MacWorld Keynote: iLife ’09

I’ve just finished checking out all the coverage from Phil Schiller’s keynote and I have to say, I’m satisfied. Let’s take a look.

iLife ’09

From what I heard on Twitter, people aren’t that excited about the new iLife, saying that “There’s not much new!” but the iLife updates are never that revolutionary on their own (ignore iMovie ’08). What you see is the evolution of an amazing suite of products, each getting that bit better with every update. What I see from the new iLife are features that are a must have for some people, and feature that some people wouldn’t pay $79, its all personal choice.

First, iPhoto.

• Face recognition in every photo. This looks very cool, iPhoto finds faces and ask you who’s they are then ads it to every photo containing that person. Something like this allows you to collate albums of just your family and the like.
• Geo Tagging. This is something you don’t normally see on low price consumer software, so I am impressed that Apple did it. Some cameras and phones (iPhone for example) have GPS built in, allows the device to know where each photo was taken. iPhote ’09 uses this information and ads it to your photos. Google maps is used to show you exactly where you took these photos.
• New slideshow themes and settings.
• Travel books can now have maps. Why the hell would I want this? I don’t want a Google map in my expensive glossy photo book. Talk about tacky!

Onto iMovie. Unlike many other people, I really like the direction Apple headed with iMovie ’08. Now, they have addressed people’s complaints and added those much demanded feature back into iMovie ’09. Side note: iMovie was introduced right as MacRumors was hacked with porn and as Gdgt started to crack under the strain, so my info on iMovie may not be complete.

• New themes and video effects. This was something I missed in iMovie ’08. Video effects such as sepia and video slow down are useful in some situations. I would have loved to have had them for a wedding movie I am making. Pity I can’t hold off on doing it for a month.
• Image stabilization. Self explanitory yet ohhhh so desired. Back to this wedding video, I didn’t have a tripod for the camera. Yeah, you know what happened. Shaky!! Hopefully, the new iMovie ’09 will fix up all my bad camerawork.
• Timeline. From what I could make out the traditional way of editing movies is making some sort of comeback. I think Apple are calling it “Precision Editing”. What ever!

GarageBand. This is truely the dark horse of the iLife suite. The power and potential on GarageBand is not to be underestimated. I mean, it is the application that got me full marks in a music composition assessment. I chose to use GarageBand over the incredibly expensive Cuebase and Sibelius because it is so much user friendly. Very true to Apple form.

• Learn To Play. If making music wasn’t enough, GarageBand can now teach you how to play an instrument. There are even lessons from famous artists like John Fogerty, Colbie Caillat, Patrick Stump, Sting, Sara McLaughlin, Ryan Tedder, Norah Jones where they teach you how to play their songs! You have to admit, this is pretty awesome. Each lesson will only cost $5, that a hell of a lot cheaper than what I pay for music tuition. I really want to try this out.

How do you like the new iLife? Leave a comment!