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Review
Installation & Documentation
Ease of use
Value for money
Price approx.	Free with many new systems. $115 + GST
Operating System	Mac OS X v10.2.4+ QuickTime 6.3 or later Macintosh G3 or G4 Superdrive
Available from	Apple Resellers

So what is it that makes the iLife bundle so great? To answer that, think about how you've worked with previous versions of iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD. Working on a movie that you wanted to add photos into would see you start up iPhoto, have a bit of a browse and then either remember where these photos were or export them, ready to go into iMovie.

iTunes - I know you so well
Of course we should all be familiar with iTunes, which was released quite some time before the rest of the iLife bundle - in fact, with OS 9. iTunes features smart playlists, giving you power over your listening preferences and habits; superb Firewire linking to your iPod player; ease to create and burn CDs of your own compilations; stunning visuals to switch and a graphic equaliser to enhance the sound, and the ability to optimise the sound volume to achieve a consistent balance.

Editing features in iPhoto allow you to touch up your images

You could listen to your iTunes collection to select a tune from your library, and then get a copy of this ready for your iMovie project. You'd make your creation in iMovie using these photos and sounds and more. Then, when you were ready, you'd export a DV file, ready to use in iDVD. All this meant that you had to have a heck of a lot of drive space and that you seemed to spend your time creating new versions of things you had already.

iLife - the blindingly obvious
What Apple has done is to implement the blindingly obvious into the new versions. What Apple has done makes life easier and shows that tremendous thought has been put into usability issues with the so-called 'iAps'. Now, instead of having to import photos into iMovie, it knows if iPhoto and iTunes exists on your hard drive and provides the option to use items from the other programs. The programs are interconnected superbly.

So, when you've made your film there's no need to export a copy to DV format for iDVD. Instead, iMovie and iDVD are aware of each other so you can easily jump from one program to the next. Indeed, this 'jumping' will seem very familiar to users who work with Photoshop and ImageReady, or Dreamweaver and Fireworks. It saves on time, on hunting around your Mac and on file space. And this is just the start.

iMovie 3 features far more precise and advanced audio editing

iPhoto 2
Little appears to have changed with iPhoto 2, but that that's not the case. iPhoto includes new edit features that allow you to enhance your images, through the use of red-eye correction, a retouch tool (like Photoshop's 'healing' brush) and the magical 'enhance' button that seems to solve a lot of your photo-taking problems. Archiving of your photos has now been made incredibly easy and you can choose to burn onto CD or even DVD.

Slideshows are a breeze and you can quickly choose any of the songs in your iTunes player (without having to go hunting) to entertain people. Added to this is quick and easy access to email, so you can email your photos off or post a slideshow to your .Mac account.

iMovie 3
One of the first things you'll notice with the new iMovie is that it features Apple's newish brush-metal interface, and you can see the desktop behind the application and can move the work screen around. Perhaps the biggest change to the program is in the timeline. Two audio tracks now exist, with effectively a third also, as you can edit the audio of your movie clip without extracting it onto a separate track.

Working with the timeline has also been improved, with greater control over zooming into view clips, adjusting the speed of a clip and much improved, more precise audio editing. By choosing to edit the audio of a clip, an audio-level line appears in the clip. Clicking on this line and moving it up or down increases or decreased the audio at that point on the clip. It's advanced, but simple at the same time.

As well as a superb set of sound effects provided by Skywalker Sound (of Star Wars fame) the pop-up sound menu allows you to instantly select and use audio tracks stored in your iTunes library. The visuals you can use have been improved greatly, with effects and transitions like lens flare, aged film, letterbox, electricity and fairy dust, while use of chapters highlights how well iMovie integrates with iDVD 3.

iDVD 3
iDVD is now able to open a movie created in iMovie without the need of an exported movie file. At the same time, the chapters that you have created in your movie (effectively providing the ability to jump to part of a movie clip) become incorporated into the iDVD interface.

And what a superb selection of designs you have!

iDVD3 comes with a great set of 24 new themes, many of them motion themes. This is the reason you need an install disk for iDVD, as these are very high quality themes. Third party companies are also starting to release themes you can purchase and use.

You can create chapters in iMovie that transfer straight into iDVD

In the new version of iDVD, a pop-up menu in the Customise section allows you to choose new themes, old themes or third-part ones. (This menu is what I would still like to see in iMovie for tidying up transition selection.)

The interface of iDVD has changed little, and the connectivity between programs continues, allowing you to import iPhoto images for a slideshow or your background music straight from iTunes. It is also possible to include a folder of data on the DVD, which has been improved since the last version.

My only grizzle with iDVD is that I still can't select a movie to play on 'startup' as the disk I make loads in a DVD. It's something I'd like to see so I could easily make a 'Made By' introductions.

Pay up
The money that you spend to purchase iLife is absolutely worth it. In fact, if Apple were to give away such a superb product it would almost be criminal. iLove iDVD and iCan't get enough of it. I'm still amazed to think that such an incredibly easy program allows me to make something as complex as a DVD.

The way in which the programs connect is just superb and has made them far more intuitive and great to use. Gone are the days when you had to be a creative rocket scientist to create multimedia of the highest quality. Apple ... thank you!

© Parkside Media 2003
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