I agree market share should not be put above quality. I really dont think Apple was trying to do that in this case. The iLife 08 package really isn't bad for the price and has gotten some rather gooe reviews, even iMovie.
I think the issue is that Apple decides to go in one direction and one direction only leaving very little options. I believe they thought they were doing a good job with iMovie making it more user friendly.
To give another good example of them thinking in only one direction. The introduced the new iMac which is what i'm working on right now, 24". I happen to really like the glossy screen, alot of people don't for a 2k computer do you think it would have been that hard to offer a matte screen as an option? Or maybe a gpu option like the did on the previous version?
Like I said before Steve Jobs has a vision and if you don't buy into that vision your SOL. Steve isnt about what users wants its about what Steve wants.
While I would have liked an Nvidia 8600gt card in this iMac I have to make due with what Steve decided to offer me.
Thats what I believe needs to change.
The problem isn't market share or lowering standards it's about offering options not a one size fits all. The market share issues only becomes a problem when you keep trying the one size fits all because now there are more people that want even more options.
You can risk a take it or leave it one option ipod but not software and hardware that people depend on everyday.
I hear you .... isn't it interesting to note that Steve said that people don't want to make dvd's anymore and proceeded to introduce apps that make it more difficult to create a movie, not have chapter markers and burn it from the same app. ...... hmm
My brother just tried to make a movie in iMovie '06 and was very frustrated. He is a new mac user and has never done video. He cranked out a nice movie in a few minutes with '08.
I think Apple has done a good job with a complete overhaul and iMovie people should probably move to FCE. I am not being harsh, just factual based on Apple's recent move and the experiences of my brother and family with iMovie.
The Problem with that, is the expense of the upgrade. Even with the student discount, it's still $150.00 that I don't have to spare for something I don't do that often anymore. I started with iMovie 1.0 running on OS 9. While I agree with some here who have said that it has gotten a bit bloated, I really like having most of the functionality. On the other hand, my mom would really like to be able to do some simple video stuff on her iMac so for her, 08 might fit the bill.
I think my point after all this rambling, is that perhaps what apple should have done is either called this iMovie LE and let people that as with any new product, it will need some time to mature. They also should have made it so that people could switch back and forth between this and iMovie HD.
From David Pogue's article in the NY Times. Apple has started iMovie all over again and views this as version 1. They will add functionality in free updates.
You can use both HD and 08 (I have the icons side by side in my dock); I did at work today: created a full-length DVD (4.5 GB) with tons of effects and markers in HD, and put together a quick movie in '08 and sent it to my coworkers far quicker than I could have in HD and I am quite adept at using HD. To be very honest, I even included a short clip made in '08 in my HD movie because it was easier to create in '08 and export it and then import it rather than make in HD.
There are places for both apps, and, as we have both and people had the ability to know what they were purchasing before they paid for it, there is no reason to complain. To offer feedback, yes. If they didn't like what they saw, they could easily have voted with their wallets.
iDVD has a few very nice enhancements to it that I would gladly have paid 50 bucks for because a couple will save me an hour or two each month and another will make my DVDs look better. iMovie 08 saves a lot of time throwing simple movies together (something I do daily), worth another 50 bucks in my view because it will save me several hours a month. Instead of spending 30 minutes on my short film today, I finished it and shared it in 15, half the time, adding to a savings of about 8 hours a month - ONE DAY OF WORK - which I will now be able to spend on other activities. $79 bucks to save me 10 hours of work each month... let's see... that comes out to under 7 bucks a month, or 70 cents an hour, and I haven't even thought about my personal usage yet. That is less than a cup of coffee. Gotta go to Starbucks!
Let people that as with any new product, it will need some time to mature. They also should have made it so that people could switch back and forth between this and iMovie HD.
My 2 cents.
They DID. That's the whole point.
And just for the record, I think David Pogue's article is pretty much spot-on to the real situation, internal to Apple and out here on the fora.
