I have a powerbook that can play dvds, but does not have the superdrive (dvd burner). Which do you need to have dvd player or dvdburner?

Thank you for the information.

Player.

What was he expecting, a box with 12 CDs in it????


Get with the program!!

Garage Band is apparently 2GB (from what I read in other forums). Do the math - 2GB fits easily on 4 CDs... not 12. 4 CDs seems quite reasonable to ship in a software box. I remember the days when every Mac program shipped on well over 5 floppys. And besides, why would anyone that doesn't already own it think that Garage Band is that huge? iMovie and iTunes and iPhoto are all small enough. You are all way too high on yourself. Give the guy a break.

we aren't only talking about Garageband here.

that would also need to be in same box.

plus the other iLife apps.

How many CDs?

This is FUD because it is making people think you need a DVD burner, which isn't true.

Nearly everyone who can use this software has a DVD-Rom drive.

I can understand iDVD requiring a DVD drive. That's a no-brainer.

I am surprised, though, that Apple doesn't make it more clear that GarageBand requires one. I mean, my Dual 800 MHz G4 tower is more than fast enough to handle that program, right?

Of course, if its buried in the fine print, technically, we have no right to complain. But it might have been nice to make it available on a CD-ROM, even if it took 3 or 4.

My friend bought a new eMac and chose a cd-rw as his drive. Note that his choices were dvd OR cd-rw OR superdrive. He couldn't afford a superdrive, and cd-rw seemed more important at the time than dvd.

I think it's unconscionable that apple didn't include the GB application on the cd... in fact, if I was in my friends situation, I'd be REALLY mad, because the cd that comes with the $49 iLife box is only the Free downloads (iTunes, IMovie, iPhoto)... what a deal!

Apple should really offer a trade in program at the Apple store where you can swap your DVD for a cd-rom with a mini garage band install on it )(my guess is they needed the dvd to accommodate the loops).

I think it's unconscionable that apple didn't include the GB application on the cd... in fact, if I was in my friends situation, I'd be REALLY mad, because the cd that comes with the $49 iLife box is only the Free downloads (iTunes, IMovie, iPhoto)... what a deal!

Wow! iMovie and iPhoto are free downloads. I'm going to go download them now. Where do I get them???

Oh, and how come no one reads the system requirements before buying software? Are there that many dumb consumers out there? I guess they'd also be complaining about not knowing that it requires a 500MHz processor or faster, or 256MB of memory or other stuff. What do you want Apple to do, put a big thing on their product page, right at the top: "Introducing GarageBand. Compose your own music! Warning: You need a DVD drive to install this. Create music like a professional. But make sure you have a DVD drive on your mac. ...."

Macnn is so g**! They are a dead site and will go away soon... Let us wish it will happen soon... This is no longer a news site... This is a joke... MacNN, what a joke... CNN ooooh who could have put those two together.... oooh... Dorks!

Install GarageBand to a computer that has a DVD drive. Connect that computer to the computer without a DVD drive. Do a find for "garage" and copy over all relevant files from the first box to the second. Works like a charm.

Impossible...it is nearly 2 gigs itself.

It is neither MacNN that sucks for reporting this nor Apple that sucks for putting an application installer on a DVD when that is the medium that makes the most sense for software of that size. Anybody who didn't know this is a complete and utter moron because this was on the iLife page the day Steve announced it. You don't order software without checking the requirements first.

Regardless, it is FedEx that sucks. They were supposed to deliver my iLife package by 4:30 pm today. Then didn't come all afternoon, they didn't come when I was at work, and after I got back home I checked the status:

6:57 pm - Package status - Delay beyond our control 
7:17 pm - Package status - Package in FedEx location

That's just great. Does anybody know if they deliver on Saturdays, because if they don't I guess I'm screwed until Tuesday. (Damn them.)

Sorry to deviate from the main topic, but do we know for certain that Apple will still be offering iPhoto, iTunes and iMovie etc... as a free download. I didn't see the whole keynote, but didn't hear a mention... Anyone know anything about this?

