Obviously you don't understand. Do you think Apple is going to continue to support and upgrade iMovie 06? If you do, you're dreaming. The free download is an attempt at passifying the angry users who ACTUALLY MAKE USE OF THE CAPABILITIES APPLE CUT FROM THE SOFTWARE.
All this being said, yes I can download and run '06, but how long do you think I can use it before it no longer runs on my hardware... or before camera technology surpasses what the software is capable of? You cannot deny that at some point in time, iMovie '06 will cease to run on new hardware. Nor can you guarantee that newer versions of iMovie will regain the fuctionality that was cut in '08.
Apple may be able to pull the wool over your eyes, and for that, I feel sorry for you. Have fun in your gumdrop and candy cane world. I, on the other hand, refuse to let Apple [take unconsented-to advantage of me via ye ol' corn-hole].
And how old are you? "Whiney fat asses?"
AI, can we "citizen's ban" idiots?
-Clive
How far into the future are you thinking, like OS11 or somthing. Even if apple did a complete overhaul of the entire system, they would most likly either provide a way for old OSX apps to work in the new version or, they would include a emulator like thing, like they did with OS9.
The only major problem would be if they changed hardware again so they used AMD or some new format of processor, in which case you could use some emulator/ dual boot thing to run OSX.
No they wont provide updates to it, but there shouldnt be to many bugs if you run it in a future system, i can still run old OS10.1 apps without modifying them, on my iBook that is.
These are very serious issues, especially the lack of compatibility with G4's.
Only Jobs has the balls to pull such stunts on his users, I wonder where he's going with this.
I seem to remember a widely used OS (giving people an eXPerience) that got updated just last year that meant that THOUSANDS couldn't upgrade as their machines couldn't cope with the load it requires on their hardware - with one manufacturer even pulling it as an option on most of their laptops/desktops !!!
It ain't just Steve that has to make decisions to not keep software "tied back" just to be compatible with hardware from years ago !!
I would have to agree they really screwed up this time, I smell a lawsuit coming Apple's way.
So the answer to any change someone doesn't like it to take legal action\ On what grounds? Bacause they replace a program and some don't like the new one even though the old one is still around. Some people just need to get a life.
Seconded. Seems like we get a lot of new members these days that think they can just start throwing shit around, right out of the gate. Kinda irritating.
I don't really have anything new to add, but I thought I'd throw a few thoughts in.
I've made a few short videos with previous versions of iMovie, and I think after playing with it a bit, I'm pretty sure that what I've done would have been impossible in iMovie 08. I still have iMovie HD, it's true, but I'm not too confident that, should any compatibility issues come up after OS 10.5 comes out, Apple will continue to update it to keep it working. Under-the-hood OS updates have broken legacy software before. What do we do if installing Leopard, or one of its updates breaks iMovie HD, and Apple takes it's time fixing it, or decides not to fix it at all? Also, as others have noted, it seems very unlikely that iMovie HD will be updated to accept any of the newer video formats.
The other issue that worries me is the possibility that iMovie 08 represents a more general movement with Apple's consumer-level apps. I use GarageBand a lot. The new version has a bunch of very nice new features, but the only one Steve focused on in his demo was the "Magic Garageband" thing, which I played with for about 3 minutes and which I will probably never use again. I worry now that Apple will decide that GB is an app for podcasters and people who want to shove a few loops around to provide a soundtrack for their iMovie video clips before they upload them to YouTube.
I remember when iMovie first came out, a lot of people thought that in putting out a really solid, easy to use video editor, Apple was "democratizing" video production. Apple is now officially out of that business. It's true that editing a movie is different to, and harder than, shoving a few clips together and posting them to YouTube. Apple has evidently decided that they needed to make a choice between people who wanted to sit and take the time to actually edit a video and people who want the shortest path from their camera to Web 2.0. With iMovie 08, they chose the latter.
It's funny that so many people seem to know exactly what "consumers" want, what Apple's customers want, what switchers want.
When Apple released iLife 08, there was no mention of letting people download iMovie 06. That came later (though fairly soon), probably because so many people complained. It seems like it wasn't in Apple's plans to continue the functionality of iMovie 06. I'm hoping they realize this was a mistake.
Look at some of the things iMovie 08 is missing from the previous version:
1. There is no way to edit exactly where you want: you cannot stop the movie exactly where you want, or move ahead or back one frame at a time. This should be a feature of any movie editing app, even a simple one.
2. You can change the length of fades, but not individually - only for the movie as a whole. Every fade out and fade in in a movie must be the same length.
3. I don't personally use effects other than fades, but 08 has dropped many many transitions and effects, and made third-party plug-ins useless.
4. Sound - you can't fade sound down at a specific point to get rid of an errant noise, or fade down the movie track and fade up the music, or fade out a song and fade in another one where you want. Only two sound sources can be used at a time - the one that was shot with the video, and one track (music, etc.) you can add. You can raise or lower the volume of the added track, but only all at once - the whole track is raised or lowered, not individual parts.
5. No chapter markers. Jobs said nobody wants to use DVDs anymore, everything will be done on the web - he's wrong about that. Do you want a DVD of your wedding video, or is it okay if it's just stored on the web?
6. iMovie 08 will not open movies made in iMovie 06. This fact alone should have led Apple to come up with a name other than iMovie.
I make instructional videos (DVDs). I've found iMovie 06 (and 05 before that) pretty easy to use, especially the video editing part (the sound editing is harder to learn). It has a couple of interface annoyances, but it does pretty much everything I want or need it to do. And I have fun using it - I like it.
1. There is no way to edit exactly where you want: you cannot stop the movie exactly where you want, or move ahead or back one frame at a time. This should be a feature of any movie editing app, even a simple one.
2. You can change the length of fades, but not individually - only for the movie as a whole. Every fade out and fade in in a movie must be the same length.