The real test for Apple, I think, is how quickly this new iMovie develops into something that can match or beat HD in capability as well as ease of use. And, since I don't think HD is going anywhere in the meantime, as long as it does not stop working/ become obsolete (a la AppleWorks) before the new app is up to scratch, there is really absolutely nothing to complain about.
From David Pogue's article in the NY Times. Apple has started iMovie all over again and views this as version 1. They will add functionality in free updates.
I can't believe people are citing the Pogue article to show that all is well. It's pretty negative, except for the obligatory "no doubt they'll fix it in time" tossed off line. It's a laundry list of startling shortcomings, and he suggests that there must be "embarrassment" at Apple for sending out such hobbled bit of software.
So you just read headlines now? Not the full article. Pogue takes a very balanced view of the problem IMO, maybe you should take a page from his book.
"Pogue takes a very balanced view of the problem IMO,"....... What planet are you from? ..In his article I counted 11 negative comments before he found 4 positives ..... some further quotes are as follows:
"The new iMovie, for example, is probably the only video-editing program on the market with no timeline?no horizontal, scrolling strip that displays your clips laid end to end, with their lengths representing their durations. You have no indication of how many minutes into your movie you are."
"The new iMovie gets a D for audio editing."
"The new iMovie doesn't accept plug-ins, either. For years, I've relied on GeeThree.com's iMovie plug-ins to achieve effects like picture-in-picture, bluescreen and subtitles. That's all over now"
"Incredibly, the new iMovie can't even convert older iMovie projects. All you can import is the clips themselves. None of your transitions, titles, credits, music, or special effects are preserved."
"On top of all that, this more limited iMovie has steep horsepower requirements that rule out most computers older than about two years old."
"I've used the real iMovie to edit my Times videos for three years now. The results are perfectly convincing as professional video blog work. But the new version is totally unusable for that purpose. It's unusable, in fact, for anyone doing professional work that requires any degree of precision."
Meelash, your post would seem to indicate Pogue was "balanced" ( neutral ) on the value of Imovie 8. How you EVER arrived at that conclussion escapes me. Seems to me he is saying what a lot of us are saying. Imovie 8 sucks ...... big time ........
I agree that Pogue's comments were almost all harsh criticism of iMovie 08. It's quite clear he doesn't care much for the program.
He did make one comment that I found telling and probably explains why Apple have simplified iMovie 08:
"I've used the real iMovie to edit my Times videos for three years now. The results are perfectly convincing as professional video blog work."
I'm not sure Apple want users to be doing this level of work at this level of quality in a $79 suite of programs. I think they'd prefer these users do that work in FCE or FCP.
In the end iMovie may have been just too good. If they made it any better I think that they feared that it would cannibalize sales of the pro video editing apps.
I still think some of iMovie 06's functionality will be brought into iMovie 08 but not all.
Meelash, your post would seem to indicate Pogue was "balanced" ( neutral ) on the value of Imovie 8. How you EVER arrived at that conclussion escapes me. Seems to me he is saying what a lot of us are saying. Imovie 8 sucks ...... big time ........
I don't necessarily think iMovie 08 "sucks." It certainly seems to have some enthusiastic fans, and I haven't used it enough to tell how well it does whatever it's supposed to do. My basic problem with the app is with the manner of its introduction. In spite of the fact that iMovie 6 is still with us for the moment, it is clear that Apple means for iMovie 08 to replace the older, more feature-rich app.
If Apple had given iMovie the same treatment it gave iDVD--bug fixes, a few minor tweaks and enhancements--and then added the new app under a different name, like iVideo or iTube or something, I really don't think people would be nearly as concerned. As it is, though, the sense is that Apple has made a drastic change from its previous practice of providing simple yet powerful apps for the masses. A lot of us are worried that Apple has decided that consumer level apps should be extremely simple but not very powerful at all, and the sooner they can get us to either settle on their prettier but less functional apps or drop $300 on their pro apps, the better.
