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.
Editor's note: This is a blog that was posted live from Tuesday's Apple event. For a complete article with more information about the products announced today, click here.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced two new iMacs at the start of an event held Tuesday at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.
The 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs are the latest editions of Apple's all-in-one iMac design. They are made from aluminum and glass, and come with a new keyboard. Both the new keyboard and the iMac itself are thinner than the previous edition.
Three new iMacs will be available immediately--two 20-inch models and one 24-inch model. The base 20-inch version will cost $1,199, and a more powerful 20-inch model will cost $1,499. The 24-inch model will cost $1,799, $200 less than the current 24-inch iMac.
Side view of Apple's new iMac and its accompanying metallic keyboard.
(Credit: Apple)But there's more to come. Stay tuned; Jobs is just getting warmed up and he's starting to talk about applications.
Update at 10:35 a.m.: Apple's second announcement involved iLife, the company's suite of multimedia applications. Apple is skipping right over iLife '07 to release iLife '08, Jobs said, calling the latest version "the biggest jump in iLife since we introduced it."
Jobs first walked attendees through iPhoto, the picture management application. The primary enhancement to iPhoto '08 is a new feature that sorts by events--it automatically sorts photos by date and can preview the photos in an event without opening the folder. Events can be "merged" or "split" as needed.
The new iPhoto '08 is designed to work alongside some new .Mac services also unveiled Tuesday. The .Mac Web Gallery can take photos directly from iPhoto and publish them to a Web page. It also syncs up with the iPhone so iPhone users can share their galleries or individual photos.
The Web gallery also incorporates the skimming feature from iPhoto '08, letting users preview photos in a given event or album without having to open the entire gallery.
Update at 10:53 a.m.: Apple will be releasing a completely new version of the iMovie application with the new iLife suite. Jobs said the new software came out of an Apple engineer's realization that he couldn't make a short 5-minute movie in less than half an hour using either iMovie or Final Cut Pro, Apple's high-end video editing application.
The new iMovie allows you to drag and drop movie clips from your library of videos into a new movie template. You can pick how long each individual clip will run, set transitions between scenes and upload those videos to your iTunes, the new .Mac Video Gallery or YouTube right from the menu selections.
These nine ports--audio, USB, FireWire, Ethernet and video--are on the back of the iMac's monitor (on the lower right corner if you're facing the screen).
(Credit: Apple)Jobs created a very short movie in just a few minutes--of course, he probably practiced first--in a demonstration for attendees. The application can process high-definition video from multiple sources.
Update at 11:13 a.m.: Jobs unveiled new editions of iWeb, iDVD and GarageBand, the remainder of the iLife suite. The iWeb and iDVD applications received minor updates, but one interesting one involved allowing iWeb users to sign up for Google's AdSense program in the Web site creation process.
Jobs also demonstrated a new feature in GarageBand called Magic GarageBand, which essentially lets you create a backing band for your own performance. There are several different themes, such as rock, blues, jazz and latin.
But Jobs then plunged into the new version of iWork, Apple's productivity suite. Keynote, the presentation application, comes with several new themes and better support for manipulating photos to serve as background for a slide. Pages, the word processing application, also received updated templates.
But the big part of the new iWork suite is a spreadsheet application called Numbers. Numbers is designed to work with Keynote and Pages, allowing people to drop in pictures, graphs and photos alongside spreadsheet tables. You can also import and export with Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet.
iWork '08 costs $79 and is available today.
Looks like a new iMac could be arriving very soon.
(Credit: Apple)The back-to-school season is always one of Apple's most important quarters of the year. Buzz is building that the company won't let the season pass by without a new iMac.
The latest report, courtesy of Think Secret, claims that Apple has nailed down August 7 as the release date for new iMacs. It's probably about time; Apple hasn't released a new iMac in quite some time, and Intel released new chipsets in June.
AppleInsider has also pointed to late July/early August as the time frame for a new iMac launch, which would give Apple time to get those systems out in its stores so that a new crop of college students can update their Facebook profiles. The new iMacs are said to come in 20-inch and 24-inch varieties, with a new keyboard and the brushed aluminum exterior found on the Macbook Pro.
Think Secret is also claiming that an updated version of Apple's iLife suite of multimedia software could arrive around the same time. Apple hasn't released an update to the suite--which includes iPhoto, iDVD, and Garage Band--this year, but that could be blamed in part on the delayed release of Leopard.
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