3. I don't personally use effects other than fades, but 08 has dropped many many transitions and effects, and made third-party plug-ins useless.
4. Sound - you can't fade sound down at a specific point to get rid of an errant noise, or fade down the movie track and fade up the music, or fade out a song and fade in another one where you want. Only two sound sources can be used at a time - the one that was shot with the video, and one track (music, etc.) you can add. You can raise or lower the volume of the added track, but only all at once - the whole track is raised or lowered, not individual parts.
5. No chapter markers. Jobs said nobody wants to use DVDs anymore, everything will be done on the web - he's wrong about that. Do you want a DVD of your wedding video, or is it okay if it's just stored on the web?
6. iMovie 08 will not open movies made in iMovie 06. This fact alone should have led Apple to come up with a name other than iMovie.
Yes, as you and others have stated there are clear and important omissions from iMovie '08. The Steve Jobs presentation, declaring it to be so different to the earlier version, could not have reasonably been judged to imply that significant omissions had been made. The emphasis was on ease-of-use developments but the remainder of the feature-set was trusted to be at least constant and probably enhanced a bit further. To not manage expectations regarding the feature-set changes was a mistake.
It seems Apple have effectively acknowledged that by releasing the free iMovie '06 edition for those that do not have it already. (I guess that was also to help those disappointed by the relatively high spec of system required for iMovie '08. An on-screen alert when purchasing via the AppleStore would have suitably managed expectations on that one and avoided the surprise when running the installer; most of us would have bought it anyway but we would have bought it with enhanced knowledge and clear expectations).
One person said above, iTools was free and then came .Mac and charging; well, this is fine to give a taster and then charge for added value. However, Apple charge for iMovie and we have been led to expect both a developing ease-of-use and a developing feature set. There has never been any loss of important functionality before in an iMovie upgrade and special measures were necessary to communicate any loss of functionality as part of any new product strategy. Slipping it to us was not going to work.
Still, as stated, Apple have responded, but iMovie '06 is not (plausibly) going to be separately developed as iMovie '08 is its development! So iMovie '06 is a great stop-gap measure by Apple to address the immediate problem --- oh to have other Companies so responsive! However, relying on iMovie '06, a package that is not going to be developed further, as an ongoing solution is just not on.
Like others, I therefore hope and trust that Apple will put the key 'missing' features in (in a nice easy-to-use way!) as soon as can practically be arranged. An announcement that this will be done before very long would also go a long way to defuse the feeling and reassure people that Apple is the top-notch, customer-caring, brilliantly inventive Company that I guess many of us on this forum see it as being!
I don't really have anything new to add, but I thought I'd throw a few thoughts in.
I've made a few short videos with previous versions of iMovie, and I think after playing with it a bit, I'm pretty sure that what I've done would have been impossible in iMovie 08. I still have iMovie HD, it's true, but I'm not too confident that, should any compatibility issues come up after OS 10.5 comes out, Apple will continue to update it to keep it working. Under-the-hood OS updates have broken legacy software before. What do we do if installing Leopard, or one of its updates breaks iMovie HD, and Apple takes it's time fixing it, or decides not to fix it at all? Also, as others have noted, it seems very unlikely that iMovie HD will be updated to accept any of the newer video formats.
The other issue that worries me is the possibility that iMovie 08 represents a more general movement with Apple's consumer-level apps. I use GarageBand a lot. The new version has a bunch of very nice new features, but the only one Steve focused on in his demo was the "Magic Garageband" thing, which I played with for about 3 minutes and which I will probably never use again. I worry now that Apple will decide that GB is an app for podcasters and people who want to shove a few loops around to provide a soundtrack for their iMovie video clips before they upload them to YouTube.
I remember when iMovie first came out, a lot of people thought that in putting out a really solid, easy to use video editor, Apple was "democratizing" video production. Apple is now officially out of that business. It's true that editing a movie is different to, and harder than, shoving a few clips together and posting them to YouTube. Apple has evidently decided that they needed to make a choice between people who wanted to sit and take the time to actually edit a video and people who want the shortest path from their camera to Web 2.0. With iMovie 08, they chose the latter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elroth
It's funny that so many people seem to know exactly what "consumers" want, what Apple's customers want, what switchers want.
When Apple released iLife 08, there was no mention of letting people download iMovie 06. That came later (though fairly soon), probably because so many people complained. It seems like it wasn't in Apple's plans to continue the functionality of iMovie 06. I'm hoping they realize this was a mistake.
Look at some of the things iMovie 08 is missing from the previous version:
1. There is no way to edit exactly where you want: you cannot stop the movie exactly where you want, or move ahead or back one frame at a time. This should be a feature of any movie editing app, even a simple one.
2. You can change the length of fades, but not individually - only for the movie as a whole. Every fade out and fade in in a movie must be the same length.
3. I don't personally use effects other than fades, but 08 has dropped many many transitions and effects, and made third-party plug-ins useless.
4. Sound - you can't fade sound down at a specific point to get rid of an errant noise, or fade down the movie track and fade up the music, or fade out a song and fade in another one where you want. Only two sound sources can be used at a time - the one that was shot with the video, and one track (music, etc.) you can add. You can raise or lower the volume of the added track, but only all at once - the whole track is raised or lowered, not individual parts.
5. No chapter markers. Jobs said nobody wants to use DVDs anymore, everything will be done on the web - he's wrong about that. Do you want a DVD of your wedding video, or is it okay if it's just stored on the web?
6. iMovie 08 will not open movies made in iMovie 06. This fact alone should have led Apple to come up with a name other than iMovie.
I make instructional videos (DVDs). I've found iMovie 06 (and 05 before that) pretty easy to use, especially the video editing part (the sound editing is harder to learn). It has a couple of interface annoyances, but it does pretty much everything I want or need it to do. And I have fun using it - I like it.