From the Apple web page for iLife 04.....

Important Notes:
DVD drive required to install GarageBand and iDVD
iDVD requires a 733MHz PowerPC G4 or faster.
Burning DVDs using iDVD requires an Apple SuperDrive.
Burning iPhoto archives to CD or DVD requires Mac OS X v10.2.8 or later.
iPhoto book and print ordering services are available only in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and select territories; fees apply.

And, without seeing the box I'm willing to bet that the same constraints are enumerated. I have no sympathy whatever for someone who fails to determine the requirements for a software package and then whines when their system is an inappropriate platform.

When I watched the keynote webcast, I got excited about Garage Band and started reading everything Apple posted about it. Not literally everything though, because the next day I started thinking about how all those loops must take up quite a bit of space, so I looked again specifically to find out if GB came on DVD like iDVD does. Once I was looking for the info, it was very easy to find. It is logical that it would come on DVD, so people should have checked before purchase.

Also, thanks to the poster who posted about the iPod disk image workaround. Now that I can be sure that such a workaround works I'll be doing that to get GB on my old iMac 600.

I feel so badly that your software didn't come. Ever consider you are being punished for being the low life form that you are?

Speaking of complete and utter morons, everyone alive knows that Fedex does not deliver on Saturdays. If you were not so stupid you would see that fact right on Fedex's web page. Whoever would expect Fedex to deliver on Saturday should suffer miserably because it is obviously IMPOSSIBLE for trucks to deliver on Saturday.

Since you won't have your software till Tuesday, maybe you should attempt to get a life and leave your house sometime this weekend.

When they said "It's like Microsoft Office for the rest of your life"
Apple wasn't kidding ;-)

Why on Earth are some people that post here so completely idiotic? MacNN reports a reasonable news story and then 50 idiots post comments saying it's not news and they will never read MacNN again.

Well stop crying wolf! If every Apple fascist here stopped reading MacNN when they said they would there would be none here.

I personally don't see how iDVD has any relevance to Garageband other than that they are sold in the same box. They are two completely different programs for two different market segments that are likely to overlap. That doesn't mean everyone that bought iLife for Garageband wants to use iDVD too. The converse question is whether everyone that bought iLife for iDVD is also a musician, which is stupid.

So why don't you Apple fascists shut up or leave like you keep promising to? Could it be you actually love Macnn's journalism afterall?

Here are the requirements for iLife, as stated in a promotional e-mail from Apple. (There's no mention of the DVD requirement for GarageBand.):

iLife ’04 requires a Macintosh computer with Mac OS X v10.2.6 or later and 256MB RAM. A 600MHz G3 or faster is required for GarageBand and a G4 or G5 is required for GarageBand software instruments. An Apple SuperDrive or 733MHz G4 processor or faster is required for iDVD; SuperDrive is required to burn DVDs. Some features require Internet access; Internet access fees may apply.

"Jesus, how old of a mac must you own to not have at least a combo drive? Have they shipped any macs in the past 2 years that didn't have a combo drive? I mean COME ON here! Plus, if your machine is old enough to only have a CD drive, it probably doesn't meet the rest of the requirements eithe"

How about those frigging darn G4 1ghz current eMac's in the Apple Store, duh? What a f****** idiot.

- it's reasonable to expect that apps that don't use a DVD won't need a DVD drive. so yes, a lot of people were surprised.
- every iBook dual USB meets the rest of the requirements, a lot of those are CD-ROM machines
- i'm one of them - why? I have a great Sony DVD player attached to a 27" tv in the living room - I had no need for a DVD on my 12" computer screen
- to all of those who are ridiculing those who didn't read the fine print, knock it off. you'll only call everyone names and use the four-letter words anonymously, and you make it sound like you've never made a mistake. Do something constructive.
- thanks to someone for the suggestion of the disk image transfer.

