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David Pogue's view of iMovie '08

I actually enjoy the new iMovie, it's great for montage clips and little family vacation films. Then again for anything like an amateur video productions class, that doesn't really have the option for Final Cut Express I can see that this may be a problem. I think that this opens up a good market though, someone could easily create a video editing application priced at $100 dollars that is somewhere between the old iMovie and Final Cut Express.
 
Wow whine a bit more David. Apple thought it was better to focus their product on a different market. It's become a feeder program for people to easily create content to share and view on things such as the AppleTV. What's that you say? You need higher end features? Well then you still have iMovie '06. If you know what you're doing, you still have the option to create and edit your movies in something a bit more robust, not to mention an upgrade possibility to Final Cut Express. For new users though, it's wonderfully easy to create a movie and share it.
 
I think it would be less of an issue if they'd called it something other than iMovie.

The fact that iMovie '06 has more tools than iMovie '08 is his issue.

Clearly there is some admission on Apple's part, why else make iMovie '06 available for download
 
Here's another problem with IMovie08. They don't at all promote mixing digital images with video clips. It also came with so few transitions that you don't want to use them as you'd be repeating yourself quite often within a single project.

I agree with the other poster that the new IMovie should have been renamed as it's not an enhanced version of its predecessor.
 
I'd have no problem with the update if it didn't take away tons of features and break compatibility. Personally, I think Apple is trying to sell more copies of Final Cut Express.
 
Good to see David Pogue is not a total fanboy.

I liked reading this.

I guess even I, who have used iMovie once (for my wedding video) would use '06 if I needed to do a new movie. Extracting sound, fast motion, using parts of different songs and controlling volume was all stuff I did on iMovie '02 back then.. I only used basic transition effects so those are still there. But hopefully iMovie '09 will at least have the same features '02 did.. :)
 
I have to agree with Pogue. For what I was using iMovie for, the 08 version is a HUGE step backwards and represents a real "WTF was Apple thinking?"

TG I played with it in the store--even the Apple store folks I talked to about it were, shall we say, less than enthusiastic (to be polite!). Time to find a standalone copy of iLife 06!

Best,

Bob
 
IMovie 06 is now a free download for anyone that has IMovie 08 running on their Mac. Just the fact that they took this step to me represents an awareness that maybe they took the wrong approach with this new release.
 
swiftaw said:
I think it would be less of an issue if they'd called it something other than iMovie.

The fact that iMovie '06 has more tools than iMovie '08 is his issue.

Clearly there is some admission on Apple's part, why else make iMovie '06 available for download
Click to expand...


Call it iMovie Express, and leave the full version . . .
 
I've used iMovie 08 a few times now, and for what it does (Clip/Movie organisation and quick simple movie making), it does it very well. Exporting movies is also much faster than in the old iMovie.

However, I agree it simply should have been called something else, and used as an add-on to iLife.
 
stockcerts said:
IMovie 06 is now a free download for anyone that has IMovie 08 running on their Mac. Just the fact that they took this step to me represents an awareness that maybe they took the wrong approach with this new release.
Click to expand...

The bad thing is that it will have no more updates... So sad. Will have to learn to use final cut express...
 
So he's complaining that he can't create professinal movies with his consumer product.
Personally I love the new iMovie. And I still hav the old one if I want to spend more time on something.

BTW the old version is available for download for iLife 08 users who have a G4 mac.
 
Actually, I think our complaints are that Apple reduced (significantly, in my view) the capabilities and usability of the application.

And Stockcerts noted that the the 06 version is still available.

DrAtheist said:
So he's complaining that he can't create professinal movies with his consumer product.
Personally I love the new iMovie. And I still hav the old one if I want to spend more time on something.

BTW the old version is available for download for iLife 08 users who have a G4 mac.
Click to expand...
 
from what i read...the new imovie tottally sucks...probably wont purchase the iLife 08,,i dont use iphoto..garage band is kinda the same,and iMovie isnt as good..why shall i buy iLife 0 8..
 
Do you think Apple changed iMovie 08 so much because it was incompatible with Leopard and had to be re-written? Maybe iMovie was still using the same basic code from the OS 9 days and no longer worked in Leopard so they may have had to do a complete overhaul to even get it to work on Leopard... this is all speculation but, it could be true.
 
TheSpaz said:
Do you think Apple changed iMovie 08 so much because it was incompatible with Leopard and had to be re-written? Maybe iMovie was still using the same basic code from the OS 9 days and no longer worked in Leopard so they may have had to do a complete overhaul to even get it to work on Leopard... this is all speculation but, it could be true.
Click to expand...

no
 
Agreed. I am downloading iMovie 06 and will either buy FCE HD 3.5 soon or wait for the next release. The only cool thing about iMoive 08 is the video library like the iPhoto library and that swap panes thing. Not to mention it only imported 10 out of hundreds of my movies from iPhoto, some BUG, and it won't let me manually import any other .mov or .mpg/.mpeg files.

I really love the idea of the library but not at the expense of everything else.
 
I agree that the naming is wrong - although calling it iMovie Express as somebody suggested would have meant they would have had to keep supporting iMovie 6 (or creating a new version). However for what it's designed for it's amazingly simple. An amateur who had never seen the software before could make a good looking film in minutes - impossible with previous iMovies.

I wonder how much of the annoyance at apple stems from the redesign of the interface, and how much comes from the removal of features. If it's the latter I'm sure the new iMovie will grow over time - as did the old one.
 
joseph2166 said:
I agree that the naming is wrong - although calling it iMovie Express as somebody suggested would have meant they would have had to keep supporting iMovie 6 (or creating a new version). However for what it's designed for it's amazingly simple. An amateur who had never seen the software before could make a good looking film in minutes - impossible with previous iMovies.

I wonder how much of the annoyance at apple stems from the redesign of the interface, and how much comes from the removal of features. If it's the latter I'm sure the new iMovie will grow over time - as did the old one.
Click to expand...

I bet they intended to have all the features but, since doing a totally new re-design, they probably didn't have enough time to put those features back in... that's what I'm hoping anyway.

I have no reason to even buy iLife products anymore. I have better Apps than iLife offers anyway.

iTunes (Not included in iLife anymore anyway)
Aperture (Better than any iPhoto)
Logic Express (Way better than GarageBand)
iMovie '06 (Still got it from iLife '06)
Toast Titanium 7 (Works fine for burning DVDs and I don't usually use custom menus)

I don't use iMovie that much as it is, so upgrading (downgrading rather) to iMovie 08 would be a waste of time and money for me. That's all I have to say about iLife. Owning the more professional Apps are WAY better than what iLife has to offer... also costs more too but, they're worth it!
 
Off topic but has anyone noticed that in iPhoto 08, when you select photos rather than events and essentially view it in what used to be film rolls, that while they've added a small thumbnail of the photo, that the font that lists the titie of the roll and date info is rather thick and fat/blurry looking. I couldn't find any setting to change it. It doesn't look clean at all.
 
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