These two posts tell the whole story, IMO-- dylanw23's remarks about the hollowness of the "just use iMovie '06" chorus and elroth's specifics about what was left out.
I think these very eloquent posts speak for themselves, but I do have a few more observations about the impoverished feature set.
Looking at elroth's list, can anyone persuasively argue that including those abilities would make the current iMovie harder to use? Because that's part of the argument being put forth, right? That iMovie needed to be slimmed down because it had gotten "bloated" and was "too hard to use"?
So: really? Getting a frame counter is properly a pro function? Being able to vary the length of transitions is confusing?
Varying the sound level within a clip? So I need FCE? WTF? A line, for god's sake. Drag it up, drag it down. Makes little hills and valleys, just like you'd figure. Was that going to flummox the target demographic?
And as far as being a new app so "all" the features couldn't necessarily be included-- huh? Really, exposing some of the global settings on a clip to clip basis was going to be a big coding challenge?
I think some of the people who don't really care about taking a few moments to polish (even a home) movie and think it's all a bunch of whining better hope Apple doesn't take a similar ax to any of the apps you do care about.
And as far as "just wait, the features will come, they always do", there is no always, in this case. Apple has never sharply reduced the functionality of a key app, before, and it looks to me like the dumbing down was anything but an oversight, so why would I expect it to get better?
I really still don't buy the idea that iMovie 6 was too hard. If that's too hard, then how is the user going to be able to copy the video from the camera? I think that's trickiest part of the problem, Apple can't do anything about that.
It's too slow if you use things that need to be rendered, but I think it was Apple's choice to require rendering something like text. Most transitions were kind of hokey anyway. I always thought that iMovie was the easy, quick & dirty slap-together-my-video software. You didn't even have to use timelines in iMovie 6. I think I made a half hour video in an hour in iMovie 6, but that's not counting the DVD. The slowest part is iDVD 6's horribly slow encoding.
I seem to remember a widely used OS (giving people an eXPerience) that got updated just last year that meant that THOUSANDS couldn't upgrade as their machines couldn't cope with the load it requires on their hardware - with one manufacturer even pulling it as an option on most of their laptops/desktops !!!
It ain't just Steve that has to make decisions to not keep software "tied back" just to be compatible with hardware from years ago !!
Yeah and Apple made quite a few commercials bashing that right? As if they are better than that, like they won't leave their loyal users behind. Ask the G4 owners about that one. Remember PC going in for surgery? At least PC could be operated on.
Yeah and Apple made quite a few commercials bashing that right? As if they are better than that, like they won't leave their loyal users behind. Ask the G4 owners about that one. Remember PC going in for surgery? At least PC could be operated on.
Ok.. I really wasn't going to jump in on this, but all these comments are driving me insane!
It's not the end of the world, people!
Worst case scenario, you use the same version of iMovie you've been using for the last year, best case, you've got a new toy to play with! So much complaining over nothing!
"I feel ripped off and as a recent Apple from PC convert, I'm still not totally sold on Apple products. I'm hoping they'll take this software back and [i] can uninstall the entire iLife '08 software." -> That peeved me off the most btw.. Seriously dude, you sound like a spoiled kid who didn't get enough presents for Christmas..
I strongly believe that one of the following two things will happen:
1. iMovie '06 will be brought back, iMovie '08 will become a 'companion product', or an iMovie 'Lite' version. (This is highly unlikely IMO)
2. iMovie '08 will gain all the features of the old iMovie in coming updates, just like every other one of Apple's programs as they are developed. It will be optimized also, just as Motion was, just as FCP was, just as iPhoto was.
Now let's all go drink some green tea, chill out, and enjoy the 3 other programs that came with iLife '08, for $79.
I really still don't buy the idea that iMovie 6 was too hard. If that's too hard, then how is the user going to be able to copy the video from the camera? I think that's trickiest part of the problem, Apple can't do anything about that.
It's too slow if you use things that need to be rendered, but I think it was Apple's choice to require rendering something like text. Most transitions were kind of hokey anyway. I always thought that iMovie was the easy, quick & dirty slap-together-my-video software. You didn't even have to use timelines in iMovie 6. I think I made a half hour video in an hour in iMovie 6, but that's not counting the DVD. The slowest part is iDVD 6's horribly slow encoding.
Yeah, I don't get that either. You'd think iMovie '06 was some kind of horrible kludge. Sure, some of the transitions and video fx were hokey, but that's not exactly part of the learning curve.
And for my money, the new project window is much harder to parse, visually, then a time line. That clumsy broken line to indicate clips continuing on the next row? I mean, that's just heinous interface design. And those those fat sound markers with those awkward flags to indicate the starting point, that have to get skinnier and skinnier the more you add? Having the entire background of the window change color to indicate the first audio track, then switching to those lines for every track thereafter? Did anyone actually design this, or was it some kind of path of least resistance thing?
A timeline lets you keep tabs on even a very complex project at a glance, and it is no more difficult to use than that window-- it just doesn't force you to stack up a linear series of events like building blocks, completely screwing the metaphor and forcing information into awkward paste ons, or, worse, completely doing away with information.
It's like Apple's way of saying "You'd better keep 'em short and simple, kids, because if you try to do anything more the interface will burst into flame."
Hey, you know what'd be cool? If the next version of Pages does away with numerical font size selection and 2/3 of the fonts and you can only set attributes per page and they drop kerning and paragraph indentation is either on or off there are two line spacings and four colors and if you want graphics you have to dump it into another program. But there's some really neat realtime visual stuff and most people only blog now anyway which it is perfect for, it even has a "post to my blog" button.
And anyone who doesn't like it can either buy Office or keep their old copy, so there's no basis for whining. So called "writers" should have been using Office all along and not trying to scam their way onto Pages, which is for blogging and captioning lolcats posts, or it is now, anyway.
