This post is about my unboxing of iLife 11 and installing it. iLife 11 packs many great new features in iPhoto, iMovie, and Garage Band. Installing this product took about 40 minutes and it was a breeze. The main reason I purchased the upgrade was for iMovie. I do a lot of editing work with iMovie and the new audio editing enhancements, along with the trailers had me sold. iPhoto looked like it was taking a step forward as well. You can now create books easier, as well as make letter pressed cards. The interface looks a lot like the iPad's "Photos" application. The Facebook enhancements were a welcome feature as well. Garageband's updates were pretty great if you're a GarageBand user. I personally don't use it too much but if you do, you will be thrilled. You can use Flex Time to match rhythms, so you're music reaches full potential. Groove matching is also a very useful feature. If you're band is not doing too well, groove matching is you're savior. You can go click on the best instruments and select the groove matching option, and every other instrument will get in sync with that particular instrument. iLife 11 is a $49 upgrade. I say it's well worth you're hard earned cash.
Here's my video recap of the "Back to the Mac" event. It was held on October 20, 2010 at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. This was an event that was focused around the Mac platform. It's been way too long since we've seen an event focused on the mac. Lately Apple has been paying most of their attention to their mobile devices such as the iPods, iPhones, and iPad. So let's get started with iLife '11.
iLife '11: iLife '11 was my favorite announcement at this particular event. Apple started talking about iPhoto which is a vast improvement over iPhoto '09 in my opinion. The interface is a lot cleaner and easier to use. iPhoto '11 brings Facebook enhancements, an easier way to e-mail photos, full screen mode, and more. You can also create new letter pressed cards with iPhoto '11 which is perfect timing for the holiday season. There's also many more options for you to create books in iPhoto. Now to iMovie '11. The interface hasn't changed but we will now see movie trailers just as professional as anything you'd see straight out of Hollywood. This an amazing feature for a simple editing system like iMovie. There's also improved audio editing and audio effects. Garageband also has two great new features for better music creation. Groove matching helps you're composition get all the instruments into sync. Flex time lets you get the timing of all the instruments matched so every instrument sounds great together. You can pick up iLife '11 today for $49.
Mac OS X Lion preview: There are a lot of great things coming in the future of Mac OS X. Apple has named their newest one; Lion. The first feature which I think has a lot of potential is the Mac App store. Developers could make really mind-blowing applications for the Mac. I can't wait to see what will happen. But the Mac App store is open within 90 days for Snow Leopard users. Another really neat feature is the Launch pad. With a simple multi touch gesture you will get a view of all of you're applications right on the screen. Think about an iPad when I say this. The last feature Apple gave us a sneak preview of was Mission control. This feature is like Expose on steroids. It lets you show all of you're windows at once if you're desktop is clustered which is great. You can also swipe between screens with a simple multi touch gesture. So you could switch between dashboard, you're desktop, and another application.
New MacBook Airs: The new MacBook Airs come in at 11.6 and 13.3 inch models. Apple is claiming this will be their next generation of notebooks. It's 0.68 inches at it's thickest part and 0.11 inches at the thinnest. It's very light at 2.3 (11.6 inch( and 2.9 pounds (13.3 inch). It features core 2 duo processors and it has flash memory. So, there's no optical drive or hard drive. This could be a risky move on Apple's part. You can pick one up starting at $999. For full specifications and pricing you can head over to Apple.com.
Video calling has been taken to the next level. Chatroulette released in November last year was a great serviceuntil a whole bunch of immature people lucky enough to own a webcam joined in and made the whole approach to 'video nudity'.
However, ever since Apple released FaceTime for the iPhone and now the Mac, us geeks and technology inspired people of the web can join in and talk to one another without being paired with a 'video nudist'. You may be scratching your brains out by now wondering how this can be done but from Zach Holman comes Facelette.
Facelette is a website in which you submit your cell/mobile phone number (iPhone) or email address (Mac) to the service and moments after you are paired with someone on the other side. I've not tried this (yet) but I predict it will take off soon, only if we can hope Apple get all into 'law fever' or close the whole site down.
Take note that you may want to create a new email for Facelette if you are thinking about using the service, but you still need to verify it with Apple's servers (which I still can't complete right now *frown*)
If you happen to join Facelette or use FaceTime on the Mac or iPhone, drop a comment on this post and tell us how you find it.
Today I'm presenting you with episode 8 of Tek Nation. We're also in a MacBook Air, because it may get updated come October 20th. In this episode we talked about the BlackBerry Playbook, Windows Phone 7, and the "Back to the Mac" event.
The BlackBerry Playbook has potential to be a very legitimate contender to the iPad. I think the specs for the device are pretty impressive. It packs a 7-inch capacitive display, a 1 GHz Dual-Core Processor, and runs on BlackBerry Tablet OS. For more information please refer to the video.
The "Back to the Mac" event came as a bit of surprise to me. Usually Apple doesn't schedule events right after their annual music event until January. I hope to see an update to iLife. I'd really like an iWeb update and/or an iMovie update. I use iMovie to edit my videos, so I'd like more features to play around with. Rumor has it that we may also see an update to Mac OS X. I've heard it will be called Lion. I don't know what to expect with the new operating system will improve or do different than previous versions, but it will be very interesting to see. Many technology websites such as Engadget, Gizmodo and Technobuffalo are also reporting that we may see an update to the MacBook Air as well as the MacBook.
Windows Phone 7 was unveiled by Microsoft last week. It's a very interesting platform. The interface looks pretty great. It looks almost identical to the Zune HD. You can also access Xbox LIVE content right from your phone. I use Xbox LIVE like many others, so this feature could potentially go a long way. For more information, please refer to the video.
Ever run out of battery while using your iPod touch or iPhone; making a phone call, only to realize your battery is dying and you have to cut the conversation short? Well, IPEVO has heard your call and they now offer a very portable solution to this. The Icon is the universal symbol for charging your Apple products. They took a very unique idea and made it happen. This portable external battery works on any iPod touch or iPhone, including the newest versions. I have been using it for a bit now and I am very pleased with how it works. To check it out or to get one for yourself visit IPEVO.com, or go to the link below.
Alex Baumann 