fact, it's nothing like its predecessor and contains none of the same code or design. It's designed for an utterly different task, and a lot of people are screaming bloody murder.

And at least one of them is named David Pogue.

The Macalope's not prepared to horn and hoof defend Apple's decision on recasting the actors in iMovie from the veterans who can play anything to younger, more approachable actors without the range. But what's important is putting the asses in the seats.

The loss of all those extra features means little to people who can't bear the thought of opening the application because of all the work. Having seen the trailers, the horned one finds the remake to be a little more inviting than the original, but as with all summer blockbusters, it may be a matter of personal taste.

The Macalope does have one suggestion how Apple could make the transition more palatable, however: drop the price of Final Cut Express a little or provide upgrade pricing to owners of iLife '06. He doesn't expect it to happen, though, as this "scandal" hasn't reached Sensaround proportions and, at the cost of either $0 or $79 depending how you got it, iLife is so absurdly cheap for what you get that Apple could cut out iMovie altogether and include a DVD of Little Nicky and it'd still be a value.

OK, maybe not Little Nicky, but you get the point.

Macworld's Jeff Carlson has a first look at the new iMovie.

It's unfortunate to see that some features of the previous version -- which, in all actuality, was not a previous version at all but a separate product that's been discontinued -- are gone, but they do at least allow you to download the old iMovie for free.

Still, the Macalope agrees with Jobs' assessment that it was simply too hard for amateurs to easily and quickly make movies to upload to the web -- to get that instant gratification -- with the former application known as iMovie. There's little excuse for remaking a product and stripping out features, except for if no one was using it because it was too complicated. And, indeed, this has been the horned one's experience with it. Not that he couldn't figure it out, but that the mere thought of going to the trouble required has meant that his MiniDV tapes go straight from the camera to a box in the office and never see the light of day again.

Perhaps there are some iMovie junkies who will really be upset by this, but sadly they're just not the target market for the app. Upgrade to Final Cut Pro, Apple will say. Grandma needs to slap together that film of her kitty playing the piano.

Unless you just woke up (you know who you are), you probably know what Apple announced a little while ago. But let's review.

The big news, of course, is the new iMacs. The rumored aluminum enclosure and the MacBook-style keyboard were right on the money and rumor junkies everywhere are now experiencing that feeling of disappointment you get when you open your presents Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.

Still, Apple's set the standard for hardware design. Again.

But what good's cool hardware if you don't have cool software to run on it?

Enter iLife -- which redefines sharing your pictures and streamlines putting together a movie -- and iWork -- now a complete package with a new spreadsheet application and finally able to fully fill the gap left by the late, great AppleWorks.

Suddenly that Office delay looks like more of an opportunity than a threat, doesn't it?

And, oh, yeah, they revved the Mac mini.

Macworld editor Philip Michaels has a piece up about the implications of Microsoft's delay of the first universal version of Office for the Mac and wonders if it isn't bad news for Microsoft rather than for Mac users.

In fact, other than for the symbolic purpose of having such a major suite of applications run universally on all Macs, I don?t recall hearing much of a popular demand for an Intel-native Office.

And if I were Microsoft, that would worry me a bit. Sure, it?s never pleasant to get grief from your customers about a product delay. But isn?t that better than a shrug?

Chez Macalope, we used to use an older version of Office for the Mac, but now our Intel-based machines are running NeoOffice, which has an Intel version. Yes, yes, the horned one hears you cry out in pain "AAAGH! MY EYES!" It isn't the prettiest or the fastest solution when compared to native applications, but the 2.2.1 release is really very acceptable on both fronts. It's free, highly compatible and, frankly, we just don't have that much need to create word processing documents, presentations or spreadsheets (hey, kids! Saturday night is spreadsheet night!).

And the pointy one has to think that that's how it is for the bulk of Mac users. The data you spend most of your time with is your email, your pictures, your movies, your music and maybe your web site. If the Macalope has to deal with an awkward interface, it would be a problem if it were iTunes, but it's not if it's his spreadsheet application, which he uses for 20 minutes.

He of the brown fur was about to say that isn't true if it's a business environment, but having toiled for The Man in the world of Windows and Terminal Services, he's been subjected to some pretty god-awful interfaces before -- ones that make NeoOffice look like Quicksilver.

But even so, most business uses for Macs are in the design fields where there's less reliance on an office suite. So other than to Microsoft, the only possible harm this delay could cause is to Apple's oblique efforts to gain more of a foothold in the enterprise. But the barriers there are so ingrained and cultural that even if there were a brand-spanking new universal version of Office available today it wouldn't make much of a difference in getting units in the door.

So who cares?

Mark at Doomlaser (hey, maybe "the Macalope" isn't that wacky after all) has created a nifty screen saver that downloads pictures of your Facebook friends and goes all Quartz Composer on them.

The Macalope himself has not "gotten into" the Facebook as it presents certain obvious challenges (his visage sometimes frightens small children and should not be displayed around pregnant women), but perhaps his charming and erudite readers are more into the social networking scene.