iLife \'06 not a bargain

Apple's newly introduced suite of digital lifestyle applications--iLife '06--has many improvements, but may not be worth the (upgrade) price. A new column in The Washington Post notes the differences between iLife '06 and its predecessor, iLife '05. Both versions offer major upgrades to iPhoto, while making relatively few changes to iDVD, iMovie, and GarageBand. While iLife '06 features a new addition--iWeb--to the suite of applications, the upgrade only makes sense in a handful of circumstances, according to the columnist. "The most likely reason to upgrade would be if your old copy of iPhoto has begun sinking under the weight of your accumulated pictures." Apple claims iPhoto 6 can store 10 times the number of photos as the previous version, or up to 250,000. The colmnist says that Apple's "bonehead" implementation of RSS (Really Simple Syndication), GarageBand's new podcast studio, iMovie HD stability issues, and iDVD's enhanced support suggest that most users can supplement iLife '05 with shareware programs, or wait for the release of iLife '07. The software is free with new Macs and is $80 for a single-user license. Apple, however, does not offer any upgrade path for users of previous versions.

by MacNN Staff