Also, it isn't just the fact of iMovie 08 replacing iMovie 6, but also the tone of Steve Jobs's introduction of iMovie and the whole iLife 08 suite. The overall emphasis of the presentation was geared toward the novice user with little or no knowledge of or use for advanced features. The new Garageband 08 has several new features that make it a remarkably powerful music production application–-especially for the price–-and yet the only new feature that Steve demonstrated was the Magic Garageband thing, which I can't imagine any musician using more than once or twice, but which seems tailor made to allow people who can't play music to generate a soundtrack for videos they don't know how to edit.
I'm not saying that people who can't edit movies shouldn't be making videos, or that people who can't perform music shouldn't be able to create music for their projects, but I worry that, in the future, Apple will go all in that direction and none in the other.
I hear you .... isn't it interesting to note that Steve said that people don't want to make dvd's anymore and proceeded to introduce apps that make it more difficult to create a movie, not have chapter markers and burn it from the same app. ...... hmm
I noticed that too and forgot to mention it here. He said something like, and for those that still want to burn dvds. I haven't tried it yet and maybe I will today if I have time but I would assume that Toast 8 will burn them just fine. I'm willing to bet the less expensive Popcorn will also.
Im not saying that people should have to buy those is Apple is still going to sell iLife as a suite of apps they should all work well together. Why I don't agree with all the complants in this thread I do have problems understanding this new release and why it was done this way.
Point #1 Do you REALLY want to compare the amount of patches that tiger has against windows ?
What version? How do you count? Apple's security updates generally update a lot of unrelated bugs in one update, Windows security updates generally update one bug at a time. The Windows update would show up as five updates when Apple's one update might fix as many as five different problems. It would be too easy to spin that as fewer updates when it's really not.
Quote:
Point #2 As far as Leopard's release, well let's just say that Vista's 5 year record is safe for quite awhile.
Definitely, though Apple floundered quite a bit in their attempts to replace their OS, eventually having to buy someone else's OS and adding their own sauce.
Quote:
Point #3 Maybe the reason that people aren't talking as much about Iphone is they're too busy buying it.
Meelash, your post would seem to indicate Pogue was "balanced" ( neutral ) on the value of Imovie 8. How you EVER arrived at that conclussion escapes me. Seems to me he is saying what a lot of us are saying. Imovie 8 sucks ...... big time ........
I think what Meelash meant was that the article was relatively unbiased, not that iMovie had balanced on its pros and cons. An unbiased article doesn't mean listing off the same number and relative significance of the pros and cons.
And just for the record, I think David Pogue's article is pretty much spot-on to the real situation, internal to Apple and out here on the fora.
The real test for Apple, I think, is how quickly this new iMovie develops into something that can match or beat HD in capability as well as ease of use. And, since I don't think HD is going anywhere in the meantime, as long as it does not stop working/ become obsolete (a la AppleWorks) before the new app is up to scratch, there is really absolutely nothing to complain about.
I don't know, it seem hard to believe in a way that they will add back the old features to 08. If they wanted to do that why not just do some form of applications overlay where the new features in iMovie 08 were added to the older version, you know just like they did in iPhoto with things like Events.
I could be wrong of course but it seems like they are trying to take it in a totally new direction, at least with this app. I guess we could see more features in the future but I having a feeling it will never be like the older version.
Apples history has kind of been pick a direction in run towards it even if its blindly.
From David Pogue's article in the NY Times. Apple has started iMovie all over again and views this as version 1. They will add functionality in free updates.
The article didn't say that they'll definitely add functionality with free updates, that was the speculation part of the article. I don't remember Apple adding many features after the fact with free software updates in iLife. Feature additions are almost always held over for the next paid version.
I think what Meelash meant was that the article was relatively unbiased, not that iMovie had balanced on its pros and cons. An unbiased article doesn't mean listing off the same number and relative significance of the pros and cons.
Point taken,..... perhaps what I should have said is that David Pogue, myself, and a whole lot of other people on these discussion boards SEEM to agree that Imovie 8 is a major disappointment.
From David Pogue's article in the NY Times. Apple has started iMovie all over again and views this as version 1. They will add functionality in free updates.
