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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Software Utilities (Apple) Apple

Apple Justifies iLife Price Tag 182

Posted by pudge from the words-me-make-no-sense dept.
CameronWolf writes "Just in case there was any doubt about Apple computers decision to sell applications they used to give away, I got this response, via email, from Apple upon my enquiry: 'As the iLife applications have become increasingly integrated it has become more and more important for a user to have all of the "correct" versions on their Mac at once, working together, giving a unified user experience. This is one of the main reasons we've decided to offer iLife in suite form only. In addition, for iLife users who want the latest and greatest applications on their Macs, the iLife suite is priced very affordably.' Apple are running an upgrade scheme for those who bought a qualifying Mac after Jan 6th. Too bad I just had to have the iBook G4 the second it was released!" For those who used only the free iLife apps before -- those without SuperDrives -- this reason doesn't make any sense. If the goal were really to make sure you had the latest versions, they could simply make the latest iMovie require the latest iDVD.
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Apple Justifies iLife Price Tag More

Apple Justifies iLife Price Tag

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  • Does this make any sense? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sklivvz ( 167003 ) * <`marco.cecconi' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:19PM (#7974796) Homepage Journal
    I just don't understand what the poster is talking about.
    1) Apple now sells software which used to be free beforehand.
    2) Poster asks for explanation from Apple
    3) Answer explains why they sell the software in a suit as opposed to single apps, but now why they are now selling what used to be free
    4) Story gets on Slashdot

    So why is Apple charging for these products? Where's the news here?

    • Re:Does this make any sense? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Steveftoth ( 78419 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @02:28PM (#7975689) Homepage
      Apple always charged you for the applications, but you just didn't know you were paying for them.

      It's an upgrade fee, I don't understand how people can be so mad about this. Are people angry about paying to upgrade their Photoshop?

      "I bought Photoshop, that means they should give me the next version for free! Stupid Adobe!"

      According to Apple, iPhoto is much better, (faster, less buggy and has new features) and the GarageBand application is brand new!

      I know that I sound like an Apple apologist, but come on, you didn't actually think that when you bought an Apple computer that they will solve all your problems with software updates for no cost?
    • 1. Spend hundreds of thousands of $$$ developing product.
      2. Give the product away for free.
      3. ???
      4. Don't profit.

  • It was justified... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MoneyT ( 548795 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:20PM (#7974812) Journal
    The minute they released garageband.
    • I don't believe so. I myself am a musician and will definitely use garage band. What about he people who don't want to make music or use garage band? I think the reason people are a little upset is because this is .mac all over again. Its just a little tricky to offer something for free and not give a heads up or warning that users may need to pay in the future. I know that if I had used the free mac.com email address when it was free and had to start paying, I would be pretty disappointed. Its not the mone

  • Hmm. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:21PM (#7974824) Homepage
    OK, first of all, unconfirmed submission: can someone point out where on the web Apple actually said this? And second of all, it should be pointed out that iLife [apple.com] comes bundled with every new Mac at no extra charge. And third of all, what's the big deal?

    • Yeah, I'm waiting to see the download fail to appear on their web site this week or next. Becuase we've certainly never seen any FUD directed at discrediting Apple before, have we?

  • so people are complaining? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Grand ( 152636 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:21PM (#7974837)
    so people are complaining they are offering 5 apps in a bundle for 50.00, when apple COULD go and sell them individually for 30-50 dollars. Yes they were free, but 50 dollars is nothing to complain about.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • When was the last time you paid $50... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Microsift ( 223381 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:23PM (#7974861)
    ...for four applications (since iTunes is free) that do as much as these do. I think most people would be willing to pay $40-50 for just one of these apps(if they needed it).

    Also, if you have more than 1 computer that you want to install iLife on, you can buy a 5 user family license for $79.

    Anyway, the real story should be that iLife is a bargain.

  • The story links to the Australian Apple site. Here's the American one [apple.com]. The update costs $19.95 and that includes shipping.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:26PM (#7974900)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • But the iDVD site [apple.com] still says....

      *Burning DVDs requires an Apple SuperDrive.

      Do you know something we don't?

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:iDVD doesn't require a SuperDrive? (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Let's clear this up.

