Apple iLife '08 Family Pack (DVD-ROM)

Stick with iLife '06 As you'll notice from the other reviews, imovie '08 has caused a stir in the Apple user community because the new revised version is pretty to look at but completely useless. I used to be a total Apple fan until I had to many bad experiences of their products & customer service team to go on ignoring. Something I now find very amusing is the way Apple fans allow themselves to become blinkered to the obvious flaws of their favourite brand and imovie '08 is a case in point. The app' is so bad that Apple have had to give away the '06 version free because of the volume of complaints. But read some of these reviews and you'd think they did it out of charity! `2 imovies for the price of 1'. Nah. Buy this and you're paying full rrp for a bunch of `up to date' applications only to be encouraged to download an `out dated' application you can actually use. Take my advice and buy iLife '06 at a knock down price instead. The up dates to the other apps aren't anything you'd miss much in practise (I find some of the iphoto `additions' irritating rather then `time saving'). Oh and iweb is a total rip off. Most broadband providers give you more web hosting space included in your service then you'll get from Apple for their annual subscription fee.

iDVD hiccup In general this is a good improvement. For some reason, iDVD stopped working properly when I added this update, but after using the online software update from apple, it worked again. iPhoto changes are really cool

IMovie The new '08 version of iMovie is ultra simple to use and you can genuinely edit a movie in minutes. And, as a bonus you get to keep iMovie '06 or download for free from Apple so you get the best of both worlds! The changes to the rest of the iLife apps are worth the cost in themselves. iPhoto and iMovie with skimming and events is just amazing. Mac gallery and YouTube uploading is a dream to use and the new templates and printing options with frames is excellent. In my opinion you won't be disappointed. And no, I don't work for Apple!

Excellent upgrade Some users have criticised the all new iMovie '08.... ignore them - the new version is ultra simple to use and you can genuinely edit a movie in minutes. And, as a bonus you get to keep iMovie '06 or download for free from Apple so you get the best of both worlds! The changes to the rest of the iLife apps are worth the cost in themselves. iPhoto with skimming and events is just amazing. Mac gallery and YouTube uploading is a dream to use and the new templates and printing options with frames is excellent. In my opinion you won't be disappointed. And no, I don't work for Apple!

Mostly great For me this is worth it just for the iPhoto which is great but iWeb, iDVD and Garageband have all had quite decent upgrades. Whilst it's true that iMovie has lost some of the old editing functions it's worth noting that installing it does not remove your old version so you can make use of iMovie HD and the new iMovie 08. Apple also provides iMovie HD as a free download to purchasers of iLife 08 if they don't already have it. You should also note that the new iMovie will not run on anything less than a G5 and not even all G5s will run it. The other apps work fine on my G4 mac. Stephen Lodziak wrote that Apple seem to be suggesting that if we need more editing features than iMovie 08 provides then we should upgrade to Final Cut Studio at £800. Actually the natural upgrade from iMovie would be Final Cut Express HD which is currently at £199. It may well be that it's simply the case that iMovie 08 as a new application is a works in progress and we'll see more editing functions added later but only time will tell.