iLife for Windows---What if?

The inherent difference between Apple and Microsoft, is that MS is a software company and Apple is a hardware/solution company.

At least until recently Apple's main source of income is large profit margins on professional machines. I don't remember how the iPod is competing in terms of profit percentage.

I would imagine that Apple is at the least working on porting iLife to the Windows platform so that in case they ever do decide that it would be profitable to release the software, they will have it on hand at the ready.

then hell would be permanently frozen in ice...
and we don't want that; where would gates go?

office is severely overpriced though... it's a wonder anyone pays for it (or do they )

reality

my pc friends love garageband and imovie, but can't get macs. iLife for pc would be great, as long as they don't make every single iApp for it.

Any potential windfall profits would be eaten up by the huge influx of PC Tech support calls.

iLife on a PC sounds good at $49 for consumers but Apple makes nothing from it.

iLife on a PC for $300 simply isn't going to fly. There are enough ways to duplicate the features "good enough" without paying that much. Like buying Nero and a some sort of audio app.

If I could get iLife for the PC, there goes my incentive for a B&W server (iPhoto's rendezvous). Because I could get a new machine for the price of a used B&W.

Frisco said:

This is just a hypothetical thought that came to me.

What if Apple made iLife for Windows? I know that it would severly hurt one of the major incentives to buy a Mac, but wouldn't Apple make a fortune by doing this? They would of course price it at it's true value--around $300? I hear MS makes most of its money from selling Office, not from selling Windows.
MS would own the office suite and Apple would own the digital hub suite.

Just a random thought, but what if?

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Your missing the point. iLife is one of Apples reasons to switch over to their hard ware. They are not going to sell software to the windows market when they can give them a reason to spend thousands of dollars on a system. Apple is not the type of company to make a quick buck or else os x would be on available for pcs. They want pc users to be so filled with envy because of their great software they will go out and buy a mac and then they have another customer.

yep, apple's consumer apps are gateway drugs. either you are tempted to buy ipods or upgrading to pro software, but apple has a strategy of giving basic stuff free and charging good premium on pro stuff.

itunes -> ipods -> itms
iphoto -> ??? future ipod photo capability ??? -> ipods
imovie -> fc express -> fc pro
idvd -> dvd studio pro
garageband -> soundtrack -> logic express -> logic pro

that said, if ipod will some day have color screen and photo viewing capability, the same day apple releases iphoto for windows in hope of selling even more ipods. but imovie/idvd, well, they just are not going to be released in windows platform before apple is ready to sell the pro versions in windows as well, and guess when that's going to happen?

garageband will never see windows, because apple has whole opposite direction with the audio software suite. when they bought logic from emagic, they dropped windows support at the same time. and when they don't sell pro version there's just no point in releasing the consumer version.

gateway drugs, yeah. solid proof of the point is that dvd studio pro 3 advertises it can import idvd projects...

it'd be cool coz then we could tell windows users to "get iLife"

realityisterror said:

then hell would be permanently frozen in ice...
and we don't want that

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Didn't Jobs already announce that with the release of iTunes for Windows?

nuckinfutz said:

iLife on a PC for $300 simply isn't going to fly. There are enough ways to duplicate the features "good enough" without paying that much. Like buying Nero and a some sort of audio app.

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Yeah, I think that's really the problem. Right now, the extra price you pay in buying a mac vs. a PC is that you get access to lower cost versions of mac software. With a PC, you buy a stripped machine but have to pay (well, warez aside) a pretty penny for decent software. There's no comparable value for iLife right now (even assuming the hardware would work with it). But will people really pay $250 or more for it? I doubt it, since they were too cheap to buy a mac in the first place.

Even sold unbundled, would it happen? Maybe people would buy iphoto for $50, and imovie for $100. But why should apple bother? It's just not worth the cost, and the loss of getting people to convert to mac.

iTunes is a separate issue, because it was done to sell the ipod. Until Apple starts selling uniquely capable digicams and moviecams, the others won't follow.

I don't think hell necessarily froze over since iTunes was made to encourage PC side iPod sales (and obviously to use whenever you weren't using the iPod). iTunes already had a PC counterpart, and was hence marketed as such.