          A new feature in iDVD is the ability to compile a VIDEO_TS folder from an iDVD project. Previously, you had to go straight from iDVD to your SuperDrive. Now, you can go from iDVD to a VIDEO_TS folder, which you can then move to another computer for burning.

          iDVD does not require a SuperDrive to run and be useful. It requires a SuperDrive for burning.
          • Like Jobs said, its the perfect solution for school computer labs where an entire class may need to create a DVD, but for budget reasons only a couple of the computers have Superdrives.

      • I watched the keynote. Apparently, after requests by schools, it's now possible to author DVDs with machines not equipped with DVD burners. You can just save the "project" and transfer it to another computer with a DVD burner, to burn it there. Before the latest version, iDVD would not install on machines without DVD burners, though there was a hacked version available.
      • You do not need a "Apple SuperDrive"just a compatiable drive (Pioneer A03,A04, or A05) and you can install it yourself. [dvdcreation.com]
        That is what I did. ;-)
        --
        Daniel C. Slagle
        Keeper of the "Unofficial" iMovie FAQ [danslagle.com]

  • here's me trying really hard to care... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Maelikai ( 118093 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:26PM (#7974909)
    ...nope, can't do it.

    As a software person I just can't manage to work up any ire that Apple wants to be paid for some of the work they do.

  • Typical Apple Business Model (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:28PM (#7974938) Homepage Journal
    So, Apple charges the user for updates to its operating sytems and applications, but delivers capabilities that are attractive to the users.

    This is typical for Apple. Not to bash MS, but it's useful to contrast Apple's situation with Microsofts. Apple's customers are its users, MS's customers are the OEMs and large IT operations.

    Consequently , Apple updates have to pay for themselves, and give end users a sense of value received for their upgrade fee. MS updates simply have to keep the monopoly rolling so its core business continues to make money. MS would like home users and hobbyists to pay for upgrades and be happy with them, but in the grand scheme of things it is not all that important. Which is why you get update series like 95->98->98SE->ME.

    In any closed source application, you can't have every possible permutation you might wish for. The owner has to package things so maintenance and marketing costs are reasonable, and that it provides a good value for its most important customers. It would be nice that if you only needed one tiny slice of the update you could buy it a la carte, but you have to accept that Apple is going to package their software in a way that maximizes revenue and reduces costs.

  • No problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eyeball ( 17206 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:33PM (#7974994) Journal
    I don't see a problem spending $50 for iLife, or for that matter, $130 (or so) for every next major OSX release. We pay for the latest and greatest video card, CPU, TV, Car, portable MP3 player, etc.. Why shouldn't software be the same?

    • Re:No problem (Score:3, Funny)

      by useosx ( 693652 )
      Cause you can't download a video card off P2P. We're working on getting an alpha of this up in running by next quarter. The Car plugin should be available sometime in '05.
    • Like the Panther OS, iLife '04 is free with all new Macs starting Friday. In that regard, iLife is as much an incentive to buy a new SuperDrive-equipped G5 as it is to spend cash on formerly-free software.

      It's starting to work, too. My mom recently got a 1.8GHz G5 tower for $1,799 (discounted since it was replaced with the dual 1.8GHz), and my current G4 Mac is SuperDrive-less.
    • $130 for a new OSX every 12 months is a bit much, IMO. Even 18 months between releases would be a bit better, though I really wish they'd stop trying to out-feature the last release every time.

  • One wish (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fr0dicus ( 641320 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:33PM (#7975001) Journal
    That the new iDVD supported external non-Apple firewire DVD writers (I haven't checked whether it does or not, but the old version didn't). It would be well worth it then....

    • Re:One wish (Score:3, Informative)

      by bash_jeremy ( 703211 )
      It sort of does. From what I hear, the new version of iDVD lets you export the data to the VIDEO_TS folder (instead of requiring that you burn it from iDVD). You can then burn the VIDEO_TS folder using an external drive and Toast.
  • So they charge? Big deal. Remember when MS word was free? Then once it got popular MS started intergrating it with other apps they started selling it. Standard business practice really. Why shouldn't a company get some compensation for the thousands they put out on their products. Sure I would never buy iPhoto or iTunes, but iMovie, iDVD and now GarageBand are great full featured apps for the every day user. Almost all Mac owners can pony up an extra $50 if they wanted to. Also what are your alterna

  • Also remember... (Score:5, Informative)

    by 90XDoubleSide ( 522791 ) <ninetyxdoublesid ... minus herbivore> on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:42PM (#7975108)
    That Apple's consumer software has huge educational discounts. The student price on the iLife DVD is $29.