Ok.. I really wasn't going to jump in on this, but all these comments are driving me insane!
It's not the end of the world, people!
Worst case scenario, you use the same version of iMovie you've been using for the last year, best case, you've got a new toy to play with! So much complaining over nothing!
"I feel ripped off and as a recent Apple from PC convert, I'm still not totally sold on Apple products. I'm hoping they'll take this software back and [i] can uninstall the entire iLife '08 software." -> That peeved me off the most btw.. Seriously dude, you sound like a spoiled kid who didn't get enough presents for Christmas..
I strongly believe that one of the following two things will happen:
1. iMovie '06 will be brought back, iMovie '08 will become a 'companion product', or an iMovie 'Lite' version. (This is highly unlikely IMO)
2. iMovie '08 will gain all the features of the old iMovie in coming updates, just like every other one of Apple's programs as they are developed. It will be optimized also, just as Motion was, just as FCP was, just as iPhoto was.
Now let's all go drink some green tea, chill out, and enjoy the 3 other programs that came with iLife '08, for $79.
Seventy --- nine --- dollars.
Geez.
JW
Motion didn't replace another program that could already do more. FCP didn't replace another program that could already do more. iPhoto didn't replace a previous iPhoto that could already do more. And none them replaced anything with a completely different design philosophy that clearly favors speed and "no brainer" over precision and care.
Thinking that certain features will get added suggests that Apple left them out "by accident" rather than "by design".
The whole imac revision and ilife 08 was a bust , i just got my 24 inch imac in january and this update did not get me excited to upgrade , remember when apple use to make you spend every lads oller you had just to upgrade in 6 months , i slowly losing my fanboyism , I'm starting to feel like the share holders and the board members at Apple brain washing Stev and he's forgetting about the ''Amazingly great products'' part about apple
i honestly thought I would be seeing a levitating iMac , not actually see the same computer i've been seeing for the last 3 1/2 years with the ugly aluminum skin , but i've been wrong before i haded the imac when they came out with the G5s then it just grew on me , but where is the innovation in this , where's the Blu-ray super drive ? and why don't they put firewire 800 to good use like for the iphone and the ipod and speaking of that why did steve say that shipping for the first time with an imac you get firwire 400 + firwire 800
when my 7 month old imac has both, I'm really disappointed in my favorite company and the iphone battery is another-thing ,
I have the FCP studio, but there are times I use iMovie for its sheer simplicity. If I need the timeline I'll use FCP or FCE, but if I just have a few clips to throw together, iMovie's clip mode was all I needed. That said, I feel most users, those who probably don't post or read threads here at AI, were probably using the easy clip mode of iMovie 6 and never ventured beyond the simple video project. It looks to me, that iMovie 8 is the next generation easy clip mode and probably clip mode was iMovie 8's inspiration. I don't know, but if you asks me, I think Apple did just what most of it's customer base wanted and needed. Timelines are not very intuitive for most users.
Wow, straight off the Apple talking points? Which office do you work out of?
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox
You're missing the point. "A lot of people" want the same level of functionality as the previous iteration of the app.
All of a sudden, now that Apple has sharply dumbed down iMovie, I was "supposed" to be using FCE all along? Suddenly my expectations for iMovie are arrogantly out of line with what I can rightfully expect from "consumer" software, whereas a few weeks ago my expectations were......what?
Is that I was being overly pampered by Apple and now that the free ride is over I should be grateful that they were willing to extend the "extra" functionality for free? And now I should STFU because Apple, in its wisdom, has properly moved that functionality $300 up the line, where, apparently, it belonged all along?
AMEN!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by addicted44
Considering that iMovie '06 is still available as a free download for iLife '08 buyers, it is physically impossible for the new suite to do less. So your argument is completely BS. You have the exact same features as you did before, with the addition of a new method that lets you prepare videos really quickly.
These guys are onto nothing, except their own whiney fat asses. Agreed, if Apple had not made iMovie '06 available my reaction would have been different. But they did make it available.
So my choice is, use the software that has a cool front end (scrubbing and quick selects) or use the one that is functional?
I'm sorry i forgot who posted about wanting to level up to the next app, but you are 100% correct. I want FCE to start adding that 'production' look and feel, but never thought I would not have iMovie for those home movies that look great! We do in store vids for work and my boss was very impressed with my iMovie work, but now iMovie is like TextEdit to Pages. BTW, don't Mac people brag about being the intelligent ones? So then why does Apple have to dumb down the apps?
iMovie 8 is a Windows app, and if the 'Click Here to Connect' generation is coming to Macs, that will be a sad day!?
The whole imac revision and ilife 08 was a bust , i just got my 24 inch imac in january and this update did not get me excited to upgrade , remember when apple use to make you spend every lads oller you had just to upgrade in 6 months , i slowly losing my fanboyism , I'm starting to feel like the share holders and the board members at Apple brain washing Stev and he's forgetting about the ''Amazingly great products'' part about apple
i honestly thought I would be seeing a levitating iMac , not actually see the same computer i've been seeing for the last 3 1/2 years with the ugly aluminum skin , but i've been wrong before i haded the imac when they came out with the G5s then it just grew on me , but where is the innovation in this , where's the Blu-ray super drive ? and why don't they put firewire 800 to good use like for the iphone and the ipod and speaking of that why did steve say that shipping for the first time with an imac you get firwire 400 + firwire 800
when my 7 month old imac has both, I'm really disappointed in my favorite company and the iphone battery is another-thing ,
I strongly believe that one of the following two things will happen:
1. iMovie '06 will be brought back, iMovie '08 will become a 'companion product', or an iMovie 'Lite' version. (This is highly unlikely IMO)
2. iMovie '08 will gain all the features of the old iMovie in coming updates, just like every other one of Apple's programs as they are developed. It will be optimized also, just as Motion was, just as FCP was, just as iPhoto was.