This post is a classic example of quoting "out of context" as it would seem to indicate that Pogue is in favor of Imovie 8 when, in fact, he , according to the FULL article, is not. Is there an agenda here that I don't get? .....just asking
What are you saying? That since you had to take a long time to learn to make movies, it's not fair that someone else should be able to just jump in and start in 15 minutes?
Goddamn people have it so easy these days! They should make people program in assembly language like we had to do in the good old days. It's much more efficient and powerful anyways!
Man, take a few deep breaths already!
It didn't take me a "long time" to learn to make movies, it took some patience, trial and error to perfect the art of making iMovies. The initial learning curve with iMovie <6 is a little steep though anyone with half a brain can produce something decent within an hour or so.
Is it not too much to expect of any Mac newbie to sit down and take the time to learn something? Hell, as a Mac user one would expect that the discerning iMac/MacBook buyer would have a little intelligence... he/she chose a Mac over a windows machine after all.
iMovie '08 is not backwards compatible. It is in no way as useful or powerful as its predecessor. It has no timeline, no clip display, no manual audio adjust, no multiple music track select, no clip audio extract, few audio/video effects, it does not accept plug-ins, no chapter markers, no proper iDVD integration, no bookmarks or themes... the list goes on.
Sure you can make a quick "movie' to put up on YouTube but,,, err, I want to make a DVD! A really cool, pro looking movie on a disc godammit! Old iMovie was just as good at doing various tasks as 'new' iMovie, maybe a little slower, but not much.
This is where iMovie excelled. One could produce a wedding/graduation/special occasion DVD that looked really professional for minimal cost as compared to Final Cut. Maybe iMovie was geting too powerful for its own good and taking all the thunder from FCP/E?
"We still have iMovie 6. Use that and quit whining" you may say. Well, not for long. Apple will surely dis-continue support for it until it becomes unuseable on newer machines.
My arguement is clear... iMovie '08 is not "iMovie" at all. It is a totally different kind of beast.
The article didn't say that they'll definitely add functionality with free updates, that was the speculation part of the article. I don't remember Apple adding many features after the fact with free software updates in iLife. Feature additions are almost always held over for the next paid version.
Though not an iApp, a big update occurred with Aperture 1.5, which was leaps better than 1.0.
Comments
I agree market share should not be put above quality. I really dont think Apple was trying to do that in this case. The iLife 08 package really isn't bad for the price and has gotten some rather gooe reviews, even iMovie.
I think the issue is that Apple decides to go in one direction and one direction only leaving very little options. I believe they thought they were doing a good job with iMovie making it more user friendly.
To give another good example of them thinking in only one direction. The introduced the new iMac which is what i'm working on right now, 24". I happen to really like the glossy screen, alot of people don't for a 2k computer do you think it would have been that hard to offer a matte screen as an option? Or maybe a gpu option like the did on the previous version?
Like I said before Steve Jobs has a vision and if you don't buy into that vision your SOL. Steve isnt about what users wants its about what Steve wants.
While I would have liked an Nvidia 8600gt card in this iMac I have to make due with what Steve decided to offer me.
Thats what I believe needs to change.
The problem isn't market share or lowering standards it's about offering options not a one size fits all. The market share issues only becomes a problem when you keep trying the one size fits all because now there are more people that want even more options.
You can risk a take it or leave it one option ipod but not software and hardware that people depend on everyday.
I hear you .... isn't it interesting to note that Steve said that people don't want to make dvd's anymore and proceeded to introduce apps that make it more difficult to create a movie, not have chapter markers and burn it from the same app. ...... hmm
My brother just tried to make a movie in iMovie '06 and was very frustrated. He is a new mac user and has never done video. He cranked out a nice movie in a few minutes with '08.
I think Apple has done a good job with a complete overhaul and iMovie people should probably move to FCE. I am not being harsh, just factual based on Apple's recent move and the experiences of my brother and family with iMovie.
The Problem with that, is the expense of the upgrade. Even with the student discount, it's still $150.00 that I don't have to spare for something I don't do that often anymore. I started with iMovie 1.0 running on OS 9. While I agree with some here who have said that it has gotten a bit bloated, I really like having most of the functionality. On the other hand, my mom would really like to be able to do some simple video stuff on her iMac so for her, 08 might fit the bill.