The 1 ghz eMacs available at the Apple Store have either a combo or a superdrive...both will install from a dvd.

"Speaking of complete and utter morons, everyone alive knows that Fedex does not deliver on Saturdays. If you were not so stupid you would see that fact right on Fedex's web page. Whoever would expect Fedex to deliver on Saturday should suffer miserably because it is obviously IMPOSSIBLE for trucks to deliver on Saturday."

THIS comment is the most moronic I've ever read on ANY board. If this person had ACTUALLY LOOKED at the FedEx site, instead of blowing bullsh*t, he might have noticed that FedEx DOES deliver on Saturdays in most cities.

Amazing the complete lack of intelligent discussion listed on this board.

"Speaking of complete and utter morons, everyone alive knows that Fedex does not deliver on Saturdays."

Really, I just checked the site for 2Day shipping: "Monday - Friday, with Saturday service available for an additional charge." I was just wondering if they'll ship Saturday anyway because they screwed up delivery in the first place. You don't need to behave like an a******, it was just a question.

"Since you won't have your software till Tuesday, maybe you should attempt to get a life and leave your house sometime this weekend. "

In contrast to you, I actually have a life. I have plenty to keep me busy this weekend, I just thought it would have been nice to get in a few hours of jamming with GarageBand as well. Oh well, smartass, see how much I care if I have to wait.

"THIS comment is the most moronic I've ever read on ANY board. If this person had ACTUALLY LOOKED at the FedEx site, instead of blowing bullsh*t, he might have noticed that FedEx DOES deliver on Saturdays in most cities."

Aren't you the big f****** a******, eh? *I* just checked out the site to see if you were right, and Saturday delivery is not guaranteed (ie. certain FedEx services are not delivered Sat, some cost additional fees, etc). Moron.

Will deliver on Saturdays.

And just how dumb does some people have to be to miss the part where they say IT REQUIRES A DVD PLAYER!!!! Stupid $hlt! I can't believe people b**** about this... Open your eyes or go back to school and learn to read! Use common sense people... And MacNN, do some real news for once please, this is pathetic!

required:

http://www.apple.com/ilife says:

System Requirements:



Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor

600MHz G3 or faster required for GarageBand

G4 or faster required for GarageBand software instruments

733MHz G4 or faster required for iDVD



256MB of physical RAM

Mac OS X v10.2.6 or later (Mac OS X v10.2.8 or later recommended)

QuickTime 6.4 or later (QuickTime 6.5 included)

Display with at least 1024-by-768-pixel resolution

DVD drive required to install GarageBand and iDVD

4.3GB of disk space required to install GarageBand, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD; or 250MB to install iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie only.

Oi you stupid fat American.

"And just how dumb does some people have to be to miss the part where they say IT REQUIRES A DVD PLAYER!!!! Stupid $hlt! I can't believe people b**** about this... Open your eyes or go back to school and learn to read! Use common sense people... And MacNN, do some real news for once please, this is pathetic!"

Given that you seem to be a typical American who has substituted his brain for lard let's get things straight:

The only iLife application that should *NEED* a DVD drive is iDVD. Even then, your homo-erotic fantasy Steve, has said that iDVD will work on a non-Superdrive Mac but just not burn DVDs.

While we are on the subject of education, what qualifications have you got fat boy? You see the problem with capitalism is that customers want what they expect, not some smallprint. Of course you wouldn't know this being a sub GED pro-Apple troll.

"Given that you seem to be a typical American who has substituted his brain for lard let's get things straight:"

Why don't you go and take a goddamned shower first before you go off spouting this trash? God I can almost smell your European stench through this website.

"The only iLife application that should *NEED* a DVD drive is iDVD. Even then, your homo-erotic fantasy Steve, has said that iDVD will work on a non-Superdrive Mac but just not burn DVDs."

