iLife ‘09

When you buy a Mac, you don’t just get a computer, you get a bunch of software too. Apple’s home-creativity software, iLife, is a key part of the package. This latest version will leave PC owners green with envy.

Features:
iLife consists of a number of programs rolled into one suite. It includes iPhoto to organise your digital photos, iMovie to edit home video, GarageBand to learn piano and guitar and iWeb for building simple websites. The most significant upgrades have occurred in iPhoto, which now doesn’t merely identify faces as being faces, but makes a fair stab at guessing who they belong to, and also uploads directly to Facebook and Flickr. iMovie, meanwhile, has some new animation features and excellent image stabilisation to help sort out shaky handheld camera footage.

Performance:
The software was already well-honed, having been through several generations of tweaks, so it’s the new features that impress the most. The face-detection software is awe-inspiring – it takes a significant chunk of pain out of adding tags to large numbers of photos with faces, which is probably what most people use tagging for, and it’ll transfer the tagged faces to Facebook, which is a real boon. All the elements are top class and ideal for home users looking to get maximum creativity out of their Mac.

Ease of use:
You’d expect Apple to have put a lot of thought into how its users can get the most from iLife. iPhoto is a bit like iTunes for photos, so will be familiar to most people. iMovie is relatively simple and certainly powerful, and you get to use Apple’s gorgeous templates. Many templates end up looking tacky, but Apple’s are sophisticated and add glamour. GarageBand is a leap further up the scale – you need to be ready to plug a musical instrument into your Mac to get the most out of this.

Value for money:
If you’ve already got a Mac with an older version of iLife, you’ll undoubtedly hunger for some of its new features – the face detection in particular. It’s possibly worth the upgrade for this function alone, if it’s something you’re going to use, although the other programs together also represent great value for money. Those buying a new Mac will get it anyway. For PC users, iLife is unobtainable – and while it’s undeniably good, you probably won’t buy a Mac just to own it!