  • They should atleast offer it free to .Mac members (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shr1n1 ( 263515 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:46PM (#7975149) Journal
    This should be at least downloadable free for us .mac subscribers. It would make me want to continue my subscription.

  • Best deal in software (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Christ, you can barely get an oil-change for the price of iTunes+iMovie+iDVD+GarageBand etc etc etc.

    Quit your bitching and drop the $50, people.

  • If the goal were really to make sure you had the latest versions, they could simply make the latest iMovie require the latest iDVD.

    Let's be at least a little more realistic here. Clearly most of the iLife apps leverage iTunes with the little mini-iTunes browsers to choose songs for slideshows etc. You'll note that all the new transitions in iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD are the same, so those are probably shared between them. It's very possible that the entire slideshow code is partially shared between iPhoto

  • Lots of "punish me harder" comments (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @01:56PM (#7975274) Homepage Journal
    I'm reading a lot of "that's okay, the apps are great" Mac apology here, and as a Mac user, I gotta say that it's a bad attitude to take.

    Personally, I chose a Mac because I demanded more out of a computer. You pay more at the start, you pay more for system upgrades, but you get a machine that does exactly what you tell it (for the most part) and doesn't break for no reason.

    I found the "yearly OS upgrade" strategy for Mac OS X pretty suspect. And now that the "iApps" are being pruned from the OS, how could they possibly justify $130 per annum?

    Mac users, you don't have to take this. I recommend contacting Apple and telling them exactly how you feel about this. The OS price should drop to $50 if they're going to pull this, or there should be free upgrades to the iApps for at least a few years with the price of system software.

    Then again, let's not forget the "chilling effect" that iApps have had on competitors. Safari kills MS internet explorer, iPhoto kills Photoshop Elements, etc...maybe charging for them will open up another window of opportunity for companies other than Apple to produce great Mac software. It seems like it's been awhile...
    • I'll tell you how I feel about it. I feel like I get to pay about one two-hundred-and-fiftieth of my salary every year for some really nice software that Just Works (that's MacOS X + iLife). This is software that I use literally every day. Software that's a joy to use. Software that *works*.

      The latest iLife solves one of my big gripes about the previous version (not enough compression options), gives me a new app that I think will be very useful to me (GarageBand), and costs less than just about an

    • iPhoto kills Photoshop Elements

      That's definitely not the case. iPhoto, while it has been great for organizing my photos and doing really basic operations (rotate, crop, output to QuickTime movie, etc.), is no replacement for Photoshop Elements. For any significant retouching or color correction, iPhoto (in its current incarnation, I don't know about the '04 version yet) definitely cannot touch Elements.

      For those who aren't familiar with it, Elements is basically Photoshop 7 without CMYK and a handful of

    • I found the "yearly OS upgrade" strategy for Mac OS X pretty suspect. And now that the "iApps" are being pruned from the OS, how could they possibly justify $130 per annum?

      Oh, I dunno. Maybe their developers and engineers insisted on getting paid for their work or something.

      Acquiring and retaining the caliber of employee necessary to develop "a machine that does exactly what you tell it and doesn't break for no reason" is expensive. Cut too many corners and you start losing your talent, starting with t

      • When Steve Jobs was at NeXT, some magazine interviewer asked "What would you do if you were running Apple again?" Steve thought for a minute, and answered "I'd milk it for all it's worth."

        And that's what's happening today at Apple. There have been a disturbing number of bait-and-switches under Jobs. Mac OS X 10 vs 10.1, iTools vs .Mac, and now, iApps vs iLife Suite. Money, money, money, money, baby!

        Pulling the bait-and-switch is NOT essential to doing business, in fact, it's quite illegal. Apple has a
        • When Steve Jobs was at NeXT, some magazine interviewer asked "What would you do if you were running Apple again?" Steve thought for a minute, and answered "I'd milk it for all it's worth."

          ...actually, the complete quote was "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth--and get busy on the next great thing." The quote is from early 1996. Think back to early 1996 and the state of the Macintosh--the storm clouds were rapidly gathering, Windows 95 was taking off like a bottle roc

    • If you think that the price asked for OS and iLife upgrades is unreasonable, then don't upgrade. Of the 5 Macintoshes I use on a regular basis:
      1 runs Mac OS 10.1.5
      2 run Mac OS X 10.2.8
      2 run Mac OS X 10.3.2
      Admittedly, I'm probably a special case, but the general point I'm trying to make is that you're not required to pay for upgrades unless you need the new features.

