First Look: iLife ‘06 Delivers Big Punch For $79.

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iDVD 6.0
The platinum plastic interface goes to iDVD, too, as does a window that’s now flexible and can be enlarged (previous versions were static).

Apple added widescreen HD to iDVD, more themes, and more tools. Tops on my list is Magic iDVD which means you can create a full on DVD, widescreen if you’ve got the video, in just a single click.

Magic iDVD adds the buttons, scene selection menus, even slideshow menus, automagically.

Drop zones in themes are retained, though more themes are added. A pull down menu lets you select from current or previous versions.

The map view is improved and so are the DVD user tools. Tops on the list of new and fun tools is the iLife “Media Browser” which lets you pull content from iTunes, music or podcasts created in Garageband, songs from CDs, and so on.

It’s now possible, via the “Media Browser” to use Garageband’s library of loops as a soundtrack, or, create your own soundtrack in Garageband, and import into iDVD.

Once you start playing around in any of the applications of iLife you get a feel for the tools in other iLife apps.

Garageband 3.0
Steve Jobs’ presentation of Garageband at the keynote did not do justice to the new integration capability built in to iLife.

Prior to ‘06, Garageband was nearly a stand alone application. Yes, your could export audio tracks to iTunes, or import them into Logic Express, but that was about it.

Garageband 3.0 is better integrated, more mature, and more satisfying that previous versions. There’s a Podcast image artwork track, or a video track (one or the other, not both at the same time).

Also new are sound effects and jingles, one-click publishing to iWeb, and that handy iMovie audio track music scoring.

However, the big deals are the Podcast Radio Engineer and iChat recording. Podcasting cannot get much easier. Ron and I both have professional recording equipment (Ron is loaded; AKG mics, Mackie mixer with Firewire, etc) and found previous versions of Garageband limiting.

No more. Though not as fine tuned as Logic Pro or Express or SoundTrack, Garageband is highly capable; recording voice audio, cleaning up ambient noise, even “ducking” background music so the voice (male or female) comes through the music appropriately.

Also cool is the ability to record multiple tracks of an iChat audio (not video) conference. Line up two or three friends for an audio or video conference, and Garageband will record the audio in multiple tracks.

It’s the perfect audio tool for creating Podcasts when the voices are scattered all over the country.

The newest application in the iLife suite is one of the most remarkable tools I’ve seen in years of doing web and multi media work.

iWeb 1.0
If you’ve seen or tried Rapidweaver, or Karelia’s new Sandbvox and thought they were nice improvements over HTML point and click applications such as Dreamweaver, you’re in for a surprise.

iWeb lets you build web pages, web sites, with true drag and drop (similar to Rapidweaver and Sandvox). Pages area created in a click, and Apple provides many themes, but not just for the sites.

Themes are also pre-built for the pages within a site; About Me, Photos, Blogs, Movies, and so on. Design elements are drag and drop using the Inspector found in iWork. Again, familiarity with tools helps get you productive quickly.

I see a whole cottage industry coming with more Templates for iWeb. You can never have enough.

The iLife Media Browser is available in iWeb, too, so there’s instant access to music from iTunes, photos from iPhoto, and movies from iMovie, and so on.

One of the nicest features, besides one-click to a .Mac account or to a local folder on your Mac (then synchronize an FTP session to your server), is drag and drop.

Coding XHTML and CSS is a task not for the faint of heart. Steve’s keynote slide said it all. Easy web pages were ugly, beautiful web pages were difficult. No more.

The templates provided by Apple are beautiful.

Creating a web site or web page is truly point and click, then click to publish. The elements on the page move around just like in iWork’s Pages.

It’s all drag and drop. iWeb takes care of creating the complex HTML coding when you save and publish.

Drag a photo onto a page and resize. What you see on iWeb’s screen is what you’ll see in Safari. It’s that good.

I was impressed with Rapidweaver. Very impressed with Sandvox. More impressed with iWeb than I expected to be. I checked the output XHTML code with the W3C validator and it checked OK. Not so with the CSS file, though, the single error was on an odd font which I would not normally use on a web page.

In summary, I’m impressed and pleased. There are more reasons to buy a Mac than ever. iLife is just one big reason made up of many big reasons. For $79? It’s a steal. But it’s also an annual tax.

There’s no upgrade route except to buy a new Mac. Next year there’ll be more features, for sure. And another $79. This year, it’s worth it.