Heck, I really want a iPod now since I've switched to using iTunes from Winamp...there really isn't a comparison It'll be a while till I can afford a 20gb though

JFreak said:

yep, apple's consumer apps are gateway drugs. either you are tempted to buy ipods or upgrading to pro software, but apple has a strategy of giving basic stuff free and charging good premium on pro stuff.

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I would take that one step farther and basically say all of Apple's apps are low-priced incentives to buy their hardware. IMO, the pro apps are, relatively speaking, priced cheaper than the iapps. FCP 4 is probably the best example. It's $999 for about a $3000 software bundle and it's biggest competitor is a $25,000 solution from Avid.


Lethal

Won't happen. There is no point for Apple to make iLife for windows. There is a huge reason that Apple made iTunes for windows-> to support the winpods.

ChrisH3677 said:

it'd be cool coz then we could tell windows users to "get iLife"

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It must be nearly time for me to leave work..... I laughed so loud at that, making all my collegues jump.

Mav451 said:

I don't think hell necessarily froze over since iTunes was made to encourage PC side iPod sales (and obviously to use whenever you weren't using the iPod). iTunes already had a PC counterpart, and was hence marketed as such.

Heck, I really want a iPod now since I've switched to using iTunes from Winamp...there really isn't a comparison It'll be a while till I can afford a 20gb though

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iTunes is great for playing MP3s and suchlike...but what if you have a collection of other files (such as MIDI, MOD, S3M, XM, IT, NSF, SPC, GBS, GYM, etc...) that iTunes can't play but Winamp can (directly or through a plugin)? I was in this situation when I used a PC (I've always been a Mac user at heart - I was just stuck on a Windows PC for a while between Macs), and I needed Winamp for all these other files. I use a variety of software now to play my music...QuickTime for MIDIs...CocoModX for MOD/S3M/XM/IT...Audio Overload for NSF/SPC/GBS/GYM...you get the idea.

wrldwzrd89 said:

iTunes is great for playing MP3s and suchlike...but what if you have a collection of other files (such as MIDI, MOD, S3M, XM, IT, NSF, SPC, GBS, GYM, etc...) that iTunes can't play but Winamp can (directly or through a plugin)? I was in this situation when I used a PC (I've always been a Mac user at heart - I was just stuck on a Windows PC for a while between Macs), and I needed Winamp for all these other files. I use a variety of software now to play my music...QuickTime for MIDIs...CocoModX for MOD/S3M/XM/IT...Audio Overload for NSF/SPC/GBS/GYM...you get the idea.

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Hmm interesting. Since I usually rip my music as mp3/m4a's, I have no idea what those other extensions are that you mentioned--are they of higher quality than regular mp3/m4a's?

The irony is that I can't stand to use Winamp anymore. Its either iTunes or foobar. Look at what Apple did to me

Alot of my game theme music, which I originally found as MIDI seems to have been converted to mp3s (from a few game sites)...that's the reason I stopped listening to MIDIs.

Mav451 said:

Hmm interesting. Since I usually rip my music as mp3/m4a's, I have no idea what those other extensions are that you mentioned--are they of higher quality than regular mp3/m4a's?

The irony is that I can't stand to use Winamp anymore. Its either iTunes or foobar. Look at what Apple did to me

Alot of my game theme music, which I originally found as MIDI seems to have been converted to mp3s (from a few game sites)...that's the reason I stopped listening to MIDIs.

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MOD/XM/S3M/IT are modules, which are better quality than MP3 and far smaller than AIFF/WAV; however, there aren't too many module players for the Mac, and only the "minor artists" who release their stuff exclusively on the internet use module format (and call themselves "trackers" because the programs used to create modules are called trackers). Modules can be found on The Mod Archive. NSF/SPC/GBS/GYM are rips from video games - each extension represents a system or group of systems (for example, NSFs are NES music). Zophar's Domain has collections of all these files. If you want a player, one can be found here.

Kill a big reason for people to make the switch.

Make too many sales on the PC and they'll be a WinLife 1.0 clone announced quite quickly and then it'll be folded into Windows free with the next full version.