I think my point after all this rambling, is that perhaps what apple should have done is either called this iMovie LE and let people that as with any new product, it will need some time to mature. They also should have made it so that people could switch back and forth between this and iMovie HD.
My 2 cents.
There are places for both apps, and, as we have both and people had the ability to know what they were purchasing before they paid for it, there is no reason to complain. To offer feedback, yes. If they didn't like what they saw, they could easily have voted with their wallets.
iDVD has a few very nice enhancements to it that I would gladly have paid 50 bucks for because a couple will save me an hour or two each month and another will make my DVDs look better. iMovie 08 saves a lot of time throwing simple movies together (something I do daily), worth another 50 bucks in my view because it will save me several hours a month. Instead of spending 30 minutes on my short film today, I finished it and shared it in 15, half the time, adding to a savings of about 8 hours a month - ONE DAY OF WORK - which I will now be able to spend on other activities. $79 bucks to save me 10 hours of work each month... let's see... that comes out to under 7 bucks a month, or 70 cents an hour, and I haven't even thought about my personal usage yet. That is less than a cup of coffee. Gotta go to Starbucks!
Let people that as with any new product, it will need some time to mature. They also should have made it so that people could switch back and forth between this and iMovie HD.
My 2 cents.
They DID. That's the whole point.
And just for the record, I think David Pogue's article is pretty much spot-on to the real situation, internal to Apple and out here on the fora.
The real test for Apple, I think, is how quickly this new iMovie develops into something that can match or beat HD in capability as well as ease of use. And, since I don't think HD is going anywhere in the meantime, as long as it does not stop working/ become obsolete (a la AppleWorks) before the new app is up to scratch, there is really absolutely nothing to complain about.
From David Pogue's article in the NY Times. Apple has started iMovie all over again and views this as version 1. They will add functionality in free updates.
You mean the article titled "Apple takes a step backward with iMovie '08"?
I can't believe people are citing the Pogue article to show that all is well. It's pretty negative, except for the obligatory "no doubt they'll fix it in time" tossed off line. It's a laundry list of startling shortcomings, and he suggests that there must be "embarrassment" at Apple for sending out such hobbled bit of software.
You mean the article titled "Apple takes a step backward with iMovie '08"?
So you just read headlines now? Not the full article. Pogue takes a very balanced view of the problem IMO, maybe you should take a page from his book.
So you just read headlines now? Not the full article. Pogue takes a very balanced view of the problem IMO, maybe you should take a page from his book.
I cited the article and linked to it before you did. I think there's a reason you didn't actually supply a link.
So you just read headlines now? Not the full article. Pogue takes a very balanced view of the problem IMO, maybe you should take a page from his book.
"Pogue takes a very balanced view of the problem IMO,"....... What planet are you from? ..In his article I counted 11 negative comments before he found 4 positives ..... some further quotes are as follows:
"The new iMovie, for example, is probably the only video-editing program on the market with no timeline?no horizontal, scrolling strip that displays your clips laid end to end, with their lengths representing their durations. You have no indication of how many minutes into your movie you are."
"The new iMovie gets a D for audio editing."
"The new iMovie doesn't accept plug-ins, either. For years, I've relied on GeeThree.com's iMovie plug-ins to achieve effects like picture-in-picture, bluescreen and subtitles. That's all over now"
"Incredibly, the new iMovie can't even convert older iMovie projects. All you can import is the clips themselves. None of your transitions, titles, credits, music, or special effects are preserved."
"On top of all that, this more limited iMovie has steep horsepower requirements that rule out most computers older than about two years old."
"I've used the real iMovie to edit my Times videos for three years now. The results are perfectly convincing as professional video blog work. But the new version is totally unusable for that purpose. It's unusable, in fact, for anyone doing professional work that requires any degree of precision."
