The Uselessness of iLife?

Well, I'll add that as someone who knows how to use aperture, final cut and adobe, I don't care for them. I'm no expert at using them, but I don't want to be either. There is just to much crap packed into them that I will never use. I find them to be bloated and pretentious. Same with ms word and I use it every day. I am far from your average user and it used to be my job to know apple products and software. So given the choice, I'd choose ilife. It's easy and handles my needs. I take thousands of pictures and rarely ever find the need to tinker with them. And that's because I'm not a pro, I know how to take pictures and believe they always come out looking great. Most of the time to view them I use preview anyway. Which makes iphoto that much more irrelevant.

I'll add gas to the fire and tell ya, that unless your working on a great hollywood movie or have some stellar arty pics, know one cares. If you really want to compare the two, you're not doing much more with your pro software then uncle Joe when he edits his home videos in imovie. The end product is going to have a small anonymous audience. With that in mind, that's why i think ilife is fantastic. it cuts out all the bloated pertinacious crap and gives the majority of users what they need. So yeah, I prefer the limitations and ease of use of ilife over the pro apps even at the same price.

MacHeadCase said:

And just so that it is clear to anyone reading this thread: iLife does NOT come bundled with Mac OS X.

It is however part of the bundled software on new Macs. But it is a separate product from OS X.

Click to expand...

I understand this totally. But why does Apple have it on the same disc as OS X when you get a new mac. For me 10.4 and ilife 06 was on the same 2 discs. Just 2 grey discs is all I got. I thought thought they would have it on a seperate disc for a new mac.

When the restore disks were on CD, they were separate. Gues it's a cost decision.

Village Idiot said:

OS X is more than iLife...at least it must be, because I don't think that I would own a mac if the only program available was iLife. This isn't a Windows vs. OS X thread. I was merely asking who would use programs that give you greater control over the final product vs. iLife's integration if price were not an issue.

Click to expand...

Oddly enough, and I know I'll get neg rep'd for this most likely, but I see your point and even somewhat agree with you.

For the average home user who just wants to take pictures/video and put them on the web for Grandma to see, iLife is just fine. Even if money were not an issue, iLife would still be ideal because it's easy to use. All the other Apps you mentioned will give one a superior final product, but they all have a steep learning curve to be able to learn to use, even to do many simple tasks. This is the beauty of iLife, it makes simple stuff simple.

To be honest, I think this whole thread has gotten blown WAY out of proportion and I don't think VI is calling anyone an idiot for using iLife. He's simply asking that if you had a choice and all of the software were free, would you still use iLife. My answer is yes, I would. I have neither the time nor desire to master the professional apps and I suspect the majority of the "point and click" public would be the same.

That being said, it's not really a fair comparison when comparing iPhoto to CS3 and so on. They have basic capabilities, but they are in completely different leagues. A Graphic studio that uses iPhoto for professional photo production has issues.

Quiet everyone... I'm enjoying Kash's and Village's steel cage death match! Haha just joking.

My 2¢ worth.

For image editing I statred out with photoshop 7 and moved to CS. And I really liked it. It does just what I want it to do. Edit images I've created and photos I have given to me But now when I perchased my imac I got ilife 06. And is iphoto obselete to me cause I can use photoshop well.

NO!

Cause sometimes I only want to do basic editing of friends photos. I don't have a camera but they use a PC. So I can do a few quick rather good edits to each photo in iphoto. And send them back for printing. It's much easier and quicker to do basic edits in iphoto to heaps of photos. But the few that need special treatment are still photoshoped. These days it's not about using the best program out there. But doing the best job in the shortest amount of time.

Sure it won't replace photoshop but it is a nice accompaniment to it.

And I've never used appeture and lightroom. But I have read reviews on them. And for my liking I don't need them. The iphoto/photoshop combo is great for me.

And I'd assume the same would be with the rest of the ilife suite. They are useful in tandem with the pro apps. And the price of ilife for anyone serious about what they do is really a non issue. When you consider each of the pro apps can be thousands of dollars each ilife is really good value.

For pros and consumers who need a little editing only or looking for it as a stepping stone. It's a good trial into the image editing world, web design world etc. They can see if they like it and want to go further with it or not.

I say ilife is very useful.

Im a professional Java web developer, and i personally cannot be bothered coming home and hand crafting a website for myself. Been there, done that. Im getting older and realised that there is more to life than sitting all evening hacking away at a website. This is exactly the reason why when my last ISP when under, taking my website with them, I put up a Holding page on my new ISP which has remained in place for the last 2 years. When my macbook pro finally arrives, one of the first things i'll do is build a new site using iWeb '08, its all i need for presenting my pictures to people.

Im also a semi-professional photographer, photographing weddings (or landscapes - my hobby) most weekends. I have lightroom which is used for the serious work, but when im out for the day snapping, nothing serious, i'll be using iPhoto '08 because i like it's simplicity.