The GarageBand application does not require a DVD drive, nor do the requirements say it does. The INSTALLATION requires a DVD drive since it is only LOGICAL for a FOUR GIGABYTE piece of software to be delivered on a medium that will actually FIT FOUR GIGABYTES, you stupid f****** European reactionary piece of s***.

"- it's reasonable to expect that apps that don't use a DVD won't need a DVD drive. so yes, a lot of people were surprised."

So, then, I assume it's also reasonable to expect that apps that don't use a CD won't need a CD drive to install as well? Does that mean I should start complaining that iMovie isn't shipping on a set of diskettes?

I'll speak softly here, but point out a few points, which I would think are fairly obvious when viewed rationally.

iDVD has no more reason to require a standard DVD-ROM drive to install than GarageBand, other than having the letters DVD in it's title. If a DVD-R drive was required, that'd be one thing. But since iDVD can be run on machines without DVD burners, why is the requirement there?

The answer is that iDVD, like GarageBand, and many other media intensive applications is very, very big. When software is very, very big and can't fit on a CD, DVD becomes an attractive solution, not just for cost, but because additional engineering work needs to be done to split installs over multiple disks. In order to put iDVD or GarageBand on multiple disks, the source packages would need to be split into multiple packages, whose size would have to be determined by the size of the media they were going on, and then you have to start a juggling game of which packages can go on which discs at the same time the package sizes are changing because you're in the middle of developing everything.

Apple posted the requirements. There are workarounds. And, frankly, if you bought a machine without a DVD drive, then perhaps you should have thought, "Gee, this does mean I won't be able to install anything that ships on a DVD. I guess that’s why it’s less expensive." You saved some money at the time, and now it turns out there was actually a reason that you did.

Just like our ancestors who long ago bought machines with floppies, but not the optional CD drive. Or got the CD-ROM drive, but not the CD-R. You'll have to excuse those who don’t feel like you've been horribly wronged here, as if you do have a machine that's less than 3 years old, you certainly had the option of DVD. You likely had to order the absolute bottom line config (which you then opted not to add DVD to) to not have one.

I'm happy you've gone this long without ever feeling like you needed it. I also hope the money you saved when you bought your machine was well spent. But I don’t really think that Apple has done anything horrible here, nor do I think they should be going out of their way to accommodate you in this particular case.

Well written. I think the saddest thing about MacNN is not what they post, it's was their readers post. If I had no Macs with a DVDROM, Combo or SuperDrive, and was interested in GarageBand, I would certainly appreciate this article reminding me that I would not be able to install on my Mac.

I also would appreciate those people who posted suggested workarounds.

As for those people who spouted insults and especially politically oriented ones: You are the ones that EVERY intelligent, rational MacNN reader wishes would spend less time on MacNN spouting trash. You are truly the bottom of the human gene pool. You have an opinion, and that is fine, but do not for one second think that your opinion should for some reason be the only right one, or that it is your God given duty to force that opinion down every one else's throats.

Take a pill or better yet, take a whole bottle.

Everyone here seems to be all bent out of shape over the DVD requirements mentioned in the original posting.

I, however, want to express my real gratitude to Greg for the Server tip and for the editors for posting it. A quick read of the iLife system requirements on the web page /and/ on the box shows no indication that the software will not install on 10.3 server and in fact the previous version did. (If you called Apple Tech Support or walked into an Apple Store wondering about iLife and Server just a month ago they would tell you it wasn't included but would install just fine for your $50.)

I don't know what technical requirements or licensing/marketing malarkey led to this change and so far Apple isn't talking. Maybe I'll s**** up my G5 when I follow the tip but I'm grateful it was there so at least I can try.

GarageBand should not require a DVD drive to install.
Sure, it's a multi-gigabyte piece of software, but that still doesn't mean it can't come on multiple CDs. h***, Halo and UT2K3 and tons of other games come on multiple CDs - not a DVD - and they install just fine.
Apple could have (should have) done the same damn thing.

If Apple was smart, and they wanted to make some extra money, they could drop GarageBand in box all by it self and sell it for $39.00 for those who don't need/want the rest of the iLife apps.