      I also note that iLife '04 runs on Mac OS 10.2 as well as 10.3, so you don't have to buy the latest OS to run the new iLife.

      -Mark
    • Where did the iApps get pulled out of the OS? The only one that didn't come with the OS was iDVD.
    • I purchased Photoshop Elements 1.0 (yes, for the Mac) for $99.

      Six months later, Adobe releases Photoshop Elements 2.0, and wants $70 to upgrade.

      By your "logic," Adobe should have given me PE2 for free. Yet somehow I don't recall anyone making a fuss when this happened.

      Moral of the story: Just because Apple (or anyone else) gives you ThisProgram version x for free doesn't mean they're obligated to give you ThisProgram version x+1 for free.
    • Ok, so you want Apple to bundle the iApps in OS X, right? Do you also want Microsoft to bundle apps in Windows?

  • $50 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ExileOnHoth ( 53325 )
    If you think you can find something better out there for free, use that instead.

    If you don't, you can (a) buy apple's software, or you can (b) write some yourself and give it away!

    What's the gripe? They owe you nothing.

  • Get over it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @02:03PM (#7975375) Journal
    Too bad I just had to have the iBook G4 the second it was released!

    Dude, it's only $49. If you can afford to run out and buy an iBook G4 the second it's released then you can afford $49.

    It's not like the old software has stopped working - it will continue to work just fine. If you want the updated software then you buy it.

  • Some things people are forgetting: (Score:5, Informative)

    by thedbp ( 443047 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @02:35PM (#7975775)
    1. Apple never said that the iLife apps would be free for the duration of YOUR iLife.

    2. iMovie 2 was a $20 upgrade from iMovie 1, so the precedent to charge for iLife upgrades has already been set.

    3. iDVD has only ever been available as either a pre-installed app or as part or the iLife bundle, it has NEVER been a free download. The fact that the price point for the new iLife is the same but they've added a whole new (and fairly incredible) app called GarageBand goes to show that they are ADDING VALUE, NOT ADDING COST.

    4. If you buy a new Mac, its free. And chances are that on the next OS update, these apps will be included. I can't say that for certain, but when you buy Panther, all the then-current iApps are included.

    5. $50 for the functionality you're getting is a bargain. I doubt it covers the R&D they put into it, let alone the packaging, distribution, etc.

    6. They haven't removed the free ones from the distribution chain. You can still use the current versions for free ad infinitum. No one promised free updates for life.

    This reminds me of when they started charging for .Mac. People bitched and complained because it was no longer free, but the cost of the service (a little over $8/mo.) pales in comparison to its benefits and features. For instance, currently .Mac members get a free $80 photo editing program. .Mac only costs $99/year. And that isn't the only free software they've given away with .Mac. Plus you still get the email account, the 100MB online server space, the integration w/ iPhoto, Virex, Backup, etc.

    Whenever Apple decides to charge for something, trust me, its usually well worth the cost.
  • I think the $50 investment isn't just to pay for this app suite, but it also goes towards new innovation, research, etc. that will one day benefit you too! I can't believe people are so surprised they charge for software. This sofware is worth hundreds, but they practically give it away for $50. If you complain, go cry home and buy a Dell. Then you will really be hating life.

  • What about iPhoto? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by njfuzzy ( 734116 )
    A lot of the arguments here are talking about why it is justifiable for Apple to charge for the suite in general. However, I would like to take a step back, and look at one specific application.

    I do not find it acceptable that Apple is now charging for the latest version of iPhoto, even if they include it with new Macs. The reason is a very simple one that I think will make sense to anyone who has worked in software development...

    iPhoto 4 is a big fix release.

    I will say it again. The latest version if

    • I will say it again. The latest version if iPhoto, 4.0, is a bug fix release. The most appealing feature of his version is that it fixes a problem that has been present in iPhoto since version 1.0, the ridiculously slow speeds with large photo libraries.

      Just a minute ... so you're saying poor performance is a bug?

