Groove Matching aligns all members of a group's tempo with that of the most rhythmic member. Garageband's Flex Time feature lets you correct or improve performances by stretching or compressing waveforms to better fit your tune. There are also 18 new basic lessons, and now you can track lesson progress with a history chart showing your performances' accuracy over time. The mixing software can be augmented with downloads of more samples, loops, and tools, and you can buy lessons taught by pop stars who show you exactly how to play their hits. For your 15 bucks, not only do you get respectable and intuitive recording and mixing software, but you also get a full set of piano and guitar lessons that rival a living teacher and a Magic Garageband that lets you try your chops with a virtual band. It's not a complete professional music studio like Ableton Live, Pro Tools, or Reason, but unlike those high-end apps, Garageband doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. You can also send your production to iTunes to watch on your iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. Once you've got the movie just right, the app lets you easily share it on Vimeo, YouTube, MobileMe, Facebook, or CNN iReport. Just drag your own clips into a template, and their joined into a cinematic tour de force, timed to an emotional soundtrack performed by no less than the London Symphony Orchestra.Īnd iMovie is no slouch at standard video editing techniques, such as picture-in-picture, voiceovers, green-screen chroma keying, transitions, and even image stabilization. But probably the most impressive-and fun-new feature is its Hollywood-style trailer creation. The '11 version adds more powerful audio editing, one-step effects like slo-mo replay, and even the ability to detect scenes with people in them. IMovie broke new ground with its unique, combined timeline-storyboard editing view, and continues to be a marvel of ease and power among consumer video editing apps. You also get new slideshow themes, the most impressive of which is the Places theme that utilizes the software's rich map integration. Also new are more professional-quality greeting card and book choices. In addition to the Facebook sharing mentioned, iPhoto '11 adds attractive formatting for e-mails that you can send directly from within the program. It's already had excellent retouching and red-eye reduction tools, but for real power in both photo correction and organizing, look to Apple's Aperture 3 ($79.99, 4.5 stars, Mac only) or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 ($299, 4 stars, Mac and Windows). As mentioned, you can also sync photo galleries with MobileMe galleries, and, while those are beautifully presented, they don't offer face- or geo-tagging.įor basic photo organizing and editing, iPhoto is more than capable, and the '11 version's face tagging feature has been greatly improved. Its integration with Facebook galleries, too, is unmatched-you can view your online Facebook galleries within the app, and even see Friends' comments alongside the pictures. Probably the most-used member of the suite, iPhoto '11 has been improved in this version with a full-screen view that I wish the other suite members were capable of. But even if you don't qualify, the updated apps are a bargain, either as a group or individually. If you've recently bought a Mac, the suite is preinstalled as part of your purchase, and if you bought the computer on or after October 20, 2010, you can get it all for a mere $6.99. MobileMe, however, offers beautiful photo galleries you can sync with iPhoto, as well as hosting for your iWeb sites. Windows' equivalent Live services, such as the SkyDrive online storage and photo galleries, by contrast, are free for up to a generous 25GB of storage. But it won't get you the suite's online component, MobileMe, which will set you back another $99 per year. Though the equivalent suite from Microsoft-Windows Live Essentials-is always free and runs on Windows PCs, it falls a bit short of iLife's power and polish.Īside from the three biggies, the full suite price of $49 also gets you the iWeb site design software and iDVD for authoring disc content. The suite comes free on new Macs, of course, and it's Mac-only. Since the advent of the Mac App Store, those three apps are now available as standalone programs for the first time, at the incredible value price of $14.99. ILife '11, the latest version of Apple's consumer media suite, includes several apps, but only the three tentpoles-Garageband, iMovie, and iPhoto-were updated for the 2011. Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Software.
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