Apple, at their Back to the Mac event today, has officially announced iLife ‘11. Here is everything you need to know about the all new iLife ‘11 for OS X.
iPhoto ‘11
Major new features in the new iPhoto include:
- New full screen modes
- Facebook enhancements
- Emailing photos directly from iPhoto
- New slideshows
- Big leap in books
Full screen mode allows you to manage your entire library in full screen mode which, well, does what it says. Reminds us of iPad.
Facebook enhancements allow you upload photos directly to your wall or to an existing album. You can also see your own albums (you still can’t stalk friends from iPhoto, unfortunately).
Emailing photos directly has also been made exceptionally easy, it’s essentially a three-click process. You open an album / photo. Click on ‘Share > Email’ and then iPhoto will automatically make a postcard-like email with all your photos in it and all you’ll have to do is enter the requisite email addresses. Send. Done!
The updated ‘Books’ is undoubtedly the highlight of the new iPhoto. With this feature, you can create a photo album in the form of a completely customizable book (or have Autoflow do it for you). You can then send the book to Apple and they’ll deliver your customized book in print to the address of your choice! You can also make letterpress cards with this feature.
And there are new slideshow effects.
iMovie
New features in iMovie include:
- All new audio editing
- One step effects
- People Finder
- News and sports themes
- Movie trailers
The all new audio editing is the biggest feature in iMovie ‘11. The UI has been updated to make things easier. If you’ve ever used professional video editing software, you’ll know what to expect. Audio waveforms and and all.
Everything is, of course, easier to use and it is now easier than ever before to adjust audio segments and putting them where they need to be put.
The movie trailers feature is also a very interesting one. This magical function allows you to easily make a movie trailer after giving iMovie data like opening logo, studio name, customized credits etc. From what we’ve seen in the live stream, it is exceptionally simple!
Apple has also managed to incorporate Face Detection into iMovie! This amazing feature is used to further help in quick editing which will help you know which person is in which clip, how many people are there in each clip and other relevant things.
Also included now is the ability to directly share your home-made trailers to Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook.
All that for a price less than a fraction of what you’d pay for software like Adobe Premire Pro.
Garage Band ‘11
New features in Garage Band ‘11 include:
- Flex Time
- Groove matching
- “How did I play” feature
- New effects
- New piano and guitar lessons
Flex Time and Groove-matching are essentially spellcheck for your band’s tune(s). Garage Band ‘picks up the out of tempo and fixes it automatically! That, along with How Did I Play which tells you what you’re doing wrong, definitely makes Garage Band ‘11 a great piece of software for average Joe trying to learn the piano at home.
The rest of the new GarageBand features are self-explanatory.
Starting today, iLife ‘11 comes as a free extra on new Macs or as a $49 upgrade for older machines. If you just recently bought a Mac (w/o iLife ‘11), you can pay $7 and have Apple deliver the new version to your doorstep.
You may also like to check out:
- FaceTime for Mac Announced ! Beta Release Today !
- 11.6 and 13.3 inch MacBook Air Introduced, Available Today !
- Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Announced! Features iOS like Apps, Mac App Store, Multitouch Gestures and More!
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