Meelash, your post would seem to indicate Pogue was "balanced" ( neutral ) on the value of Imovie 8. How you EVER arrived at that conclussion escapes me. Seems to me he is saying what a lot of us are saying. Imovie 8 sucks ...... big time ........
He did make one comment that I found telling and probably explains why Apple have simplified iMovie 08:
"I've used the real iMovie to edit my Times videos for three years now. The results are perfectly convincing as professional video blog work."
I'm not sure Apple want users to be doing this level of work at this level of quality in a $79 suite of programs. I think they'd prefer these users do that work in FCE or FCP.
In the end iMovie may have been just too good. If they made it any better I think that they feared that it would cannibalize sales of the pro video editing apps.
I still think some of iMovie 06's functionality will be brought into iMovie 08 but not all.
Meelash, your post would seem to indicate Pogue was "balanced" ( neutral ) on the value of Imovie 8. How you EVER arrived at that conclussion escapes me. Seems to me he is saying what a lot of us are saying. Imovie 8 sucks ...... big time ........
I don't necessarily think iMovie 08 "sucks." It certainly seems to have some enthusiastic fans, and I haven't used it enough to tell how well it does whatever it's supposed to do. My basic problem with the app is with the manner of its introduction. In spite of the fact that iMovie 6 is still with us for the moment, it is clear that Apple means for iMovie 08 to replace the older, more feature-rich app.
If Apple had given iMovie the same treatment it gave iDVD--bug fixes, a few minor tweaks and enhancements--and then added the new app under a different name, like iVideo or iTube or something, I really don't think people would be nearly as concerned. As it is, though, the sense is that Apple has made a drastic change from its previous practice of providing simple yet powerful apps for the masses. A lot of us are worried that Apple has decided that consumer level apps should be extremely simple but not very powerful at all, and the sooner they can get us to either settle on their prettier but less functional apps or drop $300 on their pro apps, the better.
Also, it isn't just the fact of iMovie 08 replacing iMovie 6, but also the tone of Steve Jobs's introduction of iMovie and the whole iLife 08 suite. The overall emphasis of the presentation was geared toward the novice user with little or no knowledge of or use for advanced features. The new Garageband 08 has several new features that make it a remarkably powerful music production application–-especially for the price–-and yet the only new feature that Steve demonstrated was the Magic Garageband thing, which I can't imagine any musician using more than once or twice, but which seems tailor made to allow people who can't play music to generate a soundtrack for videos they don't know how to edit.
I'm not saying that people who can't edit movies shouldn't be making videos, or that people who can't perform music shouldn't be able to create music for their projects, but I worry that, in the future, Apple will go all in that direction and none in the other.
I don't believe this makes me a whiner.
I hear you .... isn't it interesting to note that Steve said that people don't want to make dvd's anymore and proceeded to introduce apps that make it more difficult to create a movie, not have chapter markers and burn it from the same app. ...... hmm
I noticed that too and forgot to mention it here. He said something like, and for those that still want to burn dvds. I haven't tried it yet and maybe I will today if I have time but I would assume that Toast 8 will burn them just fine. I'm willing to bet the less expensive Popcorn will also.
Im not saying that people should have to buy those is Apple is still going to sell iLife as a suite of apps they should all work well together. Why I don't agree with all the complants in this thread I do have problems understanding this new release and why it was done this way.
Point #1 Do you REALLY want to compare the amount of patches that tiger has against windows ?
What version? How do you count? Apple's security updates generally update a lot of unrelated bugs in one update, Windows security updates generally update one bug at a time. The Windows update would show up as five updates when Apple's one update might fix as many as five different problems. It would be too easy to spin that as fewer updates when it's really not.
Point #2 As far as Leopard's release, well let's just say that Vista's 5 year record is safe for quite awhile.
Definitely, though Apple floundered quite a bit in their attempts to replace their OS, eventually having to buy someone else's OS and adding their own sauce.
Point #3 Maybe the reason that people aren't talking as much about Iphone is they're too busy buying it.
We really don't know that.