JW
Thats bs... I've listened to these statements about apple doing this, adding that, 'it will be fixed or updated'... Fact is you know as much as I do about their plan, and thats squat.
Comments
Ohhhhh, noob, you didn't...
Obviously you don't understand. Do you think Apple is going to continue to support and upgrade iMovie 06? If you do, you're dreaming. The free download is an attempt at passifying the angry users who ACTUALLY MAKE USE OF THE CAPABILITIES APPLE CUT FROM THE SOFTWARE.
All this being said, yes I can download and run '06, but how long do you think I can use it before it no longer runs on my hardware... or before camera technology surpasses what the software is capable of? You cannot deny that at some point in time, iMovie '06 will cease to run on new hardware. Nor can you guarantee that newer versions of iMovie will regain the fuctionality that was cut in '08.
Apple may be able to pull the wool over your eyes, and for that, I feel sorry for you. Have fun in your gumdrop and candy cane world. I, on the other hand, refuse to let Apple [take unconsented-to advantage of me via ye ol' corn-hole].
And how old are you? "Whiney fat asses?"
AI, can we "citizen's ban" idiots?
-Clive
How far into the future are you thinking, like OS11 or somthing. Even if apple did a complete overhaul of the entire system, they would most likly either provide a way for old OSX apps to work in the new version or, they would include a emulator like thing, like they did with OS9.
The only major problem would be if they changed hardware again so they used AMD or some new format of processor, in which case you could use some emulator/ dual boot thing to run OSX.
No they wont provide updates to it, but there shouldnt be to many bugs if you run it in a future system, i can still run old OS10.1 apps without modifying them, on my iBook that is.
These are very serious issues, especially the lack of compatibility with G4's.
Only Jobs has the balls to pull such stunts on his users, I wonder where he's going with this.
I seem to remember a widely used OS (giving people an eXPerience) that got updated just last year that meant that THOUSANDS couldn't upgrade as their machines couldn't cope with the load it requires on their hardware - with one manufacturer even pulling it as an option on most of their laptops/desktops !!!
It ain't just Steve that has to make decisions to not keep software "tied back" just to be compatible with hardware from years ago !!
I would have to agree they really screwed up this time, I smell a lawsuit coming Apple's way.
So the answer to any change someone doesn't like it to take legal action
Ohhhhh, noob, you didn't...
And how old are you? "Whiney fat asses?"
AI, can we "citizen's ban" idiots?
-Clive
Seconded. Seems like we get a lot of new members these days that think they can just start throwing shit around, right out of the gate. Kinda irritating.
I've made a few short videos with previous versions of iMovie, and I think after playing with it a bit, I'm pretty sure that what I've done would have been impossible in iMovie 08. I still have iMovie HD, it's true, but I'm not too confident that, should any compatibility issues come up after OS 10.5 comes out, Apple will continue to update it to keep it working. Under-the-hood OS updates have broken legacy software before. What do we do if installing Leopard, or one of its updates breaks iMovie HD, and Apple takes it's time fixing it, or decides not to fix it at all? Also, as others have noted, it seems very unlikely that iMovie HD will be updated to accept any of the newer video formats.
The other issue that worries me is the possibility that iMovie 08 represents a more general movement with Apple's consumer-level apps. I use GarageBand a lot. The new version has a bunch of very nice new features, but the only one Steve focused on in his demo was the "Magic Garageband" thing, which I played with for about 3 minutes and which I will probably never use again. I worry now that Apple will decide that GB is an app for podcasters and people who want to shove a few loops around to provide a soundtrack for their iMovie video clips before they upload them to YouTube.
I remember when iMovie first came out, a lot of people thought that in putting out a really solid, easy to use video editor, Apple was "democratizing" video production. Apple is now officially out of that business. It's true that editing a movie is different to, and harder than, shoving a few clips together and posting them to YouTube. Apple has evidently decided that they needed to make a choice between people who wanted to sit and take the time to actually edit a video and people who want the shortest path from their camera to Web 2.0. With iMovie 08, they chose the latter.
Forget the iMovie controversy. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO iLIFE 07!?!?!
yea, i bet its in some pre alpha stage somewhere. They probably just ran out of resouces and said, screw it lets just skip a year.
When Apple released iLife 08, there was no mention of letting people download iMovie 06. That came later (though fairly soon), probably because so many people complained. It seems like it wasn't in Apple's plans to continue the functionality of iMovie 06. I'm hoping they realize this was a mistake.
Look at some of the things iMovie 08 is missing from the previous version:
1. There is no way to edit exactly where you want: you cannot stop the movie exactly where you want, or move ahead or back one frame at a time. This should be a feature of any movie editing app, even a simple one.
2. You can change the length of fades, but not individually - only for the movie as a whole. Every fade out and fade in in a movie must be the same length.
3. I don't personally use effects other than fades, but 08 has dropped many many transitions and effects, and made third-party plug-ins useless.
4. Sound - you can't fade sound down at a specific point to get rid of an errant noise, or fade down the movie track and fade up the music, or fade out a song and fade in another one where you want. Only two sound sources can be used at a time - the one that was shot with the video, and one track (music, etc.) you can add. You can raise or lower the volume of the added track, but only all at once - the whole track is raised or lowered, not individual parts.
5. No chapter markers. Jobs said nobody wants to use DVDs anymore, everything will be done on the web - he's wrong about that. Do you want a DVD of your wedding video, or is it okay if it's just stored on the web?
6. iMovie 08 will not open movies made in iMovie 06. This fact alone should have led Apple to come up with a name other than iMovie.
I make instructional videos (DVDs). I've found iMovie 06 (and 05 before that) pretty easy to use, especially the video editing part (the sound editing is harder to learn). It has a couple of interface annoyances, but it does pretty much everything I want or need it to do. And I have fun using it - I like it.
