Apple Introduces iLife '09
Apple Introduces iLife ’09
Major Upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie & GarageBand
Apple® today introduced iLife® ’09, which features major upgrades to iPhoto®, iMovie® and GarageBand®, and includes iDVD® and an updated version of iWeb™. iPhoto ’09 builds on the ability to automatically organize photos into Events by adding Faces and Places as breakthrough new ways to easily organize and manage your photos. iMovie ’09 expands on the revolutionary super fast movie creation introduced in iMovie ’08 by adding the depth users want through powerful easy-to-use new features such as the incredible new Precision Editor, video stabilization, advanced drag and drop, and animated travel maps. GarageBand ’09 introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar with 18 basic lessons and optional lessons from top artists such as Sara Bareilles, John Fogerty, Norah Jones and Sting. iLife ’09 is included with every new Mac® purchase and available as a $79 upgrade for existing users.
“iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With iLife ’09, we’ve made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features.”
iPhoto ’09 makes it even easier to browse and search photos, not only by when they were shot (Events), but by who appears in them (Faces) and where they were taken (Places). iPhoto automatically scans photos to detect people’s faces and when you assign a name to any face iPhoto will automatically find more pictures of that person. The library can be searched by name or browsed using the new Faces View. Places automatically imports photo location data from a GPS-enabled camera or any iPhone™ or you can manually assign a location to any photo, group of photos or event. Once iPhoto knows where photos were taken, you can easily explore them with a simple search or an interactive map. iPhoto ’09 lets you easily publish photos to Facebook or Flickr. Photos published to Facebook include assigned names, and name tags added on Facebook sync back to iPhoto. You can also share photos by creating a themed slideshow to play on your Mac, iPhone or iPod®, or create a beautiful travel book, complete with customized maps of your journey.
iMovie ’09 adds powerful, yet easy-to-use new features to let you create a movie quickly, or add refinements and special effects to your project if you have more time. Drag and drop one clip on top of another to reveal new advanced editing options, including replace, insert, audio only, and even picture-in-picture or green screen. With the revolutionary Precision Editor, you can skim and click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, like identifying precisely how much to keep, where to cut, use sound from one clip with video from another and more. iMovie ’09 analyzes video and reduces camera shake in clips when added to your project. New titles, transitions, cinematic effects, speed changes and animated travel maps add professional polish to your movie.
GarageBand ’09, the updated version of Apple’s popular software used by millions to play and record music, now gives budding musicians a fun new way to learn to play piano and guitar. Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation. Artist Lessons feature original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Choose from lessons by popular artists including: Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and Sting. Artist Lessons are sold separately at the new GarageBand Lesson Store, available inside the GarageBand ’09 application. GarageBand ’09 also includes exciting new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.
iLife ’09 includes iWeb ’09 for authoring custom websites and iDVD ’09 for creating DVDs. iWeb ’09 adds new iWeb Widgets, such as iSight® video and photos, a countdown timer, YouTube video and RSS feeds. New integrated FTP publishing allows you to publish your website to virtually any hosting service and updates to your site can now be automatically added to your Facebook profile.
Pricing & Availability
iLife ’09 will be available this month for a suggested retail price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after January 6, 2009 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Artist Lessons are available through the GarageBand Lesson Store for $4.99 (US) each.
iLife ’09 requires Mac OS® X version 10.5.6 or later, a Macintosh® computer with an Intel processor, a PowerPC G5 or 867 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), QuickTime® 7.5.5 or later (included), a DVD drive for installation and 4GB of available disk space. iPhoto print services and GarageBand Artist Lessons are available in select countries. Full system requirements and more information on iLife ’09 can be found at www.apple.com/ilife.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.
Apple iPhoto ’09 Features
Faces
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People are often your most important photo subjects. But it’s difficult to find every photo of Dad or the grandkids without combing through your entire library. That’s why iPhoto ’09 introduces Faces — a new feature that allows you to organize your photos based on who’s in them. iPhoto uses face detection to identify faces of people in your photos and face recognition to match faces that look like the same person. That makes it easy for you to add names to your photos. And it helps you find the people you’re looking for — even in the largest photo libraries.