Meelash, your post would seem to indicate Pogue was "balanced" ( neutral ) on the value of Imovie 8. How you EVER arrived at that conclussion escapes me. Seems to me he is saying what a lot of us are saying. Imovie 8 sucks ...... big time ........
I think what Meelash meant was that the article was relatively unbiased, not that iMovie had balanced on its pros and cons. An unbiased article doesn't mean listing off the same number and relative significance of the pros and cons.
They DID. That's the whole point.
And just for the record, I think David Pogue's article is pretty much spot-on to the real situation, internal to Apple and out here on the fora.
The real test for Apple, I think, is how quickly this new iMovie develops into something that can match or beat HD in capability as well as ease of use. And, since I don't think HD is going anywhere in the meantime, as long as it does not stop working/ become obsolete (a la AppleWorks) before the new app is up to scratch, there is really absolutely nothing to complain about.
I don't know, it seem hard to believe in a way that they will add back the old features to 08. If they wanted to do that why not just do some form of applications overlay where the new features in iMovie 08 were added to the older version, you know just like they did in iPhoto with things like Events.
I could be wrong of course but it seems like they are trying to take it in a totally new direction, at least with this app. I guess we could see more features in the future but I having a feeling it will never be like the older version.
Apples history has kind of been pick a direction in run towards it even if its blindly.
From David Pogue's article in the NY Times. Apple has started iMovie all over again and views this as version 1. They will add functionality in free updates.
The article didn't say that they'll definitely add functionality with free updates, that was the speculation part of the article. I don't remember Apple adding many features after the fact with free software updates in iLife. Feature additions are almost always held over for the next paid version.
I think what Meelash meant was that the article was relatively unbiased, not that iMovie had balanced on its pros and cons. An unbiased article doesn't mean listing off the same number and relative significance of the pros and cons.
Point taken,..... perhaps what I should have said is that David Pogue, myself, and a whole lot of other people on these discussion boards SEEM to agree that Imovie 8 is a major disappointment.
From David Pogue's article in the NY Times. Apple has started iMovie all over again and views this as version 1. They will add functionality in free updates.
This post is a classic example of quoting "out of context" as it would seem to indicate that Pogue is in favor of Imovie 8 when, in fact, he , according to the FULL article, is not. Is there an agenda here that I don't get? .....just asking
What are you saying? That since you had to take a long time to learn to make movies, it's not fair that someone else should be able to just jump in and start in 15 minutes?
Man, take a few deep breaths already!
It didn't take me a "long time" to learn to make movies, it took some patience, trial and error to perfect the art of making iMovies. The initial learning curve with iMovie <6 is a little steep though anyone with half a brain can produce something decent within an hour or so.
Is it not too much to expect of any Mac newbie to sit down and take the time to learn something? Hell, as a Mac user one would expect that the discerning iMac/MacBook buyer would have a little intelligence... he/she chose a Mac over a windows machine after all.
iMovie '08 is not backwards compatible. It is in no way as useful or powerful as its predecessor. It has no timeline, no clip display, no manual audio adjust, no multiple music track select, no clip audio extract, few audio/video effects, it does not accept plug-ins, no chapter markers, no proper iDVD integration, no bookmarks or themes... the list goes on.
Sure you can make a quick "movie' to put up on YouTube but,,, err, I want to make a DVD! A really cool, pro looking movie on a disc godammit!
This is where iMovie excelled. One could produce a wedding/graduation/special occasion DVD that looked really professional for minimal cost as compared to Final Cut. Maybe iMovie was geting too powerful for its own good and taking all the thunder from FCP/E?
"We still have iMovie 6. Use that and quit whining" you may say. Well, not for long. Apple will surely dis-continue support for it until it becomes unuseable on newer machines.
My arguement is clear... iMovie '08 is not "iMovie" at all. It is a totally different kind of beast.
I rest my case.
The article didn't say that they'll definitely add functionality with free updates, that was the speculation part of the article. I don't remember Apple adding many features after the fact with free software updates in iLife. Feature additions are almost always held over for the next paid version.
Though not an iApp, a big update occurred with Aperture 1.5, which was leaps better than 1.0.