...missing from the previous version:
1. There is no way to edit exactly where you want: you cannot stop the movie exactly where you want, or move ahead or back one frame at a time. This should be a feature of any movie editing app, even a simple one.
2. You can change the length of fades, but not individually - only for the movie as a whole. Every fade out and fade in in a movie must be the same length.
3. I don't personally use effects other than fades, but 08 has dropped many many transitions and effects, and made third-party plug-ins useless.
4. Sound - you can't fade sound down at a specific point to get rid of an errant noise, or fade down the movie track and fade up the music, or fade out a song and fade in another one where you want. Only two sound sources can be used at a time - the one that was shot with the video, and one track (music, etc.) you can add. You can raise or lower the volume of the added track, but only all at once - the whole track is raised or lowered, not individual parts.
5. No chapter markers. Jobs said nobody wants to use DVDs anymore, everything will be done on the web - he's wrong about that. Do you want a DVD of your wedding video, or is it okay if it's just stored on the web?
6. iMovie 08 will not open movies made in iMovie 06. This fact alone should have led Apple to come up with a name other than iMovie.
Yes, as you and others have stated there are clear and important omissions from iMovie '08. The Steve Jobs presentation, declaring it to be so different to the earlier version, could not have reasonably been judged to imply that significant omissions had been made. The emphasis was on ease-of-use developments but the remainder of the feature-set was trusted to be at least constant and probably enhanced a bit further. To not manage expectations regarding the feature-set changes was a mistake.
It seems Apple have effectively acknowledged that by releasing the free iMovie '06 edition for those that do not have it already. (I guess that was also to help those disappointed by the relatively high spec of system required for iMovie '08. An on-screen alert when purchasing via the AppleStore would have suitably managed expectations on that one and avoided the surprise when running the installer; most of us would have bought it anyway but we would have bought it with enhanced knowledge and clear expectations).
One person said above, iTools was free and then came .Mac and charging; well, this is fine to give a taster and then charge for added value. However, Apple charge for iMovie and we have been led to expect both a developing ease-of-use and a developing feature set. There has never been any loss of important functionality before in an iMovie upgrade and special measures were necessary to communicate any loss of functionality as part of any new product strategy. Slipping it to us was not going to work.
Still, as stated, Apple have responded, but iMovie '06 is not (plausibly) going to be separately developed as iMovie '08 is its development! So iMovie '06 is a great stop-gap measure by Apple to address the immediate problem --- oh to have other Companies so responsive! However, relying on iMovie '06, a package that is not going to be developed further, as an ongoing solution is just not on.
Like others, I therefore hope and trust that Apple will put the key 'missing' features in (in a nice easy-to-use way!) as soon as can practically be arranged. An announcement that this will be done before very long would also go a long way to defuse the feeling and reassure people that Apple is the top-notch, customer-caring, brilliantly inventive Company that I guess many of us on this forum see it as being!
I don't really have anything new to add, but I thought I'd throw a few thoughts in.
I've made a few short videos with previous versions of iMovie, and I think after playing with it a bit, I'm pretty sure that what I've done would have been impossible in iMovie 08. I still have iMovie HD, it's true, but I'm not too confident that, should any compatibility issues come up after OS 10.5 comes out, Apple will continue to update it to keep it working. Under-the-hood OS updates have broken legacy software before. What do we do if installing Leopard, or one of its updates breaks iMovie HD, and Apple takes it's time fixing it, or decides not to fix it at all? Also, as others have noted, it seems very unlikely that iMovie HD will be updated to accept any of the newer video formats.
The other issue that worries me is the possibility that iMovie 08 represents a more general movement with Apple's consumer-level apps. I use GarageBand a lot. The new version has a bunch of very nice new features, but the only one Steve focused on in his demo was the "Magic Garageband" thing, which I played with for about 3 minutes and which I will probably never use again. I worry now that Apple will decide that GB is an app for podcasters and people who want to shove a few loops around to provide a soundtrack for their iMovie video clips before they upload them to YouTube.
I remember when iMovie first came out, a lot of people thought that in putting out a really solid, easy to use video editor, Apple was "democratizing" video production. Apple is now officially out of that business. It's true that editing a movie is different to, and harder than, shoving a few clips together and posting them to YouTube. Apple has evidently decided that they needed to make a choice between people who wanted to sit and take the time to actually edit a video and people who want the shortest path from their camera to Web 2.0. With iMovie 08, they chose the latter.
It's funny that so many people seem to know exactly what "consumers" want, what Apple's customers want, what switchers want.
When Apple released iLife 08, there was no mention of letting people download iMovie 06. That came later (though fairly soon), probably because so many people complained. It seems like it wasn't in Apple's plans to continue the functionality of iMovie 06. I'm hoping they realize this was a mistake.
Look at some of the things iMovie 08 is missing from the previous version:
1. There is no way to edit exactly where you want: you cannot stop the movie exactly where you want, or move ahead or back one frame at a time. This should be a feature of any movie editing app, even a simple one.
2. You can change the length of fades, but not individually - only for the movie as a whole. Every fade out and fade in in a movie must be the same length.
3. I don't personally use effects other than fades, but 08 has dropped many many transitions and effects, and made third-party plug-ins useless.
4. Sound - you can't fade sound down at a specific point to get rid of an errant noise, or fade down the movie track and fade up the music, or fade out a song and fade in another one where you want. Only two sound sources can be used at a time - the one that was shot with the video, and one track (music, etc.) you can add. You can raise or lower the volume of the added track, but only all at once - the whole track is raised or lowered, not individual parts.
5. No chapter markers. Jobs said nobody wants to use DVDs anymore, everything will be done on the web - he's wrong about that. Do you want a DVD of your wedding video, or is it okay if it's just stored on the web?
6. iMovie 08 will not open movies made in iMovie 06. This fact alone should have led Apple to come up with a name other than iMovie.