      Sweet! My Palm with a 33MHz processor is kinda sluggish, is that a bug? If I write you a simple flat file database, that works flawlessly, but slowly due to using bubble sorts, is that a bug?

      • Re:What about iPhoto? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by njfuzzy ( 734116 )
        Have you ever used iPhoto with, say, 1000 photos in the library? Or 25,000? The performance isn't just bad, it's alarmingly bad. A program for viewing files, that can't view files in any reasonable time-frame, is buggy. I accept that not all performance issues are on this level, of course, but there comes a point where a product needs to be improved to live up to its basic promise.
        • that can't view files in any reasonable time-frame, is buggy... a product needs to be improved to live up to its basic promise.

          who's the one to decide reasonable and basic promise? Just because Apple didn't put a hard cap on the number of photos you can import into iPhoto doesn't mean they have an obligation to improve performance for anyone who exceedes the program's performance limits.

          Apple gave us a free program that hasn't yet stopped working. It has some limitations, sure, but you get what you pay
      • Slow performance in general is not a bug, what is a bug is the way Apple implimented the data structures for iPhoto.
        If you've never looked at them, let me bring you up to speed.

        All of the photo information (image file location, thumnail file location (both full pahtnames), size, title, description, import date, modification date) is stored in a plain text XML file. To open iPhoto, the entire flat file must be parsed.
        Every time you make a change to a photo in almost any way, the entire flat file must be re-
        • +1 Informative, Very well written and informative - I've never had the time nor interest to delve into the inner workings of iPhoto.

          This is basic program design. No-one I know would ever write a program like this...

          But someone did. And they gave it away for free.

          Perhaps you can't call this a "bug", but it is a serious design flaw in the program

          You say po-ta-to (serious design flaw), I say po-tat-o (poor algorithm). I really think we agree, here - I never said it shouldn't be improved. I just disag

  • I attended MacWorld in San Francisco a week ago and was able to demo the new iLife applications first hand. When I returned home that evening, I immediately went to the Apple Store and purchased iLife. While the incremental upgrades certainly justify the cost, the reason for the immediate purchase was special.

    What is so special? GarageBand [apple.com]!

    I've been looking for a similar program on MacOS for about a year and have been frustrated to find that they typically cost hundreds of dollars. Now apple release

  • iDVD should support 3rd party drives now (Score:4, Interesting)

    by finelinebob ( 635638 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @04:23PM (#7977223) Homepage

    I remember all the shrieking back when Apple started charging for the yearly OS updates, then people began to realize just how much progress Apple was making with each of the updates and many of those folk (including me) started to accept that the cost may be worth it (and then some). I'm hoping the same holds true for the iLife apps -- if everyone is going to have to start contributing some $$$ for them, we should be assured of a fairly quick upgrade cycle with some significant improvements for each new donation.

    HOWEVER, since these are no longer free, I think it's reasonable for Apple to start supporting DVD writers other than built-in Superdrives. Quite frankly, I don't have a couple grand to drop on a new G5. I'd love to spend a few hundred, tho, on a DVD burner ... and I'd be more than happy to kick out an extra $50 for the latest iLife suite. Apple might want to think about talking to some third-party drive manufacturers about bundling drives and iLife for sale at the Apple Store. I imagine there are a good number of others out there like me who aren't in the market for a new desktop (so Apple isn't going to cut its throat by doing this) but would be willing to purchase a bundle like this (getting Apple some extra cash and making their 3rd-party developers happy).

    ... otherwise, I really don't see the need to pay for an upgrade where many of the major changes benefit people with DVD burners.

    • I completely agree. I've got no problem shelling out $50 or more for the new suite, as long as there is support for third party DVD burners. I've already purchased an external Lacie drive to do data backups on my Powerbook and the other computers around the lab. A Superdrive is not in the picture for me any time soon.
    • 1. Use iDVD 4 to create a new DVD project.
      2. Export project to a VIDEO_TS folder.
      3. Use Toast (or any other DVD-burning app) to burn the VIDEO_TS as a DVD.

      There. Now go buy iLife 04 already. ;-)
    • HOWEVER, since these are no longer free

      Just wanted to point out that upgrades for the app you're talking about, iDVD, have never been free.

      Not that I disagree with the sentiment that licensing terms should be worked out so iDVD would work with 3rd party drives.
  • We went round and round with this on the Apple Discussion boards [apple.com] last week. You should consider yourselves lucky since it almost cost us LAST time [thinksecret.com].