Put a name to a face in just a couple of photos, and iPhoto suggests a set of possible matches you can confirm with a click. iPhoto then uses the information to sift through your library and find even more potential matches.
Once you’ve added names, click the Faces view to see a corkboard featuring a snapshot for each person you’ve named. Click any snapshot to see all the confirmed and suggested photos of that person. Skim the snapshot to preview more photos and assign a new one as the key photo. Flip the snapshot to add a person’s last name and Facebook ID.
Faces also lets you create people-based Smart Albums, which make it easy to stay up to date with pictures of family and friends. Drag one or more snapshots to the Source list, and iPhoto generates a Smart Album that automatically updates every time you name and confirm more photos of those people.
Places
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iPhoto helps you explore your travel photos with a new feature called Places. This feature uses data from GPS-enabled cameras or the camera on iPhone to categorize photos by location and convert GPS location tags to common, user-friendly names. So without any effort, pictures you took of the Eiffel Tower are labeled with easily searchable names like “France,” “Paris,” and “Eiffel Tower.”
If you don’t have a GPS-enabled camera or iPhone, you can still make the most of Places. Add locations to your photos by typing the name of a place, entering an address, or dropping a pin on a map. Then, when you want to find photos you shot in New York City or the Grand Canyon, just type the place name in the search field. If you feel like exploring, use the Places column browser to navigate your photos by clicking a country, state, city, or point of interest.
Themed Slideshows
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A great way to show off your photos onscreen is with a slideshow. iPhoto ’09 brings photos to life with six themes that let you create beautiful slideshows in seconds. Slideshow themes include Classic, Shatter, Snapshots, Scrapbook, Ken Burns, and Sliding Panels. Every slideshow uses face detection to position photos correctly and keep the faces onscreen.
Want to skip ahead or go back to a slide you liked? A filmstrip at the bottom of the screen lets you navigate your slides with a click. You can also change the music or adjust the speed to go better with your photos. When you’re happy with your slideshow, you can export it as a movie to iTunes and view it on your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV.
Online Sharing
Wouldn’t it be great if you could share your photos on Facebook in one step, without leaving iPhoto? iPhoto ’09 lets you publish photos directly to Facebook with just a few clicks. Select the photos you want to share and click the Facebook button.
iPhoto converts names you added using Faces to Facebook name tags. What’s more, as soon as you post new photos of them on your Facebook page, notifications are sent to the friends you’ve named who also have Facebook IDs.
Sharing on Flickr is just as easy: Just click the Flickr button. When you share your photos on Flickr, the locations you added using Places appear on Flickr photo maps.
Once you share your photos, iPhoto creates Facebook and Flickr albums for them in the Source list. Add, remove, or edit these photos, and they’re automatically updated on Facebook and Flickr.
Enhanced Photo Editing
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You don’t need expensive photo editing software to turn so-so shots into perfect pictures. iPhoto ’09 introduces a set of improved editing tools to make your photos look their best. A new checkbox in the Saturation slider makes the colors in your photos pop without affecting skin tones. The Definition slider improves clarity and brings out detail. The Retouch brush adds a Detect Edges feature that prevents blurring of detail when you remove spots or blemishes over solid edges. And the Auto Red-Eye tool works with face detection to remove red-eye with just one click.
Travel Maps
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If you’re an iPhoto fan, you already know how fun and easy it is to create professionally printed photo books to show off your vacation pictures. iPhoto ’09 makes your travel books even more special with custom maps that illustrate your journey. iPhoto uses the location data from your photos to generate a beautifully rendered map showing the countries and cities you visited. Or you can type in the names of places you’ve visited to create a travel map in any photo book theme. Every map is fully customizable. Show a point-to-point path of your travels, change the order of the cities, and mark points of interest.