I make instructional videos (DVDs). I've found iMovie 06 (and 05 before that) pretty easy to use, especially the video editing part (the sound editing is harder to learn). It has a couple of interface annoyances, but it does pretty much everything I want or need it to do. And I have fun using it - I like it.
These two posts tell the whole story, IMO-- dylanw23's remarks about the hollowness of the "just use iMovie '06" chorus and elroth's specifics about what was left out.
I think these very eloquent posts speak for themselves, but I do have a few more observations about the impoverished feature set.
Looking at elroth's list, can anyone persuasively argue that including those abilities would make the current iMovie harder to use? Because that's part of the argument being put forth, right? That iMovie needed to be slimmed down because it had gotten "bloated" and was "too hard to use"?
So: really? Getting a frame counter is properly a pro function? Being able to vary the length of transitions is confusing?
Varying the sound level within a clip? So I need FCE? WTF? A line, for god's sake. Drag it up, drag it down. Makes little hills and valleys, just like you'd figure. Was that going to flummox the target demographic?
And as far as being a new app so "all" the features couldn't necessarily be included-- huh? Really, exposing some of the global settings on a clip to clip basis was going to be a big coding challenge?
I think some of the people who don't really care about taking a few moments to polish (even a home) movie and think it's all a bunch of whining better hope Apple doesn't take a similar ax to any of the apps you do care about.
And as far as "just wait, the features will come, they always do", there is no always, in this case. Apple has never sharply reduced the functionality of a key app, before, and it looks to me like the dumbing down was anything but an oversight, so why would I expect it to get better?
It's too slow if you use things that need to be rendered, but I think it was Apple's choice to require rendering something like text. Most transitions were kind of hokey anyway. I always thought that iMovie was the easy, quick & dirty slap-together-my-video software. You didn't even have to use timelines in iMovie 6. I think I made a half hour video in an hour in iMovie 6, but that's not counting the DVD. The slowest part is iDVD 6's horribly slow encoding.
I seem to remember a widely used OS (giving people an eXPerience) that got updated just last year that meant that THOUSANDS couldn't upgrade as their machines couldn't cope with the load it requires on their hardware - with one manufacturer even pulling it as an option on most of their laptops/desktops !!!
It ain't just Steve that has to make decisions to not keep software "tied back" just to be compatible with hardware from years ago !!
Yeah and Apple made quite a few commercials bashing that right? As if they are better than that, like they won't leave their loyal users behind. Ask the G4 owners about that one. Remember PC going in for surgery? At least PC could be operated on.
Yeah and Apple made quite a few commercials bashing that right? As if they are better than that, like they won't leave their loyal users behind. Ask the G4 owners about that one. Remember PC going in for surgery? At least PC could be operated on.
Ok.. I really wasn't going to jump in on this, but all these comments are driving me insane!
It's not the end of the world, people!
Worst case scenario, you use the same version of iMovie you've been using for the last year, best case, you've got a new toy to play with! So much complaining over nothing!
"I feel ripped off and as a recent Apple from PC convert, I'm still not totally sold on Apple products. I'm hoping they'll take this software back and [i] can uninstall the entire iLife '08 software." -> That peeved me off the most btw.. Seriously dude, you sound like a spoiled kid who didn't get enough presents for Christmas..
I strongly believe that one of the following two things will happen:
1. iMovie '06 will be brought back, iMovie '08 will become a 'companion product', or an iMovie 'Lite' version. (This is highly unlikely IMO)
2. iMovie '08 will gain all the features of the old iMovie in coming updates, just like every other one of Apple's programs as they are developed. It will be optimized also, just as Motion was, just as FCP was, just as iPhoto was.
Now let's all go drink some green tea, chill out, and enjoy the 3 other programs that came with iLife '08, for $79.
Seventy --- nine --- dollars.
Geez.
JW
I really still don't buy the idea that iMovie 6 was too hard. If that's too hard, then how is the user going to be able to copy the video from the camera? I think that's trickiest part of the problem, Apple can't do anything about that.
It's too slow if you use things that need to be rendered, but I think it was Apple's choice to require rendering something like text. Most transitions were kind of hokey anyway. I always thought that iMovie was the easy, quick & dirty slap-together-my-video software. You didn't even have to use timelines in iMovie 6. I think I made a half hour video in an hour in iMovie 6, but that's not counting the DVD. The slowest part is iDVD 6's horribly slow encoding.
Yeah, I don't get that either. You'd think iMovie '06 was some kind of horrible kludge. Sure, some of the transitions and video fx were hokey, but that's not exactly part of the learning curve.
And for my money, the new project window is much harder to parse, visually, then a time line. That clumsy broken line to indicate clips continuing on the next row? I mean, that's just heinous interface design. And those those fat sound markers with those awkward flags to indicate the starting point, that have to get skinnier and skinnier the more you add? Having the entire background of the window change color to indicate the first audio track, then switching to those lines for every track thereafter? Did anyone actually design this, or was it some kind of path of least resistance thing?
A timeline lets you keep tabs on even a very complex project at a glance, and it is no more difficult to use than that window-- it just doesn't force you to stack up a linear series of events like building blocks, completely screwing the metaphor and forcing information into awkward paste ons, or, worse, completely doing away with information.
It's like Apple's way of saying "You'd better keep 'em short and simple, kids, because if you try to do anything more the interface will burst into flame."
Hey, you know what'd be cool? If the next version of Pages does away with numerical font size selection and 2/3 of the fonts and you can only set attributes per page and they drop kerning and paragraph indentation is either on or off there are two line spacings and four colors and if you want graphics you have to dump it into another program. But there's some really neat realtime visual stuff and most people only blog now anyway which it is perfect for, it even has a "post to my blog" button.