To avoid to chaotic pend up rage going around in here... I'll just post this helpful tip: I also did not have a DVD drive on my fairly new computer. However I was able to find a pretty old one lying around on an older computer (I never once used the DVD features of this drive on that old computer... hence why I avoided paying extra for one on my new computer). It was IDE and after plugging it into an open spot on my G4 it worked fine. I would suggest looking around on ebay or the like for such old (1x, 2x) DVD-ROM drives.. I am sure you can find them for cheap -- even if you only used it to install large programs like this.

Aren't you the big f****** a******, eh? *I* just checked out the site to see if you were right, and Saturday delivery is not guaranteed (ie. certain FedEx services are not delivered Sat, some cost additional fees, etc). Moron.

How is this guy a moron? FedEx will deliver on a saturday. Is it guaranteed like daily? No. But they deliver. How you can call a guy a moron for stating something truthful (with caveats) while making yourselff feel so superior for posting a completely incorrect statement ("Fedex does not deliver on saturday"). As opposed to UPS, who don't send out one truck on Saturdays, Fed Ex does. Which makes you the a****** AND the moron.

What a shocker.

"How is this guy a moron? FedEx will deliver on a saturday. Is it guaranteed like daily? Blah blah f****** blah."

I own you b****.

"he noticed a seemingly new requirement that Garage Band installation requires a DVD drive"

Say what??

What do you mean a "seemingly new requirement" ??

From the first day that Garage Band was introduced, the website and ALL of Apple's documentation of the product has clearly stated that a DVD drive was required.

If some ignorant users were unaware of this requirement then it is their own fault. Next time, read first.

It makes me sick that this moron got a discount because of his own lazy ignorance.

Its been there the whole time. THat almost stopped me from buying ilife 04, but I just used my friends g4 powerbook with dvd drive. I turned my computer into a firewire hardrive by holding "t" on startup, and started the powerbook up off my imac. Then I could install. Everybody...don't fret

First of all, your average "garage band" user isn't a numb nutz, fresh off the boat, "pc" user. They've been looking for this type of solution ANYWHERE they can find it. They can afford a mac to run this thing, they can afford $100 to buy a dvd BURNER, much less a DVD reader.

Steve is going after the people, like me, that have a pc, and CAN'T run all of their MAC ONLY apps, but would pay GOOD MONEY to be able to!!!! (enter iTunes!!!)

I could build a REALLY GOOD "consumer pc" for $500 with no OS, and try an pirate all the software I want... or I can buy an eMac with it ALL for $799 and have it COMPLETELY LEGAL! I can even buy Garage Band and not WORRY about INSTALLING it!!! Compared to what most people go through with "Windows PC" garbage, I say "Well done, Steve." I can make enough money off one person with a Windows pc, just keeping it up to date, to pay for a Mac. That's sad.

That's where the Apple steps in. If the parpgraph above describes you, shame on you. Convince those people to buy a Mac. Period.

freelancer@mybigplanet.com

Had a Mac II. Haven't turned back since. Kiss it.

There are actually new iBooks shipping without a combo drive. My dad just ordered one and it will be here tomorrow (Jan 21) and it does not have a combo drive or even a DVD drive alone. It does however qualify for the up to date program so I can get iLife for $19.99 and install it on my ibook which does have combo drive. If I want to I can then install it onto his by connecting mine as a Firewire drive in disk mode. Also, eMacs didn't have a combo drive for the entry level model until last year sometime. There are a ton of 600mhz plus Macs out there without such a drive but they all have a Firewire port so you can use a firewire drive if you need to.

The GarageBand installer would fit easily on approximately a thousand floppies. I can't understand why Apple couldn't take this simple step to show consideration for those loyal Mac users who may not have the bleeding edge hardware.

The GarageBand installer would fit easily on 1000 floppies. Apple should have offered this as an option for those of us who may not have bleeding edge hardware.