Apple Announced at the last Macworld ever that they’ll be releasing the latest updates to the iLife suit later this month. While not all the applications in iLife will receive an upgrade, iLife 09 is filled with a number of modifications to the most important applications in the mix.
iPhoto Gets Social
One of the main updates to iPhoto is its Facial Recognition software. This feature allows you to tag your photos with the identity of the individuals in each picture. But more than just tagging your friends and family, iPhoto now helps you along the way and finds other pictures that it thinks include the people you’ve tagged.
In addition to Photo tagging, iPhoto will now have features built in that let you update to Facebook, Flickr, mobileme, and Email. Most of these connections have been available through 3rd party plugins but being built into the iPhoto engine will only make things easier.
iMovie Enhanced
The biggest complaint against the last version of iMovie was its lack of editing features. These return in iMovie 09. Editing capabilities such as Precision Editing, Drag and Drop, Transitions, Titles, and Effects are all included in the latest version of iMovie.
A new feature includes Maps which will allow you to add Indiana Jones type cut scenes to your family vacation videos.
iWeb Updates
While some of the updates to iLife are significant, the modifications to iWeb seem to be focusing on easy of use and basic functionality.
iWeb 09 will include the ability to publish one site at a time and the ability to upload to FTP locations right out of iWeb. These updates have been needed from the start and its good to see that Apple finally included the features.
The social feature added to iWeb is the ability to update your Facebook when updates to your iWeb site are published. This will allow you to instantly inform friends and family of modifications and enhancement you make to your iWeb site.
GarageBand
The newest feature to GarageBand in iLife 09 is Lessons. Take Basic lessons for the Piano and Guitar or learn from famous artists with Artist Lessons.
Artists participating include:
- Sting
- Sarah McLachlan
- Fall Out Boy
- Norah Jones
- Colbie Caillat
- Sara Bareilles
- John Fogerty
- OneRepublic
- Ben Folds
Conclusion
We’ll wait to get our initial hands on the iLife 09 updates but seem optimistic about the updates. We expect the enhancements and modifications to work as well as previous versions of iLife.
For tutorials on getting the most out of the new iLife features check out Apple iLife ’09 tutorials.