And anyone who doesn't like it can either buy Office or keep their old copy, so there's no basis for whining. So called "writers" should have been using Office all along and not trying to scam their way onto Pages, which is for blogging and captioning lolcats posts, or it is now, anyway.
Ok.. I really wasn't going to jump in on this, but all these comments are driving me insane!
It's not the end of the world, people!
Worst case scenario, you use the same version of iMovie you've been using for the last year, best case, you've got a new toy to play with! So much complaining over nothing!
"I feel ripped off and as a recent Apple from PC convert, I'm still not totally sold on Apple products. I'm hoping they'll take this software back and [i] can uninstall the entire iLife '08 software." -> That peeved me off the most btw.. Seriously dude, you sound like a spoiled kid who didn't get enough presents for Christmas..
I strongly believe that one of the following two things will happen:
1. iMovie '06 will be brought back, iMovie '08 will become a 'companion product', or an iMovie 'Lite' version. (This is highly unlikely IMO)
2. iMovie '08 will gain all the features of the old iMovie in coming updates, just like every other one of Apple's programs as they are developed. It will be optimized also, just as Motion was, just as FCP was, just as iPhoto was.
Now let's all go drink some green tea, chill out, and enjoy the 3 other programs that came with iLife '08, for $79.
Seventy --- nine --- dollars.
Geez.
JW
Motion didn't replace another program that could already do more. FCP didn't replace another program that could already do more. iPhoto didn't replace a previous iPhoto that could already do more. And none them replaced anything with a completely different design philosophy that clearly favors speed and "no brainer" over precision and care.
Thinking that certain features will get added suggests that Apple left them out "by accident" rather than "by design".
i honestly thought I would be seeing a levitating iMac , not actually see the same computer i've been seeing for the last 3 1/2 years with the ugly aluminum skin , but i've been wrong before i haded the imac when they came out with the G5s then it just grew on me , but where is the innovation in this , where's the Blu-ray super drive ? and why don't they put firewire 800 to good use like for the iphone and the ipod and speaking of that why did steve say that shipping for the first time with an imac you get firwire 400 + firwire 800
when my 7 month old imac has both, I'm really disappointed in my favorite company and the iphone battery is another-thing ,
I have the FCP studio, but there are times I use iMovie for its sheer simplicity. If I need the timeline I'll use FCP or FCE, but if I just have a few clips to throw together, iMovie's clip mode was all I needed. That said, I feel most users, those who probably don't post or read threads here at AI, were probably using the easy clip mode of iMovie 6 and never ventured beyond the simple video project. It looks to me, that iMovie 8 is the next generation easy clip mode and probably clip mode was iMovie 8's inspiration. I don't know, but if you asks me, I think Apple did just what most of it's customer base wanted and needed. Timelines are not very intuitive for most users.
Wow, straight off the Apple talking points? Which office do you work out of?
You're missing the point. "A lot of people" want the same level of functionality as the previous iteration of the app.
All of a sudden, now that Apple has sharply dumbed down iMovie, I was "supposed" to be using FCE all along? Suddenly my expectations for iMovie are arrogantly out of line with what I can rightfully expect from "consumer" software, whereas a few weeks ago my expectations were......what?
Is that I was being overly pampered by Apple and now that the free ride is over I should be grateful that they were willing to extend the "extra" functionality for free? And now I should STFU because Apple, in its wisdom, has properly moved that functionality $300 up the line, where, apparently, it belonged all along?
AMEN!!
Considering that iMovie '06 is still available as a free download for iLife '08 buyers, it is physically impossible for the new suite to do less. So your argument is completely BS. You have the exact same features as you did before, with the addition of a new method that lets you prepare videos really quickly.
These guys are onto nothing, except their own whiney fat asses. Agreed, if Apple had not made iMovie '06 available my reaction would have been different. But they did make it available.
So my choice is, use the software that has a cool front end (scrubbing and quick selects) or use the one that is functional?
I'm sorry i forgot who posted about wanting to level up to the next app, but you are 100% correct. I want FCE to start adding that 'production' look and feel, but never thought I would not have iMovie for those home movies that look great! We do in store vids for work and my boss was very impressed with my iMovie work, but now iMovie is like TextEdit to Pages. BTW, don't Mac people brag about being the intelligent ones? So then why does Apple have to dumb down the apps?
iMovie 8 is a Windows app, and if the 'Click Here to Connect' generation is coming to Macs, that will be a sad day!?
The whole imac revision and ilife 08 was a bust , i just got my 24 inch imac in january and this update did not get me excited to upgrade , remember when apple use to make you spend every lads oller you had just to upgrade in 6 months , i slowly losing my fanboyism , I'm starting to feel like the share holders and the board members at Apple brain washing Stev and he's forgetting about the ''Amazingly great products'' part about apple
i honestly thought I would be seeing a levitating iMac , not actually see the same computer i've been seeing for the last 3 1/2 years with the ugly aluminum skin , but i've been wrong before i haded the imac when they came out with the G5s then it just grew on me , but where is the innovation in this , where's the Blu-ray super drive ? and why don't they put firewire 800 to good use like for the iphone and the ipod and speaking of that why did steve say that shipping for the first time with an imac you get firwire 400 + firwire 800
when my 7 month old imac has both, I'm really disappointed in my favorite company and the iphone battery is another-thing ,
if your not satisfied, lower your standards
I strongly believe that one of the following two things will happen:
1. iMovie '06 will be brought back, iMovie '08 will become a 'companion product', or an iMovie 'Lite' version. (This is highly unlikely IMO)
2. iMovie '08 will gain all the features of the old iMovie in coming updates, just like every other one of Apple's programs as they are developed. It will be optimized also, just as Motion was, just as FCP was, just as iPhoto was.
JW
Thats bs... I've listened to these statements about apple doing this, adding that, 'it will be fixed or updated'... Fact is you know as much as I do about their plan, and thats squat.