    17 million is not "chump change" if the estimation is correct. If it makes you feel better think of it this way: iLife 4 costs the same paltry $49 as the previous iLife that was released last Jan. Lets see...for one year that's

    $4.08 per month
    13.4 per day

    I am hoping most of the $17,000,000 goes to a few good iMovie developers, myself. Damned finicky program

  • One of the small-print notices I found on Apple's site is that both iDVD and GarageBand require a DVD-ROM to install them. Since I don't have one of those, I can only install iPhoto 4 and iMovie 4 on my Mac (I've already got iTunes 4 as a free download).

    This is mildly annoying, since I'd love to be able to work on iDVD projects and take them to another Mac to burn them, and my daughter would have a huge amount of fun fiddling with GarageBand. As it is, I'd be getting two out of four apps worth -- which may
    • Since I don't have one of those, I can only install iPhoto 4 and iMovie 4 on my Mac

      If you're really determined, you could make disk images on the other mac that has the DVD burner, and then transfer them back to your mac (same way you'd transfer projects over to burn, right). If you have enough disk space to work on iDVD projects, you should have enough to hold a large disk image long enough to install the programs.

      where there is a will, there is a way....
  • I bought a mac one month ago. There were a lot of reasons I bought a mac, but iPhoto was one of them. It turns out iPhoto really sucks for me because it's performance is terrible. With only 700 photos it takes like a minute to load on my G4 iBook. I consider this a serious bug, and I don't want to have to pay $50 just to fix broken software. Sure there are other features to the new iLife. But I'm so peeved at having to pay $50 for a bug fix for software I just bought a month ago that I can't look past
  • $29.99.

    Educational discount baby! And I'm not even a student anymore!

    I'd like to thank my college for forgetting to delete my school account. So far I have gotten $200 off of an iBook and $20 off of iLife. Now what else can I get before my school decides to do housekeeping?

  • Cheese and Wine (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) * on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @06:14PM (#7978760)
    I don't understand how people could have not expected this to happen. The previous version of iLife was $49 mostly due to iDVD's included media. The other iApps were available for download, including iMovie and iPhoto's very large updates. It seems just as likely now as it did then that the "free" iApps will be available for download at some point. If they aren't the old versions will not delete themselves from your hard drive. These new programs have been out for a couple days now and iPhoto imported pictures off my camera just fine. They've all yet to self destruct.

    I'm also having trouble seeing how the new iLife suite isn't worth the price. The educational discount cuts the price down to $29 which will set you back a couple Frappucinos for the month. If it isn't worth the upgrade stick with the old stuff. I ordered it because GarageBand seems like an awesome app to play around with. I liked what I saw of SoundTrack but really do not need all of its features nor do I want to spend that sort of money. Even the full retail price isn't too bad considering what's included. It didn't bother me too much paying $50 for a suite of programs I use all the time.
  • As a musician who's always wanted to toy with hard drive recording and software synthesis I have to say that $50 (or $30 if you can get the academic price!) for Garage Band alone would be a steal. The closest comparably priced music apps I know of are Tracktion (a Windows program with a beta OS X port) and Intuem Squared (which seems to have questionable stability). Each of these is $80. Neither includes amplifier modeling, an instrument library, or a loop library. Tracktion is damn cool, but there's ju

  • related story (Score:3)

    by jaoswald ( 63789 ) on Wednesday January 14, 2004 @09:40PM (#7980874) Homepage
    In a related story, Apple reported [apple.com] that

    "For the quarter [ended 27 Dec 2003], the Company posted a net profit of $63 million, or $.17 per diluted share. These results compare to a net loss of $8 million, or $.02 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter."

    Capitalism. Learn to love it. Hint: net profit = more shiny toys later. net loss = fewer shiny toys.
  • Too bad I just had to have the iBook G4 the second it was released!

    What's the problem? If you've got to have the latest and greatest, then be willing to pay for an occasional upgrade. In this case, the upgrade fee is a mere $49, and that seems like a pretty good deal for GarageBand alone.
  • This is not the first time that Apple has offered an app for free and then started charging for it. Hell; this isn't the first time Apple has offered [i]iMovie[/i] for free and then started charging for it.

    Very, very uncool. Within their legal rights, I suppose, but 'free' implies a promise that it will remain so.

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