I agree that these apps cannot replace professional apps, but the for target audience, they do a fantastic job.

I'll play the Old Timer for this post.

In 1984 the first Macintosh was sold. I used one at work, the same company for which I work today. There was a newspaper that came out around that time which some - including me - called the MacPaper: USA Today. The basic Mac tools at the time were MacDraw, MacWrite, and MacPaint. USA Today still publishes and Apple is going strong.

Never underestimate what someone might be able to do with "non-professional" tools. You may quickly find yourself eating "non-professional" dust.

Dominion said:

This is soemthing I've struggled with, I really like the ease of use of the programs. But I also enjoy the more powerful alternatives. Specifically when it comes to iPhoto, I to like to know where all my photos are on the disk. So it's tough to use that program when I don't know where all my photos are going.

Click to expand...

I don't get that all these people who use iphoto have no clue where their photos are. Well, first of all, all your photos are in "Pictures - Iphoto Library - and then in either "Originals" or "Modified". Thats all. Another easy way is to right-click a photo in iphoto and and select "show file". I don't see how it can be any easier. I finally believe that the great mystery has been solved.

earbird said:

I don't get that all these people who use iphoto have no clue where their photos are. Well, first of all, all your photos are in "Pictures - Iphoto Library - and then in either "Originals" or "Modified". Thats all. Another easy way is to right-click a photo in iphoto and and select "show file". I don't see how it can be any easier. I finally believe that the great mystery has been solved.

Click to expand...

Because having a folder on the Root called photos with sub folders listing the event and the date makes it a lot easier that having to dig through 5 or 6 levels of folders that are listed by roll1, roll2, roll3.

It makes it a real pain when you're needing to import one photo into iPhoto for something like iWeb and end up with 20 folders with one picture each in them.

Exactly WHAT was the point in starting this bashing thread?. If you dislike iLife, don;t *USE* iLife.

Hand full of Advanced Users are griping about iMovie ‘08 - and they need to get over it.

Click to expand...

A quote from:

http://www.applegazette.com/ilife/h...about-imovie-08-and-they-need-to-get-over-it/

glosswhite said:

Exactly WHAT was the point in starting this bashing thread?. If you dislike iLife, don;t *USE* iLife.



A quote from:

http://www.applegazette.com/ilife/h...about-imovie-08-and-they-need-to-get-over-it/

Click to expand...

Wow...go back and read the last four pages...Then maybe you'll understand. I'm not even going to bother re-iterating it for you.

Village Idiot said:

Wow...go back and read the last four pages...Then maybe you'll understand. I'm not even going to bother re-iterating it for you.

Click to expand...

There are hundreds of millions of people who love iLife and use it for lots of content creation tasks. I don't need to read a rant, when I know how useful it is.

Thanks. I exit this thread, gracefully.

glosswhite said:

There are hundreds of millions of people who love iLife and use it for lots of content creation tasks. I don't need to read a rant, when I know how useful it is.

Thanks. I exit this thread, gracefully.

Click to expand...

Hundreds of millions, eh?

It wa a question that was posed, got blow out of porportion and then it looks like that's what you're doing again.

Dang pliers...won't drive a nail for s---.....

Village Idiot said:

It makes it a real pain when you're needing to import one photo into iPhoto for something like iWeb and end up with 20 folders with one picture each in them.

Click to expand...

I really hate to ask this question, but I have to. Why would you have to import a photo into iPhoto to use in iWeb? I've just dragged photos from my desktop or other non-iPhoto folders into iWeb for use with iWeb projects just fine. Using iPhoto is not a requirement.

If you already have a picture in iPhoto and want to use it, drag the picture to the desktop, where it will be copied, and then into iWeb. I get the gist of your point, but the details are escaping me here.

baggss said:

If you already have a picture in iPhoto and want to use it, drag the picture to the desktop, where it will be copied, and then into iWeb. I get the gist of your point, but the details are escaping me here.

Click to expand...

That is exactly what I do and have done since first messing with OSX and iPhoto. Drag it to the desktop, work with it and trash it when I am done.

I can understand hating the roll thing, I personally did too and that's why I never used iPhoto 06. But the latest version doesn't have this flaw, it actually organizes stuff the way I like it, with a name and date. Now I can actually use iPhoto.

However, I still organize the physical files manually because I'm a control freak. No way would I allow iPhoto to do it because it won't be exactly how I like it.

Joe Diver said:

Dang pliers...won't drive a nail for s---.....

Click to expand...

Can you wait a minute, sorry; just trying to hammer these screws in - be with you in a sec

I used to get frustrated with iphoto as well but there is always an easy way with Mac. Yes if you try to access the photos through a third party App you have to trawl through the rolls and albums but with a bit of pre-planning you can just open iphoto, drag the photos you are going to use onto the desktop, rename them and they are simple to find. Voila!

Advice from an idiot who needs to find simple solutions.
sorry i didn't look at all the posts. Already been said.