Apple Announces iLife '09

[MacRumors]

At MacWorld San Francisco today, Apple announced a major update to its iLife suite of applications. iLife '09 will be available by late January 2009. Upgrade costs are $79, with a family pack at $99. It is shipping on all new macs. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the standout features of the new apps:

iPhoto '09
Faces: Addition of facial recognition to events. Photos can be tagged to recognize faces, as in Facebook.
Places: Uses geotagging to find information about the latitude and longitude of a photo. This information can be supplied either by a newer camera with built-in gps capabilities, or manually by user input.
Slideshow Themes: Uses facial detection to properly position pictures in a slideshow. There's also support for Facebook and Flickr, with built-in geotagging.

iMovie '09
Dynamic Themes: Context-sensitive menus for clips, along with animated travel maps
Automatic Image Stabilization: Helps reduce motion in shaky video
Precision Editor: Video and audio
Advanced Drag and Drop: For placing video wherever you want it in the timeline
Video Effects: Brings back special effects to iMovie

GarageBand '09
Learn to Play: Teaches how to play an instrument with video instruction from professionals/celebrities. Nine basic lessons included, with additional downloads available at $4.99 each from within the app.

Since OS X 10.5.x is required to run the new iWork, Apple is also offering a package of OS X 10.5, iLife '09 and iWork '09 for $169. This "Mac Box Set" will ship in late January when iLife '09 ships.



Article Link: Apple Announces iLife '09

[akbc]

The Mac Box Set sounds like a great value.

I just hope they do the same with the Snow Leopard and iLife/iWork '09s

[wheezy]

I wish I had more uses for iWork, I'm not a heavy MSOffice user and I'm a big fan of iWork; Keynote just makes PPT look like a joke.

Why didn't they release a iWork/iLife combo pack for all of us already on Leopard?

[habubauza]

It's nice to see Apple still listening to it's customers.

[BruceEBonus]

The iMovie changes are enough for me to upgrade .. BUT my wife got a new Macobook 3 weeks ago ... no way am I paying to upgrade the full price from 08. I presume Apple will give a discount upgrade price? Anyone?

[tbrinkma]

Crap. I *just* bought iLife '08 because I got a new DSLR with a RAW format not supported in '06! Wouldn't be a big deal, but my wife is learning guitar, so the teaching feature is right up our alley at the moment.

[TDM21]

Nice, PowerPC is still supported. iMovie requires a G5 processor like '08 did, but that is probably hackable. Thank you Apple for giving me one more year of use out of my PowerBook.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/systemrequirements.html

[dwd3885]

so you walk into an apple store today or tomorrow and they are selling the EXACT SAME THINGS they were selling yesterday. WHAT A TERRIBLE MACWORLD

[slu]

Facebook recognizes people's faces?

I know you can manually tag people in photos, but that is it. Seems like iPhoto will automatically look for the same person in other photos in your libaray...which is not something Facebook can do, unless I am missing something.

Looks like a good update to me. I think I will spring for it for the GarageBand update alone, which is by far my most used iLife app.

[dalvin200]

got email confirmation that i should receive ilife by 6th feb

looking fwd to the updates anyway...

[MacSamurai]

Originally Posted by BruceEBonus

I presume Apple will give a discount upgrade price? Anyone?

i hope so !!!

[slu]

Originally Posted by BruceEBonus

The iMovie changes are enough for me to upgrade .. BUT my wife got a new Macobook 3 weeks ago ... no way am I paying to upgrade the full price from 08. I presume Apple will give a discount upgrade price? Anyone?

You would be wrong. It'll cost you $79 bucks or just get the family pack for $99.

[Tallest Skil]

Notice that iDVD had NOTHING done to it. NOTHING new.

[arkmannj]

iDVD '09 ?
a whopping $8.00 off for education price on iLife and iWork

and the matt screen only available on 17" ? and it costs 50.00 ?

yes I'm complaining.

[jaw04005]

So, like every year, I get both upgrades. However, since I already own Leopard should I get the two stand-alone iLife and iWork packages or spend the extra $11 and get the Mac Box Set?

I guess I could then sell my Leopard copy on eBay.

Originally Posted by arkmannj

iDVD '09 ?

Macworld said it was updated along with iWeb, but they just didn't mention it.

[Mike Teezie]

I am most interested in the lessons. Apple has a chance to really hit one out of the park with this concept.

In addition to pop stars teaching you to play their songs, they should find a talented, non-famous teacher that you can buy generic lessons from.

That would be amazing.

[sterlingindigo]

Garage Band Lessons are sweet! Phil looks like he has lost weight though-I'm just sayin'...

[ziwi]

The boxed set is nice for those who do not have Leopard, but wouldn't a combo set of just iLife and iWork be nice too?

Lack of lower level updates is disappointing.

ilife updates look cool, but they continue to find ways to make you part with cash (garageband lessons).

iWork updates are OK - and the only interesting thing will now be a pay service.

Overall - a bit letdown.

[Spades]

The only downside I see is that I have to wait to get the new iLife.

[mkaake]

Apple never offers discount upgrade prices for iLife - according to their site (and the liveblog), $79 is the upgrade price, as all macs come with iLife to begin with.


Second, there were some minor changes to iWeb as well - it looks like you can finally update one site at a time, rather than having to update all of your sites. Not sure if it was there in '08, but there's built in FTP now too (I use Transmit, so I've never really checked in '08 for FTP). There's a few other changes too, but not much.

<edit> On a personal note, I think this is the first time that I've seen an update to iLife (been using it since the start) that I didn't feel the urge to run out and buy it *right now*. It would be nice to have a few of the features, but I'm not really clamoring for them either. Of course, on my G4 beast of an eMac, the features I'd be most curious in trying out wouldn't work anyway, so maybe that's part of it... (garageband lessons and the new iMovie - this one looks like it might not suck!)

[dalvin200]

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil

Notice that iDVD had NOTHING done to it. NOTHING new.

yeah, that is strange.. you would of thought they would add some new themes or something at least...

maybe they think dvd is phasing itself out? i haven't created a dvd in a years or so... so not really bothered about that

[Saladinos]

iWeb has been updated, iDVD is the same as before.

Only iLife 09 requires Leopard. iWork 09 will work on OSX 10.4.11.

[cxny]

A little underwhelmed, no wonder Steve took the day off. Still, I'll watch it tonight, the demos are actually quite good tutorials.

[thefamousgrouse]

Didn't notice any mention of easier AVCHD editing with iMovie, except for one somewhat confusing mention of AVCHD archiving in the 'new features' section on Apple.com. Anyone else hear/see anything that would give hope to AVCHD users not wanting to 'import' their video ag 8x - 10x the size of the original?

[theBigD23]

iLife requires an Intel processor. Anyone else think that Snow Leopard will support PPC? This looks like it will be with almost 100% certainty that it will not.